Showing posts with label color challenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label color challenge. Show all posts

5/5/12

It's the One Crayon Color Hop!


When Sally Russick of the Studio Sublime announced her One Crayon Color Challenge, I immediately joined in, choosing to create a design using the tints, tones and shades of black.

I challenged myself to finally use this pendant and string of rutilated quartz. When I purchased them nearly two years ago, I knew the pendant would make a dramatic focal piece, but despite much experimenting, hadn’t found just the right design for it.

Once I framed the pendant in a beaded bezel, I was stumped by the top center-drilled hole. After trying and discarding several beaded embellishments, I settled on a simple daisy spacer topped by a marcasite square. The marcasite added a little extra shine without full-bore bling, a perfect complement to the creamy sheen of the stone.


Keeping to the tints and shades of black, a beaded bead (from a tutorial by Sharri Moroshok) and quartz drop add some color contrast to the focal without grabbing the spotlight. To complete the design, I hung the focal from a black and gray herringbone neckstrap, finished with a bit of etched chain to echo the silver in the daisy spacer.
Much thanks to Sally for dreaming up this challenge and hosting our hop, and for inspiring me to conquer my design dilemma. If you haven’t already, take a few minutes to click the links below and take in the designs of all the One Crayon Color participants.






Hosted by:



Red







Orange













Yellow







Blue







Alicia Marinache http://allprettythings.ca








Green








Jenny Davies Reazor http://www.jdaviesreazor.com






Purple



Jennifer Judd Velasquez http://jenjuddrocks.blogspot.com










Brown






Black







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6/28/11

The Bold and the Beautiful: Tetrads

Lisa Kan’s Marrakech earrings have been flagged in my Sept. 2009 Bead & Button magazine ever since it hit my mailbox. I decided it was finally time to stitch them up in a tetrad color scheme, one based on a slim rectangle.

I selected two colors side-by-side on the color wheel, chartreuse and yellow-green, in muted tones, along with their complements, red-violet and purple. Lisa’s pattern was such fun to stitch, as the three-dimensional triangles magically formed and combined into the lower basket of the earring. Overall, a very soft and romantic, beautiful color palette.


In the second tetrad, I used the same chartreuse and red-violet. But this time, for Diane Fitzgerald’s triangles, I used these two colors in nearly pure hues, combined in a bolder square tetrad palette (all four colors spaced evenly around the color wheel) with blue and red-orange. Much more vibrant and playful.

Now that I’ve finished Margie Deeb’s Color Theory class on craftedu.com, it’s time to learn about seed bead colors and finishes. See how the blue delicas pop against the edges in the single-layer earring at the bottom of the photo? When the second layer is added and they’re zipped up with another row of red-violet in the finished earring, they recede significantly. Time to learn how to choose both color and finish to get the effect I want. Luckily, there’s a class for that!

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3/30/11

BTW-The Power of Three

So much to explore in Margie Deeb’s color theory classes on craftedu.com. This week I played around with the triad color scheme to see if I could put together some compelling shades that I don’t normally find in my jewelry box, which is fast becoming a jewelry drawer!

This chandelier earring is a typical triadic color palette, using three colors equally spaced around the color wheel: blue-green chrysocolla rounds, purple and orange-yellow seed beads and a luscious mango quartz drop. I think you’ll agree it offers strong visual contrast and rich, vibrant colors. (The design is Louise Smith’s Charlottesville Chandelier from The Best of Step by Step Beads.)
I instantly felt more comfortable designing this complementary triad – starting with the complementary pair, aqua green and red. Then I added yellow, the color midway between my complements on the color wheel. I let the greens dominate this palette, and used the red and yellow for accents. Still pretty vibrant, even though I used less saturated versions of my hues. They'll bring a fresh twist to just about every green in my spring closet!
While the earrings are definitely fun statement pieces, I will reach more often for this still-triad, but closer-to-analogous bracelet. More subtle, this modified triadic palette is created by choosing colors that are separated by only a space on the color wheel – purple, blue and aqua. I love the pop of the bright aqua with the darker, more subdued blue and purple. (The design is a variation of Smadar Grossman’s Cube Delight bracelet from the October 2010 Bead & Button, substituting tila beads for the cubes.) It will be the perfect accessory to dress up capris and a tee this summer. It's Bead Table Wednesday! Take a minute to click the BTW button on the right to see what other bead enthusiasts are up to this week.
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3/10/11

Color Challenge - Analogous Complementary


How to create a color scheme for a neckstrap for this gorgeous lampworked focal? I determined that the main colors in the bead are the complementary pair, purple and yellow green. The artist took advantage of a broad spectrum of the color wheel to include analogous colors from fuchsia to aqua. There was already plenty of excitement and lots of hue contrast in the focal itself. Literally thousands of possibilities!

If I were wrapping this around my own conservative neck, I would have picked out the classic blues (I see blue violet, steel blue and tints of cerulean in the focal) but for this necklace, I wanted to challenge myself to push beyond my personal inclinations, which trend towards the traditional and trustworthy.


So I chose two colors from the bead’s background swirls that I don’t normally work with, vibrant red violet and deep aqua green to create the neckstrap. I kept the aquas to the muted, dark shades, achieving contrast by using different finishes and bead sizes. Red violet is seen in the kumihimo strip and as accents in the spans of aqua green.


I think it’s the perfect accessory for the middle of March – the not exactly winter, not quite yet spring necklace.
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2/14/11

Color Challenge - Complementary



Maximum vividness.

David McCullough writes with it. If you watched the Grammy’s last night, you know Mick Jagger, at 67, still performs with it. And you can achieve it in design when you pair complementary colors, as I’ve done in each component of this Carole Ohl Kaleidoscope Quilt Cuff. The sharp lines and combination of crystals and delicas made it the perfect project to work out my complementary assignments from Margie Deeb’s color theory class on craftedu.



My favorite triangle is this chartreuse and red-violet swatch. I love the contrast between the colors as well as the crystal/matte metallic finishes.







The most interesting to stitch was this blue and orange combination. The yellow-orange crystals are encased in a very deep shade (really a muted tone) of blue. When the transparent baby blue delicas were snugged up against the muted tone, they changed their character and became almost silver-grey, themselves. The triangle is edged in a pure Cerulean blue. I will definitely use this colorway again.


On to analogous!
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1/10/11

Color Challenge - Monochromatic

My color challenge this week was to make three monochromatic pieces, using three elements in each. Starting with my favorite hue - green - I chose a cool aloe green seed bead to make up the greatest percentage of these Diane Fitzgerald pointed oval earrings, accented with a warmer yellow-green in a luster finish at the tips and a matte finish around the edges. A pale green crystal nestles in the center.



Next, I liked the way the smooth, creamy surface of the blue-green pearls in this earring design from Fusion Beads is countered by the brightness of the pure blue indicolite drop. I topped them with a small aquamarine crystal.









My final project is a kumihimo woven bracelet that combines 4mm translucent glass beads in dark and light blue with two different size 8 seed beads; a matte shade of midnight blue and a silver-lined tint of blue. A glance at this on your wrist proves the theory that a single color can be interesting if the tone and finishes are varied!
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