5 Pretty Marsala Color Palettes

As you may have heard, Marsala is Pantone's pick for the 2015 Color Of The Year.  In a previous post, Lesley highlighted some Marsala colored art beads that you may want to incorporate in your designs.

I have heard people complain that they can't quite put a finger on just what this color is.  Its kind of a dusty burgundy hue that lies somewhere between rose and brick.  When I first saw this shade, I could only think to pair it with mauve, but in the meantime, I've realized that it is a lot more versatile than I thought it would be.

If you are a person who struggles with combining colors, you might want to start by looking at color combos in your environment. Fabrics, fashion, house decor magazines, paintings and floral arrangements are all good starting points.

In that vein, I have assembled some collages for you.  Each one starts with a large picture of an object you might see in your daily life.  I've pulled a color palette from that object and then selected beads in those colors.  I hope this inspires you and increases your color confidence.

Pillows are a surprisingly good place to start.  They often combine several colors on a small enough scale that you can visualize it as jewelry. I once made a yellow and gray bracelet inspired by a pillow I saw in a House Beautiful magazine.   Our living room colors were all inspired by one handwoven pillow we have. So pick up a magazine or stroll through a furnishing shop.  Look for a pillow that includes Marsala.  Pay attention to the other colors on the pillow or the colors of the furniture on which it was placed.

 Clockwise:  Pillow from Crate and Barrel, Starry Road Studio, Curious Bead Shop, Fiber Beads, Graceful Willow Beads, Color Square.

I saw this wreath on Pinterest and fell in love with it! I love the angled, sweeping lines and the colors are just so yummy!  I was immediately inspired to create jewelry in these colors.

Clockwise: Wreath from Field and Florist, Captured Memories, Color Square, Wooly Wire Etc., BeadBistroCrafts, Color Square.

Paintings are a wonderful source of inspiration.  You don't necessarily even have to like the artwork.  Just focus on the color combinations.  I found this painting by Monet while doing a Pinterest search for "Marsala art work".

Clockwise:  Painting by Monet, Graceful Willow Beads, Jetta Bug Jewelry, Graceful Willow Beads, Color Square, BobbiThisnThat.

Next time you are wandering through the mall or paging through a women's magazine, keep your eyes peeled for Marsala colored clothing and pay attention to the colors it is paired with.  I love this outfit!  I had fun finding beadie treasures in these colors!

Clockwise: Outfit by LoLoBu, Starry Road Studio, Linda Landig Jewelry, OrlyFuchsGalchen,  Spawn Of Flame,  Wooly Wire Etc.

I found this dress by doing a Pinterest search for "Marsala fashions".  I think this is my favorite color palette that I found.  The coral accents just make the whole thing sing for me!  Love, love, love this!

 Clockwise: Dress found on Pop Sugar, Classic Bead, Curious Bead Shop,  LanaBeads2, Beads By Earth Tones, Wooly Wire Etc.

I also found a couple of earrings in Lesley's shop, Thea Jewellery, that fit the bill, so I thought I'd share them as well.

I'm not suggesting that you design jewelry solely with the goal of being on trend, but if you find these color palettes inspiring, then by all means go for it!  And keep your eyes open to all the fabulous color that surrounds you everyday.  Inspiration is everywhere!

Linda 

Linda Landig Jewelry

Color Inspiration Saturday...

I was thinking this week of creating some copper components to enamel for earring pairs that could be mixed and matched, but wasn't really sure what colors I wanted to incorporate, then remembered all the inspirational Pinterest photos I've seen featuring Pantone's Colors for Spring 2014. We have all been touting Radiant Orchid, Pantone's Color of the Year for 2014...why, even Karen Totten did a great blog post last month about the color. It is a bright and gorgeous color...one of my favorites of all time!  But, what about those other colors for Spring 2014 that Pantone included in its picks? I decided to find out...here is the list.  Look at these gorgeous spring shades!

Photo courtesy of www.ofdist.com, via Pinterest

I started going through my enamel stash to see what I had to match...some would have to be mixes of shades to get as close as I could, but I chose 4 to recreate for now.

Don't look at my crappy enameling job...these were sort of experiments and as such were done pretty quickly.  They will need some tweaking, but these are my versions of Celosia Orange, Freesia, Placid Blue, and Sand.  I put them in some different combos...lots of possibilities!

For you torch-fire enamel enthusiasts out there, my recipes are easy.  Pretty basic, and as I said, aren't perfect, but pretty close!

• Placid Blue - Robin's Egg
• Freesia - base of white with Egg yellow transparent
• Celosia Orange - Sunset Orange
• Sand - Nut Brown

Oh, and by the way, you can get a pretty good Radiant Orchid using white, or off-white as a base with Raspberry transparent on top!

Hope your day is drenched in color!


Melissa Meman
Melismatic Art Jewelry
Art. Life. Love.

