Beadlust

More Building Blocks ~
Color Theory
For Bead & Other Artists

If you are feeling stuck in a rut with your art, there's nothing like experimenting with colors to make it fun again. Even if you're not feeling stuck, playing with color, challenging yourself with color, can be exhilarating!

Such was the case for me 6 months ago when Margie Deeb asked me if I was interested in contributing any of my beadwork to her new book about color. Would I? You're darn tootin' I would!

One of Margie's ideas for the book is to take various famous paintings, abstract from them a proportional palette of colors (or hues) used by the artist, and create something new using the palette. My first assignment was a painting by Kandinsky (check out this or this). The palette is shown above, but because of copyright arrangements, I'm not allowed to show you the painting (although it will be in Margie's book). It's a little like this one.

Immediately, looking at a picture of Kandinsky's painting, I thought of JAZZ music, especially bluesy jazz. The notion came into my mind to make a bead embroidered pin about how much I love this type of music.

The first step was to gather beads which matched the palette. Kandinsky used a lot of colors, as you can see above ~ probably more than I could work into a "canvas" that would be less than 2 inches square. But it was really fun to go through my stash of seed and accent beads, selecting everything that closely matched the palette.

Once I was ready to start beading, I studied Kandinsky's work one more time, then put it away for the duration of the project. I didn't want to copy Kandinsky. Rather, I set as my goal: to capture the "feeling" of Kandinsky.

What made it most exciting was to work with an assortment of beads that I would not ordinarily choose on my own, and in a broader color range. What made it most challenging was the attempt to "say" something about both Kandinsky and my love of jazz in one tiny creation. Here is the finished work:

I call it All That Jazz, because it reminds me of both the movie and the song. Isn't it lucky that I happened to have these three blown glass jazz instruments? They've been in my stash for about 15 years, and I don't even remember where I got them. All in all, it was a most satisfying experience. So I invited Margie to give me another "assignment," which happily for me, she did. Please come back tomorrow for more.

The working title for Margie's new book is The Beader's Color Palette Book, but that could change as it goes into its final production stages. From what I have seen, it will offer many inspirational color palette ideas, each illustrated with examples made with different beading techniques and varying in complexity. Some of the palette ideas will also include step-by-step instructions for a project, one of which I'll show you in the next post. To get an idea of how Margie writes about color check this out, and be sure to scroll down far enough to get to the colors!