Color for Bead Artists

from my February 2011 Margie’s Muse column

With winter dragging on, Valentine’s day ahead, and spring on the horizon, I am thinking pink. I’m eager for it’s sensuality, vitality, and charm.

In her lighter, brighter versions, pink is such a flirt. She’s a coy, coquettish version of red; a siren luring you to sensual pleasures. After these last months of bundling myself in sweaters against the teeth-chattering temperatures, I welcome her seductive warmth.

Magenta is one of my favorite versions of pink. An alluring purplish-red, more luminous than true red, magenta exudes luxury. The color itself seems to have a texture of damask, or silk, or perhaps taffeta. Indeed, the Victorians reveled in fabrics colored with newly discovered synthetic dyes of magenta and fuchsia. Think hot pink, neon-pink. Geraniums, cyclamen, fuchsia, primroses, orchids, peonies, and bougainvilleas are but a few of nature’s blossoms that seduce with magenta.

Most publications printed in color use a four color printing process referred to as “CMYK.”  The “M” stands for magenta. Magenta is responsible for every printed color that has a reddish tint. Magenta is the “red” primary of printer’s inks. As a primary it creates brighter, more luminous oranges, purples, and violets than does its red counterpart.

Magenta and most pinks pose one major problem. They are insufficiently lightfast, especially in the medium of glass beads. Many magenta and pink glass beads will fade from exposure to cleaning agents or sunlight. Test beads for lightfastness by setting a bowl of them in the sun for a few days. If the beads are to be worn, wear a strand against your skin for a few days. Many dyed beads will not pass these tests as dyed beads are coated with color which can rub off. Glass beads, however, are impregnated with pigment, which produces a more stable color.

Because it is often an unstable hue, you won’t find many natural materials for jewelry in shades of magenta (though some rubellite tourmalines come close). Wood, shell and howlite beads are dyed in shades of magenta. Glass, or plastic if you want a less sophisticated look, is the best way to charge your work with magenta and fuchsia tones.

See the entire Margie’s Muse archive

Strong 2-color palette from "The Beader's Guide to Color"

Some people erroneously equate more color with better palettes. At the beginning of a class they tell me they want to learn to be great at color so they can use lots and lots of colors in a piece. Using lots of colors simultaneously represents  their idea of what it means to be good at color.

Using many colors successfully in one piece is one very tiny representation of what it looks like when you are good with color. To me, it is one of the weakest.

Far stronger are the color palettes of 2 or 3 colors. These make more of a statement. They take more conscious planning.They require careful proportions. They demand attention be paid to value and intensity of each of their members.

Strong 4-color palette from "The Beader's Color Palette"

The foulest color concoctions in the bead world these days are the free form, chaotic stews of 10+ colors with no order, no form, no design.

Challenge yourself to build palettes limited to two or three colors. Employ a family of colors to work as one: in other words, if one of your palette members is red, use various shades, tones, tints, values, and intensities of that red. Teach yourself to lean on proportions, value, intensity, rather than relying only on hue to create enduring  color combinations.

Strong palettes forged from two, three, and four colors will be your most memorable.

Learn more about color in Margie’s comprehensive color and beading book, The Beader’s Guide to Color.

from Margie’s Muse
January 2011

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” -Scott Adams

The tangled remnants of treasures revealed.

As a creator, I’ve learned a lot about destroying. In order to create, we must destroy. It is a part of the creation process. Destroying makes the space for new creation.

We destroy a hank of beads so that we may order its pieces into a necklace. We destroy old ideas to make way for new. We destroy empty space to fill it with a new painting. We destroy a design that doesn’t work in order to create a new one that, hopefully, works.

I was faced with this last dilemma recently. Off and on, for the past 8 months I’ve been working on an intricate piece. I’d made prototypes out of rope that indicated that my idea would work and I was so excited. However, to see if it actually worked, I had to weave it together. After 60+ hours I realized that what I had created would not work like the vision I had in my mind’s eye. So I had to rip it apart. Did I mention it was 60+ hours of work over 8 months time?

I’ve come to realize that destroying is as much a part of creating as the act of creation. I used to resent having to destroy my failed beadwork, regarding those precious hours spent making it as squandered and meaningless because they lead to failure. I saw it as a waste of time. As I’ve matured, I realize that time is only wasted if I refuse to learn from the errors I filled it with.

When possible I save my beaded failures to refer back to what made them fail. In this case, I’d woven together a costly amount of beads that I needed to un-weave so I could use them. I spent hours pulling apart lovingly crafted rows of weaving.

For the first time in my 20+ years of beading, the destruction process fascinated rather than frustrated me. I felt I was watching portions of my life in rewind. As I unravelled, I relived the hours spent weaving while watching a Frank Zappa concert DVD with my husband. Then came memories of my trip to San Diego as I tore out loops made during the summer. Backwards I wove through the section of rows completed in July when we lost our Greyhound. Then the part I’d made during the last weeks of our Dalmatian’s life in March. I deconstructed the parts that I’d shared over lunch with two bead artist friends at a French restaurant. And finally, the very first rows I’d made (while my head spun with excitement) became shreds of thread and loose homeless beads.