Thinking in Color - Part II

A little over a year ago, I wrote about some of the online tools I turn to when I'm trying to piece colors together. Color theory isn't one of those things I do instinctively (unlike my best friend, Kimmy, who is a natural!) so I've been working on improving my overall design sensibility and digging a little deeper into what makes good design. One aspect of that is how colors work (or don't work) together.

For starters, I invested in two subscription services: Lynda.com and Adobe Creative Cloud. For a very reasonable monthly fee, Lynda.com offers unlimited access to thousands and thousands of training videos on every single topic you can imagine, including web and graphic design, photography, and color theory. Learning is one of those things I don't think I'll ever get tired of and this subscription has turned out to be wonderful for those times when I want to dig a little deeper into something than I can get with a Google search.

The Adobe Creative Cloud membership offers me access to every single one of the programs that are part of the Creative Suite of products - but instead of paying $2,000 or more for the software, I pay a monthly subscription fee that ensures my software is up-to-date at all times. It's a win-win for me - I'm a heavy user of Photoshop and dabble with InDesign and Lightroom, and the subscription winds up saving me a ton of money on the programs I use the most.

But if you're looking for a color design tool that ups your game without a commitment or a financial investment, let me introduce you to Adobe Kuler. 

Select the color "rule" you want to try from the drop down menu, set your base (or primary) color, and then start moving the pistons in the center of the color wheel. Any change you make in one color results in changes to the others, making sure your colors stay related. You can also tweak individual colors using the sliders below the color blocks for fine tuning. When you come up with something you like, you can set up a free Adobe account and save the color palette to your themes so you can refer to them later.

But one of my favorite features is the ability to create a theme or palette from a photo. Upload a photo and Kuler automatically chooses a palette based on one of five pre-programmed color "moods." (This photo is one of my favorites from a Hawaii vacation we took in 2009.)

All of these themes evoke the overall feel of the photo, but each one has it's own unique vibe - except that the 2nd and 4th palettes are nearly identical. I am really drawn to that taupey grey on the right side of those two - very warm and rich, and not at all a color I would have picked out of this photo.

This photo (another favorite from our Hawaii trip) gets tweaked in a whole different direction.

I love that third palette - it really reads "spring" to me, and is composed of colors that aren't at all what I would have pulled out of this photo.

Honestly, this is one of those toys... uh, I mean tools.... I could spend hours with. It makes me think about colors in a new way, and usually pushes me towards color combinations that are completely outside my comfort zone. I've been trying out some of those color combinations in recent enameling experiments and I hope to have some things to share with you soon.

So what new digital tools are making their way into your studio? Are there new things you're finding you can't do without?

Until next time -

Color Making

It's a chore… in my studio anyway. I'm not sure why, but I really dislike mixing up new polymer colors. It's so monotonous. It's a necessity for beadmaking though and it's what I've been doing for the last couple days.

I started off with this:

A heap of open blocks of polymer and already mixed colors——some I've kept careful records of and the rest are colors that I have no idea what I did to make them. It always makes me sad when I come up with an awesome color but can't remake it.


I finally got all the baggies organized and labeled: unmixed colors, cane bits, mixed colors with recipes, and the who-knows-how-I-made-it colors (I'll use those in bead cores and one-of-a-kind beads).

Did I ever tell you that I'm actually a really organized person? I like everything in its place at all times… sometimes though I just don't have enough time to make it happen. I know you don't believe me now!

Next I moved on to the new polymer and started leeching, conditioning and mixing.

I realized right away that I'd forgotten to order two of my most used colors and took a break to place a second order. Oops!


And finally right before quitting time, I have something to show for the last couple days of work!

Recipes for ALL the new colors this time! I always start off mixing small amounts in case one turns into mud. If you work with polymer, you'll know what I mean… it's that horrid ugly color that occasionally turns up even when you have the best intentions——only fit for bead cores or stamp and mold making.

I'm pretty happy with these results! And I have to say that in person these colors look much better! Indoor lighting and my hurried photography didn't do a very good job capturing the real shades. Most of these will be made in larger batches and I still have quite a few more colors to mix. I'm not going with any particular palette——I'm just going with what I like and what suits my work best.

I can hardly wait until I'm finished… new beads will follow!

What one "chore" do you have in your studio that totally bores you? Maybe you don't work in polymer, but I'm sure you use colors. ;-) What colors do you prefer to work with? Are you working off a particular palette… maybe the Pantone colors of the year? We'd love to hear more about it!

Winter Inspirations: a work in progress

A few weeks back I shared some winter inspired color palettes with you and yesterday since I'm on shop break (no new bead making until January 1st), I pulled out those palettes and my beads, and started making things.

I had the right bead colors and some ideas for both palettes, but after trying a few different designs, I stuck with the Blue Spruces for my color theme:

And here's what I came up with… so far… it's a work in progress, and I expect it still has at least a few changes to go through before I finish.

