Colour Theory in Designing Beads
 

Hi to all :) I will appreciate if u could help me about how I should apply colour theory while designing my beads. I am trying hard to make beautiful beads but I guess I have some problems with the colour combinations etc. I dont have any problems with the application of beadmaking techniques but no matter how my beads still dont look so pretty and i guess it's because i am weak in colour theory & maybe designing principles. Please help me... I am desperate...:cry:
Thx in advance:)

Not that I am the greatest - I tend towared simple designs buy try searching google for art and fabric and look for color combinations you like and apply them to a bead.

I tend to look at fashion magazines and look at the color combinations in the ads. If the ad draws my eye to it, I try it in a bead.

Margie Deeb has written a lot about color theory and beads (check out The Beader's Guide to Color). She works with seed beads, but the same principles apply to glass. We took a color wheel class from her a while back a got a lot out of it. I keep a color wheel in the studio and consult it for new combinations.

Robert

If I get stuck I look into this book, The Designer's Guide to Color Combinations by Leslie Cabarga. Inspirational design colors throughout the years. :)

Just a question. Why do you think your colors are not good? Are you not getting the look you want? Are your beads not selling if you sell? I make a LOT of florals so I take my colors from nature, but really when I'm making a bead, I just grab the rod I like:cool:.

I guess I have no technical color theory know how either:pout:

You should post some pictures of your beads so we can see them and maybe get a better idea.

A little color theory goes a long way - any basic graphic design book will give you great background, and most instructional painting books will too. The most important basic ideas IMHO are complementary colors and warm and cold tones of a color. Sometimes colors that should look good together don't with beads, either because of chemical reactions or sometimes because the color s not opaque enough and muddies next to another color. The best way to figure it out is make little spacers of colors you aren't familiar with & see how they work. Or just suck it up for next time.

I am a people watcher. I pay attention to what people are wearing and how it looks. Sometimes the ideas come from strange things like a purse sitting on carpet beside some drapes. I keep a notebook with me and write down ideas. When I first try a color combo that I have not seen before I limit it to one bead. I let it get out of the kiln and check it out. If it is too ugly I keep it so that I do not make any more of them-if it is nice I leave it on my work table for my next torch session.
Have fun!
Beth

Aaaw thx to u all for your advices :) :) :) I will try them :)
And I am going to put some photos of my works and I really would appreciate if you could comment on them since your ideas & advices are very important to me.

with love from Istanbul :)

This query reminded me of that really cool website that I think Kandice (?) first posted about. It's called Kuler and I just signed up. I really like playing around with kuler! I just made 2 color palettes. One is called Sonoma Mountain Summer and it is the most dominant colors from my mind's eye view, mentally looking over the golden hills and winding creek around my house. Really fun to play with. I definitely need to make some beads in my favorite color schemes. I could play with Kuler all day and never get any beads made!

Someone on LE (Kandice maybe?) posted pictures of beads she made from a kuler representation of a picture of the lush hawaiian mountainsides. I am not sure how to do that, but that's my next thing to figure out. I might have to get a flickr to be able to pick colors from a photo? Anyone else know?

:) Kelly

Hey folks/folkettes,

along the same lines that BeadKitty started...is there a book for lampworkers that deals with matching colors and different color combinations? (Kinda like THE BEADERS GUIDE TO COLOR is for bead weavers).

Is there a color book made specifically for lampworkers?

Thanks.

In Christ: Raymond

I found a cool color generator (scheme generator) that's kinda fun to play around with. I use it for inspiration sometimes:
http://www.wellstyled.com/tools/colo.../index-en.html

Renee Wiggins

I'm actually pretty good with color theory but sometimes not so good with glass color theory. I've chosen some nice rod colors but when I melt them together the result is dreadful! I've learned the hard way to keep it simple at least until I have more experience in how glass colors react together....

A color wheel is a very helpful tool. Look in color theory books for one or you can find them in art supply stores. Color wheels are a great tool for finding great new color combinations. Complementary colors are opposite each other on the color wheel and always look good together. Other groupings of color that work together are threes or fours, spaced evenly around the color wheel, they also look great together.

The best book that I've found on color is Deb Menz's "ColorWorks". I like this one much better than the Beader's Guide to Color. Deb Menz is primarily a fabric artist but she goes through each step of color theory and shows samples of weaving, quilting, beadweaving etc. to illustrate the theoretical point. The book also has color wheels and color charts in the back to help with designing.

And I have not found a lampwork or fusing book that is primarily about color. I think it's a great tutorial option.

Dear Renee & Kelly, both web sites are really very cool :) thx ;)

Thanks for this one! I tried it out. I haven't been happy with many of the combinations I came up with for my beads, same as the original poster.

Well it turns out I just don't like a lot of the "basic" color combos!!! For instance, most complementary/Contrast combos are not ones I am fond of. This gives me hope that I don't totally suck at color theory. :)

This is my favorite site. http://www.colourlovers.com/

Thanks.

I liked the interactive color wheel that Reneee posted. (CLICK HERE).

And along those lines, I've also found another cool one that's extremley easy to use as well. (CLICK HERE).

So in our never-ending quest to better ourselves, we've now delved into the art of color co-ordinatinng and complimenting.

Oh yea...we've also purchased a cool little "pocket color wheel" to play with. (Got it on eBay for $4.50, shipped to our door).


FRONT
http://www.dick-blick.com/items/049/...front3ww-l.jpg


BACK
http://www.dick-blick.com/items/049/...-back3ww-l.jpg



Thanks, guys.

In Christ: Raymond

I was wrong, it was Karolen who made the gorgeous beads from the hawaii picture. You can read all about it here, she was featured in a Kuler spotlight. I would like to figure out how to pull colors from a picture and create a palette for beads. Karolen did such a beautiful job!

:) Kelly

Kandice,

I was looking through your website and was impressed.

Very pretty beads.

In Christ: Raymond

There are books you can buy on color combinations.

I have this one. I bought it for my husband. lol

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA240_.jpg

I did a search on Amazon and there are like 4 pages of books of color combinations for beaders, quilters, designers. whatever.

http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=12191918...nations&page=1

I get the feeling Kandice likes pink.

Ok Kandice this is a dangerous web site! Now I'm stuck on it and I can't get off.

I just bought a book called "The Color Scheme Bible", which has palettes for home interior...but...it is INSPIRATIONAL...and could be applied to beads pretty easily...I think...I tried using a palette on some of my beads this weekend, and it was great...

Yup, I was going to post this one too. I like it better that the Kuler site.

I like this book too. It has great pictures and color combos.

I don't think Kandice has ever made a bead I didn't want to LICK!! :)
and her own site (coloraddiction--in her siggy line) has FABULOUS advice on some of her favorite individual glass colors, how they behave, & some of the glass that they're "friends" with as well!
~luna

One thing to consider on color: are you doing "additive" color mixing or "subtractive" color mixing? This is a concept in the physics of light and color -- oil painting, for example is subtractive, because the paints are opaque. You essentially subtract light from the color that you cover with opaque paint. But theater lighting (and stained glass too) is the classic example of additive color mixing - where the colors are transparent and they add to each other, or mix. So with transparent glass colors you are doing additive color mixing, and they better look good passing through each other (layering Rubino over EDP for example is additive.) With subtractive color mixing, using opaque colors, the color wheel info may work better. There you only need to worry about glass color cross-reactivity, as someone above mentioned. Just my 25 cents!

Thank you! That is the exact color wheel I was going to try and hunt down at the stores. I like the idea of having it delivered to my door for $4.50! I bet the stores don't sell it that cheap! :)