Reverse Chilli Bead

I have now beaded a new version of my Chilli Beaded Bead- but this time swapped around the orange and purple beads and used purple crystals instead of orange.

I was interested to see how different they looked and although it's a simple colour swap it really does make a different.

The bead with more orange looks a lot larger- this is because the lighter colour 'expands' it visually. That's why people tell you to wear black if you want to look slimmer!

A similar effect is apparent in my piece Geometric 3-4-4.
3-4-4a looks a lot larger than 3-4-4b as the use of colour in the 'valleys' makes them visually expand and when the two bracelets are put next to each other it is hard to believe they are exactly the same- just the use of black is swapped.

Another visual difference is that the green on the 'purple' bead looks a lot darker than it does on the 'orange' one. On the orange it is a lot 'springier'.


I am teaching these beaded beads in New York in November.

Chilli Bead

A new beaded bead today- I'm loving making these at the moment!
I need to move onto red soon but I'm away and didn't realy pack any red beads with me so am sticking with orange instead.

The colour scheme for this one was inspired by a plant I saw on my recent trip to Arundel Castle.


I loved the mix of green red/ orange and purple and couldn't resist translating that into a simple colour scheme.



The original photo/ plant had more green in it but as I'm working with orange I upped the use of that colour instead.

Analogous Beaded Bead

My new beaded bead is all done- I can't wait to start using red in October!

Analogous Orange Scheme

After working in a monochromatic colour scheme for the past week and watching everyone else having fun with colour I'm itching to spice things up.

I'm still working on my Colour Challenge and the colour I'm using now is orange.

So far I've mixed it with blues for a complementary scheme, browns and yellow for a toned down look and pink with teal and gold for a sunshine look.

This time I have gone for an analogous scheme so am using red, orange and yellow.

Color by COLOURlovers

Onye 4

Well- she's all beaded now and I'm delighted with her.


This was a real lesson in perseverence as well as actually being sensible and think about what you're beading before you go down the wrong path- I would have saved myself a lot of unnecessary beading and chopping if I'd done that first.

I am really pleased with the way the colours worked out. That was my first hurdle as I wanted the piece to look green (a monochromatic scheme) but found that all of the greens I put with it just weren't the right one.
They were too blue, too yellow or even just too bright.
Eventually I settled on... gold

Ok, they're not completely gold but when looked at away from the beadwork they're definitely more a greenish-gold than a goldish-green. A lot more gold than they look in this first picture.

In this second picture you can see that whilst there is green in there they're definitely more gold- and there's lots of red and blues too.


But in the finished piece they look green- which works for me!

Work In Progress- Day 4

If you ever thought beadwork appears by magic prepare to have your illusions shattered!

So far I have chopped this piece up 4 times and I think I’m going to have to do it again.

I’m finally getting somewhere and love the colour but it’s what do I do next about the design.

You see I had got my maths all figured out so the number going around my central crystal is divisible by 6- except I now want to add 8 crystal around it.

I’m only 1 bead a row out.

That’s not much.

I’m going to chop it up anyway.

What would happen if I went along and cracked out 1 bead a row all the way across the width of my work?

Would I crack a wrong bead?

Would I snap a thread?

Would it ever work?

Would it always look wrong?

Am I just being lazy and should I bite the bullet and chop it all up again?

Eventually I reason: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained” and in I go.

Well, so far, so good.

I cracked out the beads- taking the first 2 rows down from 66 beads to 64 beads and wove and wove and wove through with a new thread before it all unravelled and fell apart (of course I snapped a few threads cracking the beads- I wasn’t going to get away with it that easily!)

It all seems to look ok and I’m now onto my 2^nd surrounding rivoli so fingers crossed it works out this time as otherwise I can see the crystal not surviving its rapid trip towards the nearest wall…

Work In Progress- Day 2

Still beading Onye version 4.

Ok, I then moved onto an emerald green which didn’t work.

Out came the scissors

Then a bluey-green.

Out came the scissors.

Why is it not obvious these don’t work until I have beaded at least 2 components which are all joined together?!?!

