Radiant Orchid

No one's missed that Pantone made Radiant Orchid the color of the year 2014. And that means I have the first colour challenge for the year sorted out. Time to get the beads and supplies out to challenge myself to create something in this colour. Which shouldn't be too hard seeing how I love purple. But that doesn't mean there hasn't been problems.

The first problem was defining the new colour. For some time I thought -- and I wasn't the only one to think so -- that Radiant Orchid was the colour seen in the picture on the Pantone website, the one with orchids that you can see below. Problem is, it's not. It's the the warmer hue I've inserted in the bottom left corner that's Radiant Orchid, according to Pantone's color formulas & guides page. Or is it?

When playing around with the spring/summer palette I used an eye drop tool to copy the colours from their images of the palette. Doing that I got a Radiant Orchid that's closer to the background colour than the square based on their own html colour code... That's the colour you can see below to the left.

Now, of cause, those details doesn't really matter that much. It's just a shade of colour some company want to hype in order to make money and gain PR. But it's the principle (and, yes, in my head I said that as "Det är principen, Månsson"). I can't help it, I want things to be correct. Even if it is silly little things, I'll take the time to investigate it.

Also, I didn't care much for the colder purple I first thought was Radiant Orchid. It was a bit boring, not having the same wow factor as, say, the men's equivalent to it, Magenta Purple (see above, right). But Radiant Orchid according to the Pantone colour forumla is yummier. In fact, I have a top in pretty much that exact shade. A little darker, but the same type of colour.

But what colours do I have in Radiant Orchid? What do I have available for my personal colour challenge? Even after defining what the colour looked like, I was so uncertain about which bead colours would be the closest match. The main issue was the fact I didn't have the computer near the beads nor do I have a physical  swatch so I had to try and remember what it looked like when rummaging through the bead stash.

First I looked at my swaros. I don't have many, but of cause a third of the stash is purples. My first thought when seeing Radiant Orchid was Cyclamen opal. Unfortunately, I only have a tiny rivoli pendant in that Swarovski colour so I still don't know if that's the best match. Some bead shops suggests light amethyst, but to me it feels way too pale.

In the picture above you can see light amethyst (big big), cyclamen opal satin (bicones, too purple in sunlight to match), cyclamen opal (left pendant) and -- I think -- antique pink. Of cause, it's hard to get all the hues precisely right if you're an amateur photographer like me, but I hope the frame below makes it easier to compare the colours to Radiant Orchid.

 Yeah, my swaros are ok, but not the best match. I feel like radiant orchid beads should be opaque or frosted, not transparent, to really be at its best. Opal are ok, but they often have a range of hues in them so while cyclamen opal feels like a good match one second, it looks too pink or too violet the next. If I am to buy new colours for this challenge of mine, it won't include cyclamen opal, I'm afraid.

Seed beads then? Surely I should have a lot of purple seeds? Well, actually not as many as you'd think, at least not many rosy purples. The three closest matching colours I found were opaque berry pearl matte (Preciosa Ornela) and  Gilt Lined Permanent Finish Lavender Toho). The first feels like the better match, but it does feel too red/ dark rose -- I really want that dark lilac tone you can see in Radiant Orchid. Yeah, Goldilocks here...

I did a couple of pics with the beads framed with Radiant Orchid (using Pantone's colour code, b163a3) to make it easier to compare the colours. Of cause, it's still a photo so the bead colours might not show up exactly the same hue as in real life, but it does make it a little easier to compare colours.

That's my top, mentioned above, that I used for yet another colour comparison. The colour of the plastic rosebud beads is, according to one bead shop I saw them in, simple called purple (or more precisely, lila).

Fire-polished beads then? Well, the closest match has to be my chalk alexandrite purple luster beads. Which I forgot to take a photo of so I did it now, indoors and in relatively poor light that might not show its true colours. In fact, I haven't even compared it with the other beads in daylight. Bear with me, I'll add a better photo later, but until then I hope this will make due.

