Colour Combinations to Consider
Part 1 of 3

Many beginners sport the wide-eyed deer look at the beginning of design sessions because they don't know where to begin. A decision on colour is first on the agenda. Colour combinations are also potential stumbling blocks. So here are some suggestions of colour mixes to consider if you haven't already done so.

Pink and black do go together very well and not just in jewelry, but also for clothes. They work because one is a "hot" colour and the other provides a dark, sharp contrast.

Yvonne is confident with colour. She chose these irregular brick-shaped warm pink mother of pearl (MOP) shell beads for her necklace and earrings. She kept the design very simple with just some cube beads with the MOP beads and plenty of black seed beads for the rest of her necklace. A trendy duo!

Beader Design #: 308


COLOR GUIDES

SoftExpressions.com is primarily a computer quilting concern but they do have several colour wheels and colour evaluators for sale which could be used by jewelry artisans to select glass and gemstone bead colour combinations.

The Pantone Shopping Colour Guide is another, formated like paint colour strips but bound like a fan. Pantone also do a Colorstrology Guide for $7.95 to determine your birthday colour and what it says about you. This different take to the astrological signs identifies 12 monthly colours and 366 (includes leap years) personal colours supposedly to help you understand how colour influences you and your life. Probably about as accurate as astrological predictions but it sounds like fun. Both guides are also available at Fire Mountain Gems.

Name That Colour by Chirag Mehta is a fun free tool to use to get the names of 1500+ colours - it might be a great way to get naming inspiration for your designs. The creator, who said it is a guy thing, freely admitted he had no clue what lavender and mauve looked like so he wrote this helpful application. An improved version called Colour Name & Hue by Daniel Fluck is particularly useful for colourblind people.

Margie Deeb's excellent book The Beader's Guide to Color is highly recommended especially for beadweavers to learn all about colour. There are many beautiful creations from featured designers which makes this book a delight. You can read a review by About.com's Paula Morgan here.


For more tutorials check out my Jewelry Making Tips
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