Now I have settled on a dark greeny-gold.

But it soon becomes apparent that though my maths are correct and I have the right number of beads etc, my geometry is a bit off- there is no way the number of surrounding rivolis I had planned will actually fit.

I had not taken into account the curvature of the large crystal being different.

Of course not- I’m just a simple beader!

As soon as I stand back and take a look at it I want to smack my own head as it is so obvious they wouldn’t fit (I’m too embarrassed to tell you how many I had planned!)

Why did I not take the simple step of laying the whole thing out flat and just seeing if it would work first?

Out come the scissors…

Work In Progress- Day 1

I’m off in Chichester again teaching a 6-day long geometric beadwork class and am really looking forward to spending all that time immersed in it and seeing what people produce (I will be running the same class again next year if you’re interested- who knows how it will have developed by then!).

Whilst I’m here I’m determined to get some of my own beading done and once again I’m working away on another Onye Pendant. This time though I’m using a much, much larger crystal for the centre.

My first problem is what colour to put with it. Of course most of my bead stash is sitting at home and try as I might I just can’t find the right green to use along the edge. This light one looked ok until I began adding extra rivolis around the outside edge and then it was obvious it was all wrong.

So out come the scissors…

Colour Project

I bought this frame on my way back from Liverpool and am itching to bead some panels to sit inside it- not sure it will work but will give it a go when I get a chance.

Colourful Liverpool

A vist today to the Tate Gallery in Liverpool to see their exhibition on colour. Unfortunately no photos were allowed.

These were some great pieces, especially 'Eight paintings with eight colours' by Katharina Fritsch, pieces by Gerhard Richter, some of Damien Hirst's 'spot paintings' and 'Zobop' by Jim Lambie.

Inspiring Orange

A visit to Arundel Castle and its gardens again today.

Last time I was looking for yellow but this time it was orange I was seeking out.



Also loved the texture of this bobbly plant


Great orange chillis


Loved this scheme- red, orange and yellow are to be expected but the added bonus of purple is fab!


A close up of the mixed scheme.


Purple and green- will file away for future use!

St Petersburg Pots

For the next issue of Bead I'm making little pots using St Petersburg chain- an old project I came up with a few years ago but never did anything with.
So of course I'm working them in orange, brown and yellow- trying to keep to the challenge!

Onye 3

I'm on an Onye Roll!

As soon as I came up with original pendant I knew I wanted to bead a version with eyes in.

It took me a while but I eventually manged to track down ones in the right size and colour, now how to complement blue eyes?

Well, orange and blue are complemenary colours so they work perfectly. But after already beading 2 of these in strong oranges I wanted to tone it down so based the sheme on browns and oranges.

This pendant will appear as a project in issue 19 of Bead magazine.

Onye 2- (Tropicalimso)

Well, she's all done and I love her!

In the end I used orange, pink, teal and gold- sunshiny, happy colours.

This will appear as a project in issue 19 of Bead magazine.

Orange, pink and ?

I know for my next version of my Onye pendant I want to still use orange but don't want to make it too similar to the one already beaded- which just used oranges and yellows.
I have often loved the colour combination of orange and pink- such as the jewellery in this photo:


But I want to see if I can come up with a scheme that uses 'colour rules' and both those colours which I like.

My previous pendant was boldly orange- so this time I want to see if I can use orange in a more subtle way.

So I headed to Color Scheme designer.

Putting in a bold orange gives me this at first- nice but basically too orange
A complimentary scheme is this- nice but I want to throw in at least one more colour
Triadic results in this- still too bold
Tetradic- again nice but still bold
Analogic- very nice- and the mustardy yellow/ orange tones it down for me
Accented analogic- yum! I love the tealy colour in there- my kind of colour combo!

But the search is still on.