But the best match I've found in my stash so far isn't even a bead colour, it's a bottle of acrylic paint in the colour Blackberry and a square of chalk. Unfortunately, I can't really get the chalk to show its real colour, it comes out very pale and matte in the photos. It's much more vibrant IRL.

Comparing with my top (above) and the matte berry pearl seeds (below).

And then it was the blackberry paint.

There might be some yarn too. Haven't actually gone through the yarn bag as I didn't think that far. Closest matches -- and now I'm just going though the stash in my head -- are probably these two:

You can see more of that fluffy yarn Anna in this post. Dont' have much left, though, after finishing the scarf so it might not be enough for a Radiant Orchid project. Maybe I need to buy more despite my shopping ban, but I don't even know if it's still in stock. That last pic is of a rolled up pom-pom fringe/trim if you didn't see that -- check out this post for more about that. Darker and more rose coloured than the Anna yarn above. It's closer to the berry pearl seed beads than the purple yarn (from Rusta) in colour.

So that's what I've got to work with right now. No idea where to go from this point, but at least I have something to play with even without buying beads particularly for this personal challenge. Though in the end, I'll probably used the colour of the year as an excuse to buy more seed beads...

Ok, just one more

I should be getting ready for bed soon as I have to get up early tomorrow, but after writing about the differences between the men's and women's Pantone palette and turning off the computer, I couldn't stop thinking about comparing not only the palettes on a whole, but some of the colour combos I made. Side by side, just to show what a difference a small or big change in hue can do.

And here's the result. Guess I should've broken it down into seperate images and kind of regret using the flower brush instead of just a simple round one, but this will have to do for now. You might find it easier to focus on each pair if you block out the rest with your hand or a piece of paper.

 Did I miss any combo you wanted to compare? Hope not. Felt it was too much to do them all, especially if only, say, the light violets changed as they're so similar. Because of that a couple of the mutual colours from the palettes (Sand, Freesia aren't represented.

As some sort of conclusion, I could perhaps say that seeing the colour combos from the men's palette post and the women's palette post paired up like this makes me compare the combos and pick favourites. Sometimes I prefer the "feminine" version and other times I prefer the "masculine" version. Paired up like this, they compete with each other and sometimes a stronger colour makes the first version I made look boring, even though I still prefer it. The Cayenne - Celosia Orange - Radiant Orchid combo in the bottom right corner is a good example of that. Cover the "masculine" version and the "feminine" version looks much better (in my opinion at least). And in the Radiant Orchid - Cayenne - Hemlock combo, you can really see how the Cayenne looks darker in the "feminine" version and pales against the stronger colours in the "masculine" version.

And that's it. I promise it'll be the last post on colour combos from the Pantone Spring/Summer 2014 palettes. Not the last mention of it, especially as I like to challenge myself with the Color of the Year every year, but I won't -- probably -- keep making posts on the same colour combos over and over and go on about the palettes themselves.

Playing with the men's palette for spring

Ok, so I had to play a little with the men's palette too now that it have such a yummy purple. And, again, not the best graphics -- if nothing else I should make more space around each colour mix -- but I hope it isn't too messy.

While I've found it fun and inspiring to keep up with Pantone's trend colour reports, it's really just the last couple of years that I discovered the men's palette. It's in many ways an appendix to the main palette, which is applied to women's fashion, make-up and interior decorating. No wonder perhaps, considering how conservative men's fashion can seem compared to women's. But since at least a few of the colours in the palettes are different, it's interesting to look at both. To compare and to get even more colour inspiration.

And this is the result of my playing with the men's palettes. I've tried to avoid combos just using the colours that are the same as in the women's palette as you can find those combos in yesterday's post, but I did include a couple -- including the yellow and blue you might have thought as swede would pick instantly (but that would be forgetting I'm a skåning and we have our own red and yellow flag -- also, I find the combo too bright for my personal taste).