As I ripped, cut, and pulled, I experienced – in the most tactile way – my methods of ensuring my work for posterity. I also cursed them. Overkill here and there, as I sawed apart six and seven passes of thread through one bead.

From this destruction emerged not only the space for my revised design, but also (and this came as a surprise) a more compassionate view of myself. Unwinding months of my life captured in thread and glass offered me a broader perspective of myself. As if watching a film, I saw a woman – in between the mundane and sublime moments of her life, the peaks and valleys, the joys and losses – quietly, methodically building something of beauty. Small and striking. Maybe not a masterpiece, but a creation that would mean something to her, and hopefully to others. I saw someone wanting, from the depth of her heart, to create beauty: beauty that will last and adorn and inspire others to create more beauty. Each fragment of thread and released bead illuminated that part of me that thrives on inspiring beauty, creativity, and excellence in the world.

It was an enlightening time of destruction. And at the end of it I felt wiser, more confident, and more excited about rebuilding my vision in a new way. Not a moment has been wasted.

(Download the PDF column)

from Margie’s Muse, December 2007

Each year the mansions in the historic district of my town are decorated for the holidays and opened to the public. I toured them, enjoying the beauty of the sounds, scents, and colors.

One of the rooms in a Civil War home was decorated in white: white tree, white wrapping papers, white antique Father Christmas dolls, white flowers, all aglow in candle light. The textures were soft, making gentle what might have felt stark. The lightest shades of ivory and cream softened the overall feel as well.

Colors and candlelight speak so much to the ambience of the holidays. And yet, I find that white touches me deeply during the holidays.

To me white symbolizes hope born of an innocence and purity. As if a promise that from the cold of winter hope is gestating, waiting to arise. White is the purity of light. It symbolizes the sacred, the divine from which we came.

True white light is the greatest luminosity known, holding within it the entire spectrum. Pass white light through a prism and watch it fan out into a peacock tail of rainbow colors.

White makes a clean background from which other hues can shine, and it harmonizes with nearly every color. Vivids look exceptionally vibrant and tints especially charming against white. Low-intensity colors work better with an off-white, one that leans toward another color, like ivory or beige.

The simplest palette of maximum contrast is white and black. For chic sophistication, string together beads of these opposing colors. To avoid clinical starkness, select luxurious finishes or shapes. Lustrous pearls of white and black are far more intriguing than the absolute white and black of opaque or matte finish beads. Color-lined and hex-cuts offer visual interest. Grays (including snowflake obsidian and hematite) also add depth to the white and black duo.

White whispers innocence. Combine it with pink (such as rose quartz) to create a petal-soft, pastry-sweet delicacy.

White and red, in tandem, can become either distinct (pearl and garnet) or flashy (snow quartz and scarlet red jasper).
Use white to freshen and lighten a color scheme. Or use it as a fashion statement of refined grace. Nothing says elegance like pearls. Attired solely in white, one is perceived as cool and polished.

White occurs naturally in beads of milky, semi-translucence agate, dolomite, chalcedony, howlite, and trocha and puka shells. Warmer white beads are those of bone hairpipe. The iridescence of mother-of-pearl is a colorful alternative to stark white.

As long as there is light there is white, luminous and bright, bringing its promise of hope.

Excerpt from Instant Holiday Glam: Color Palettes of Splendor. Available as a downloadable PDF.

©iStockphoto.com/Luis_A_Pena

Were you taught the crazy idea that one should never mix metals when wearing or making jewelry? I was. It took me a long time to shake the feeling that I was breaking the law when I combined copper, silver, and gold. But this is a “law” worth breaking! And it is all the rage now: look at any jewelry or clothing catalogue.

Metals form the core of holiday glam: shiny, reflective, and dazzling. Their rich glimmer elevates anything! Work consciously with metals’ warm or cool undertones: gold is related to yellow, a warm color; silver is cool because it has a bluish cast, or is void of color and warmth.

So many metals, so little time!

True metallic finishes like hematite, copper, and bronze add richness and depth. Muted in color, their non-distracting reflectivity lends an air of traditional elegance. Mix them with more brilliant golds.

• when mixing metals, choose one to dominate the overall color scheme

• try clear facted crystal accents with metallic palettes

• work with different metallic textures, such as filigree, brushed, matte, etched, and patterned

• texture, texture, texture! (see the photo to the left)

• add chains anywhere possible!

• vitrail finishes emulate the luxurious look colored metals because of a rainbow finish over a silver coating

Try these suggested palettes of mixed metals:

Copper, Bronze, Gold

Hematite, Pearl, Black, Gold

Silver, Black, Gold

Silver, Galvanized Copper, Gold

Suggested Delicas in Metal and Metallic finishes

I bought this fun necklace for an annual holiday party. It was almost perfect, but lacked one thing: drops of red. So I added them. Now it will match my red velvet top with the long bell sleeves.

40 palettes, pages of gorgeous jewelry created with Pantone’s 10 seasonal colors, explanations, how to work with colors, inspiration and eye candy galore!

You can download a FREE preview before you buy.

Look how Kristie Roeder of Artisan Clay blog has let the Color Report inspire her work!