A recent Colour Lovers blog post - on Tropicalismo- leads me to a fab colour combo:

Cell Division

Color by COLOURlovers


A search for orange and fuschia colour palettes gives me this:

Color by COLOURlovers

and this one

Color by COLOURlovers

A google search for pink and orange colour schemes gives me some good results:

Here are some schemes using orange and pink also with white and yellow- very nice
This subtle orange and pink scheme make sme think maybe I need to tone down the fuschia?
Orange and pink in fashion
An orange and pink art challenge

Soon my head is spinning and I decide the only way to work out my colours is to actually look at what I own!
Check back to see what I end up using.

Chocolates and macaroons

My last day in Paris and some colourful food

I ended up in the goumet food section of a department store and came across these wonderful chocolates and macaroons (from Patisserie Sadaharu)

I made my choice partly on flavour and partly on colour!

2nd day in Paris

Still in Paris and a busy day before the start of my course (read more on my blog here)

These are some of the extra colour photos I took today.

The graffiti outside an exhibition at The Cartier Foundation- you could take any section of this for colour inspiration!

Some close-ups of La Fée Electricité (The Electric Fairy) by Raoul Dufy.


Blue to purple to green to yellow.

Red, Yellow and green.


Green and blues.


And on the look-put for oranges I found:

'Les Cing Sens' by Georges Valmier


'Composition' by Auguste Herbin

A day in Paris

I am in Paris, the sun is shining, I have no-one else to think about and no time to be home by. Could this day get any better?
Well okay, I could have found beads but that's a minor complaint!

It seemed that all around me today was colour. From the food I ate, to the museum pieces I saw, even down to the building works I walked by.

My mind was especially focused on looking for oranges as that is the colour I'm now working with, but that didn't limit the photos I took.

My trip to Paris began with lunch and this great colour combo of melon gazpacho- some sort of sweet sorbet (the taste bud explosion wiped out my memory of what it was) and yellow bread (not nice to eat but set the colour combo off great!)


My next stop was a visit to the Museum of Decorative Arts.

This cabinet of a dark oak with a strip of cobalt blue took my breathe away and I wish I had a picture that captured it better. I will definitely come back to this combo when I work in blue!


I love glass in many forms and this arrangement of mixed colours and shapes looked fabulous.


This piece of glassware with its two different 'blues' was interesting.


These multi-coloured works which used pink, blue, green and purple were, inspiring.


On the look out for orange combinations which appealed, I found this chair with its use of orange, white, yellow and a navy blue. I like the idea of the blue as I think black would have been too 'garish' or 'warning sign' if that makes sense- the blue definitely works to bring the sharpness down. Blue is orange's complementary colour.


More orange- here is orange, white and black- although I like this combination in the plastic I do think using navy- such as in the photo above- would have been nice and altered how the orange looked.


Here orange is mixed with a khaki green- I like this and would never have thought of it.


Once I'd finished in the musuem I was off to wander and take more photos.

I came across these wonderful blue doors and couldn't resist a photo- I think the redish-gold door furniture subtly makes this colour work so well.


Green and grey- who knew?


In a shop, looking for beads, I came across this range of jewellery focused on orange and pink- I think this is my favourite way to use orange!

More love for yellow

From going to a yellow hater I am now definitely a yellow lover- more proof in the jumper I bought today- I liked lots of the colours but couldn't resist the yellow!

New photo of Geometric 3-4-6

Geometric 3-4-6 (boat floaters)

Finally!
This bracelet has taken me many months to make as I have been so busy when in reality I could have done it in a week- such is life.

I'm really pleased to have her finished, not only because she looks so nice, but also because she was a successful experiment in both executing the idea of using the larger beads inbetween the beaded triangles, but also in colour.

When I started this colour experiment I said I has never used yellow and hated it- well now I really have used it- and love it!

This bracelet definitelty changed my feelings towards yellow and I have learnt a lot about how to use it in a way I like it and that overcomes the problems I have with it.
Most of this was to do with combining it with the right other colours- so all my seeking out the right palette (and here) paid off.

I'm looking forward to using yellow a lot more in the future as I don't feel so "scared" of it now- so much so that I don't want to move onto orange!

Thank goodness I sneaked some in already so it's not all new to me.