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Color Theory Helps your Handmade Beaded Jewelry Send a Strong Message Custom Search 
Color is an important element in handmade beaded jewelry. Selecting the right color to elicit different feeling and emotions is a unique craft. Many times the simple act of expressing ourselves with colors can be intimidating. Learning about the way a color wheel works can get us past the fear and help us design unique handmade beaded jewelry. Think of color found in beads as containing all the beautiful hues of the planet. You can touch them, string them, weave them and fire them. No matter what you do they will always remain what they are, beads that you can incorporate into your handmade beaded jewelry. Unlike other art forms like painting, our artistic medium will never change. Once paint is released from a tube, it is usually gone forever. With beads you can change your mind as many times as you want. You can rearrange them until you are satisfied.
Remember the Wonderful Colors From your Crayola Box? Use Them to Enhance your Handmade JewelryTo further understand how the use of color can enhance your handmade beaded jewelry, transport yourself back to your childhood and think of how you use color to express your feelings and your thoughts. Blending the wonderful colors of tempera to create all those interesting combination, and sometime we would take them to the extreme until they became black or brown. We did not care, we just enjoyed the process. Adding color to our jewelry making is the same. It is a process that evolves and changes as you become more confident with the color combination you use.
For good "adult measure", let’s review the basics;
Primary Colors: the three primary colors: red, blue and yellow. These are the three colors that serve as a base to all other colors.
Secondary Colors: These are the colors found at the points between each corner of that triangle. Mix blue and red together and you will get purple. Red and yellow make orange. Yellow plus blue makes green.
Tertiary Colors: are achieved by combining the secondary colors. They are the colors that lie in between the primary and secondary colors. .
Things begin to get a little more complicated when we consider different combination using the color wheel. Do not let this intimidate you, remember practice is always helpful. Learning about the different jewelry making beads can also help you.
Analog Colors: These are the colors found on either side of any given color. Often these are the colors schemes found in nature. Using analog colors in jewelry making usually feels harmonious. Secondary colors can often be an analogous color. Think of the turning of the leaves in the fall, those wonderful deep yellows, oranges and reds all together to give us a warm palette. The deep blues and light blues of the ocean create a cool palette.
Split Complementary Colors: This is a combination of a split complementary color and an analogous color. Using split complementary colors can give you a design with a high degree of contrast. When combined with the direct complimentary color it results in great color harmony.
Triad Colors: Triad colors are the three hues equidistant on the color wheel. When you want a design that is colorful and yet balanced a triad color scheme might be the way to go.
Applying Color to your Beaded Jewelry
The best rule to follow as you incorporate color into you handmade beaded jewelry, is to always remember that you need to please yourself first. The best color combination are those that make you feel great! Play and experiment, there are no mistakes to be made. Try different colors and a variety of combination until you are satisfied with the results. Knowing the different necklace styles to create, when beaded jewelry making, can help you decide on what colors to use. Using proper lighting can help you select the best color combination for your handmade beaded jewelry. Invest in a natural light lamp. They can be expensive, but you will save your eyes nd money in the long run. When designing your handmade beaded jewelry keep the background neutral. You may want to have both a black and white surface you can alternate as you decide on the colors you will use.
Many times, I will draw the different color combination in my sketch book. This is particularly helpful when I am attending a bead show and want to select the right color beads to enhance my handmade beaded jewelry. I keep a box of Prismacolor pencils in my design table to use when I am considering different color combination. Another helpful tool is a color wheel, which you can purchase in an art supply store or at Michael's. Another wise investment is to purchase an artist guide to color book. Artist's Color Manual by Michael Jennings. This book combines useful information with appealing photos. It includes helpful color swatches and color theory basics. Remember enjoy the process and the use of colors to highlight you handmade beaded jewelry.
The first color wheel was invented by Sir Isaac Newton. He split white sunlight into red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, and blue beams; then he joined the two ends of the color spectrum together to show the natural progression of colors. Newton associated each color with a note of a musical scale. A century after Newton, Johann Wolfgang Goethe began studying psychological effect of colors. He noticed that blue gives a feeling of coolness and yellow has a warming effect. Goethe created a color wheel showing the psychological effect of each color. He divided all the colors into two groups – the plus side (from red through orange to yellow) and the minus side (from green through violet to blue). Colors of the plus side produce excitement and cheerfulness. Colors of the minus side are associated with weakness and unsettled feelings. The current form of color theory was developed by Johannes Itten, a Swiss color and art theorist who was teaching at the School of Applied Arts in Weimar, Germany. This school is also known as 'Bauhaus'. Johannes Itten developed 'color chords' and modified the color wheel. Itten's color wheel is based on red, yellow, and blue colors as the primary triad and includes twelve hues.
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