Beadlust

Living Color!

To me, one of the most exciting sections in Margie Deeb's forthcoming book will be called "Living Color." Here she will show color palettes derived from plants, flowers, birds, bugs and critters.

In one of our recent email conversations, she commented about how poisonous animals and plants are often extremely colorful. Judging from what I've seen on her "Fatally Fantastic" page, with two drop-dead gorgeous necklaces based on poisonous critters, I'd say she's right. In fact, my final assignment for the book is to design and write instructions for a project based on a beautiful, but deadly, spiny sea anemone. (This is the critter, but not as colorful as the picture I'll be using for the palette.) I can't wait to get started!

But today, as promised, we'll stick with "Living Color" from our feathered friends. In addition to a palette and beautiful necklace based on the jewel-colored feathers of a peacock, this section of the book will also include a picture of an Emperor Penguin and the bead embroidered pin I made based on this palette.

Because of the copyright, you won't be able to see the penguin picture used for the palette until the book comes out. But if you go here, you can see a similar picture. For my piece, I concentrated on the color shift at the neck - from black to bright orange, to yellow, to white. Because I like that curved line at the neck where black meets orange, I decided to incorporate that into my pin as well. Margie told me she wanted an object that was tall and skinny, because of the placement on the page layout. Those were my constraints: color, shape and overall size.



Here is the penguin pin. It's not supposed to BE a penguin or LOOK like a penguin... just be inspired by the colors and shapes.

If you are liking this color talk, you might want to read about an international study on color preferences - Color Matters. Take the survey here and be counted among 60,000 other people world wide. After taking the survey, it might be fun to read what Margie has to say about it here and here.

Important! Here is a short but potent poem, written by a friend who blogs... Right ON!