- Seasons of the year: I find combining colours of the same season of the year more useful than the colour wheel. For example combining your muddy autumn colours like brown, olive green and rusty orange or your summer pastels like pink, pastel blue, pastel green, etc. For a more dramatic effect the winter colours combine well like black, red and white.
- Clothing: If you are making something for a special outfit, a good idea is to combine colourful clothing with a simple necklace or simple clothing with a colourful necklace. It makes it easier to chose your colours and get the colour combination right. Also useful to know, is that a colourful necklace can be combined with many different coloured clothing while a simple coloured necklace could pick up a less dominant colour in your clothing and emphasize it. A simple necklace can also look good with a simple dress. Depending on the effect you wish to create.
- Purpose of the jewellery: If you are making jewellery to sell, try not to stick to your own personal favourite colours. For example I am an autumn person but my pink jewellery sells best. I try to experiment with all the colours in the patterns that I make. If I make jewellery for a specific person I make sure I know what colour code they are, in other words what colour hair, eyes and skin they have and then classify them into a season. This is particularly useful when it is a surprise present.
- I find shades of the same colour also very useful to use, especially if you do not have a broad choice of colour (for example when you make something for a colourful dress). Shades of the same colour often give the impression of a third dimension to a necklace.
- If I have a background feature, like a strap, and a main feature, I always make sure I add a colour of the background feature in my main feature. When you do that the two features blend in and become a single unit instead of being two separate features.
Enjoy your beading
Cecilia Rooke
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