| Beading
& Jewelry Tips & Techniques
Color
Lab: Working with Color in Beaded Jewelry Design
click here to download a printable version in PDF
Working
with color in beaded jewelry design is a little different
than other art forms because it involves unique characteristics
found in different materials such as surface qualities, opacity/
transparency, finishes and reflectivity.
Color Basics - Primary colors are red, yellow
and blue. Complimentary Colors are those that appear opposite
of each other on the color wheel- red & green, blue &
orange, violet & yellow.
Inspiration - you may be starting with a
unique bead or pendant that you want to feature in your design,
matching a dress or shirt, or a painting or photograph that
you are drawn to. There are many other places where you may
find inspiration such as fabric patterns or landscaping.
Creating Color Combinations - Trust
your instincts and use colors that appeal to you.
Understanding how to recognize complimentary colors will be
helpful as well.
Color Exercise
1) Choose a source of inspiration
and select the main color from your source. At this time,
if you plan to use some type of metal such as sterling silver,
than make that selection as well. In our example, we would
like to use the stone Amazonite and sterling silver.
2) Next choose the complimentary shade for the main color
2a) most likely you will not be working with a primary color,
so it may be more difficult to determine what that complimentary
color will be. This is where basic color knowledge is helpful.
If your color is not a primary color, think about how you
would achieve that color if you were mixing paint, find the
two main colors you would have to mix together. Then choose
the complimentary colors of those two colors. In our example,
the Amazonite is a blue-green color. So we determine that
we would hypothetically use blue and green to create the amazonite
color. Thus, the complimentary color of blue is orange, and
complimentary color of green is red. So now we have three
colors - amazonite is our main color, orange and red are our
secondary colors.
2b) if your main color is a neutral color then choose a secondary
color from your source of inspiration, or choose a lighter
or darker shade of your main color
3) Fine tune your color selection by playing with related
shades of the secondary colors you have chosen. In our
example, we will with play with shades of peach, salmon, and
pinks and we end up fine tuning our secondary color selection
to Padparascha.
4) If you are happy with your color palette, than you
can start designing your piece. If you want to continue to
add depth and interest to your color palette, then.
4a)
Add more color - if you want to add a third color, one way
is the determine that complimentary color of your secondary
color. In our example, our secondary color is Padparascha,
which is a orange-pink-red color. We felt that red is the
most prominent color characteristic of Padparascha, so we
chose green as the complimentary color. After experimenting
with shades of green, we chose Lime as the third color.
4b)
Add subtle accents - pearls and clear crystals are great ways
to enhance your color palette, depending on the desired look
of your design. You can also choose shades of the colors that
you have already selected. For example, we may choose
to add some shades of pink or peach to our mix.
Examples - go to our
Beading & Design
Jewelry Color Palette for more examples
Mocha |
Love Bird |
Pink Mist |
Cantaloupe |
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