My own little sleepy squirrel bead and green woodland rounds in polymer clay, along with red creek jasper, glass, wood, and some brass. I would like to get a bit more grey and white in too.

Little acorn charms! No, there were no acorns or oak trees in my palette, but when I decided to use the sleepy squirrel, I couldn't help but give him a couple acorns to snack on.

What have you all been working on these day? Have you finished any fabulous new jewelry designs? I'll bet many of you will be giving jewelry to friends and family in just a few a days! ;-)

Or maybe you're just too busy with all the Christmas preparations that making jewelry hasn't even made it on to your to-do list! I do love this time of year, but I'm beginning to long for things to slow down a bit!

Well, for me, the rest of this necklace will have to wait until after Christmas… I'll let you know how it goes… right now I have pies and cookies to bake!

Wishing you and your loved ones a most joyful Christmas and a wonderful New Year!

Rebekah

treewingsstudio.com

Thinking in Color (or Colour, for our UK friends)

When I first started making jewelry in 2008, I started with bead stringing - and honestly, I wasn't very good at it. Bead stringing has a lot to do with color and visual texture and I am a little color challenged. I know when things look good together and when they don't, but I can't tell you why and I have a hard time planning in advance for things that will go together. Most of my successful color-centric pieces have been happy accidents and not really intentional statements.

Now that I'm getting more heavily involved in glass fusing and copper enameling, though, I am trying to get a better handle on what I'm doing from a color perspective, especially since the enamel powders - like ceramic glazes - often look nothing at all like their final result after firing and glass (especially the dichroic I love so much) changes radically in the kiln. Here are some of the resources I've been using to get inspired and learn more about color theory in laymen's terms.

Brandigirl Blog (Brandi Hussey)

In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that Brandi is someone I know - in fact, she helped me redesign my logo earlier this year. She recently wrote a really terrific three-part series on the basics of color theory and I highly, highly recommend it as a place to start.

Why Color Schemes Work, Part I 
Why Color Schemes Work, Part II 
Why Color Schemes Work, Part III

Her blog is also a place where you can regularly find some of the most beautiful and unusual color palettes, if you're looking for inspiration. (And her photography is stunning, too.)

Color Palette by Brandi Hussey, Brandigirl Blog

Color Palette by Brandi Hussey, Brandigirl Blog

Colour Lovers

This is a community site where a lot of different people create and post color palettes and patterns - and, like any other community, the results are a mixed bag. But it has some really fun features, including the option to find a palette you like and then use it to "color" available patterns in another part of the site.

A random palette from ColourLovers.com

Coloring patterns on ColourLovers.com

This can be a fun way to spend time when I'm feeling blocked - it has helped spark new ideas when I've been faced with a mat full of components and couldn't figure out what to do.

Design Seeds

Design Seeds may be one of my new favorite tools. Color specialist Jessica Colaluca posts daily palettes, with a twist. See a color that you really like? Choose it from the color list on the right and see more palettes that feature that color and similar colors. It's a great way to see a color you may be working with in multiple color combinations.

Color Palette by Design-Seeds.com

Palette Search Tool by Design-Seeds.com

So there you go, a few free and very useful resources to help you dig a little deeper into color. I hope you all have a very, very Merry Christmas, and that the coming year is filled with beautiful handmade things and much joy.

Until next time!

Winter Inspirations

Do you ever find that one day when you sit down in front of your ever-growing stash of beads that your mind draws a total blank? You suddenly feel like maybe you're not as good at making jewelry as you felt you were just other day when you finished that stunning masterpiece that all your friends adored?

What's wrong with you!?

Nothing. Don't worry, it's normal. All of us have those days.

Sometimes you just need to take a break, try a different approach, or learn something totally new. It can only get better, and not just your technique will improve, but also your style. Jewelry making is an ever-evolving thing.

So, for today I'm sharing two color palettes captured in beautiful rural Virgina and have paired them up with some fabulous art beads all handmade by the talented members of AJE. I hope that these will spark your imagination!

Each photo below is linked to Etsy, so if you see something you just have to have (I know you will!), simply click on it and buy. And don't forget to grab our coupon code AJEHOLIDAY for some outstanding savings!

Okay, so you reached the end of my post (almost) and your not quite ready to make your own jewelry, or maybe you just want that perfect piece of jewelry for your sister, your mom, your best friend… yourself… we have those too! And yes they're on sale. Use code AJEHOLIDAY and click on the photos to shop.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Rebekah

treewingsstudio.com

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This post is part of the Art Jewelry Elements 2012 Holiday Open House.

Art Jewelry Elements team members are offering special deals in their online shops to AJE readers starting today and going through Cyber Monday (November 26). You can see the complete list of participating members and details about the discounts here.

Please help support the artist community by buying handmade for your gift-giving this year.