As you can see above, I really like Magenta Purple this time. It was also nice to work with Comfrey, a deeper (or as Pantone calls, it "masculine") version of the women's Hemlock. The only other diffrenece between the two palettes is that this on has a hue called Purple Haze, "a deeper, stronger version of Violet Tulip", which you get in the women's palette. Your really need to put them side by side -- or preferably overlapping -- to see the difference:

Well, why not compare all three differences between the palettes side by side while I'm on Pixlr Editor anyway?

Ok, yesterday I said Magenta Purple was more of a totally different purple than just "a more robust version of Radiant Orchid" as Pantone called it, but now that I see them like this I do see the "kinship".

But do you know what the image above also illuststrates? Pantone's view on feminine and masculine colours. I'm sure there'll be many women, however, that prefer the less pastel-y "masculine" palette. As a kid, I would've been drawn to the top row, no doubt, but today I really like the more vivid, deeper colours of the second row. It's just recently I started to like pastels -- to an extent -- again so I don't hate the calm colours of the upper row, it's just that I like some more character in my colours sometimes.

The best thing is perhaps what happens when you mix the two:

Yin Yang à la Pantone?

You know, in a way that last pic might be one of the most inspiring palettes I made from the two Pantone palettes. It shows how colour combinations is just as much about different hues/shades as about different colours.

So, your turn: what do you think about the women's versus the men's palette for spring?

Playing with Pantone's spring palette

Ok, before anything else, I must point out that the mess above wasn't made with the intent of ever publishing it online. It looks chaotic and it's hard to separate one colour mix from the other, but I hope you will show forgiveness considering it wasn't made to be seen by anyone but myself. So that was that out of the way, now we can continue, starting from the beginning

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I was just reading Brandi Hussey's blog post Pantone's Spring 2014 Colors, which prompted me to also play around with the trend colour palette and see what colour combos I could find and be inspired to use.

As I mentioned in a comment to her post, I agree that the palette for the coming spring season doesn't really have a huge wow factor. Some complain there's too many pastels, but with my love of nature, antiques and romantic styles, it's ok I think. The light blue is boring, but on the other hand it can be useful mixing with other, more interesting, colours. And at first, I wasn't over the moon about Radiant Orchid being the colour of the year 2014, but I think it looks very nice is smaller portions -- such as beads! -- than when first seeing the big blocks of colours Pantone put up on their website and on Pinterest.

All in all, I like that there's two purples -- warm, pinkish Radiant Orchid and cool, bluish Violet Tulip -- even if I wish we got the Magenta Purple from the men's palette too (think Swarovski's Blackberry pearl and you can picture magenta purple). Cayenne was the colour that surprised me the most as I fell for it instantly. Love it, really. Judging from the image above, Cayenne and Violet Tulip seems to be my two favourites. And an icy green is never wrong, either on it's own or to enhance a cool purple or add a pinch of foggy colour to a light grey.

There's two blues too. It was just when starting to write this I realised my total neglect of Dazzling Blue when playing with the palette. No wonder, really, seeing how blue isn't my favorite colour. Even if I'm attracted to some blues (e.g. dark indigo, foggy grey-blues) and find that many blues are great for enhancing my beloved purples, roses and greens, this particular blue felt uninspiring. But let's see. Let's actually use that too:

That's better, it needed to be included. And while I might not like to use all of these above, it does show off the colour as a useful one despite my scepticism. As you can see, I'm reluctant to mix blue and orange. That's a very strong mix of colour (and one both my almae matres -- Lunda university and Mälardalen university collage -- used). Too much for me.

Still, the two most bright colours in the palette, Dazzling Blue and Freesia, are the ones that inspire me the least. At least the bland Sand and Paloma (light grey) are useful neutrals and the low key pastels like Placid Blue and Hemlock have a nice, soft calmness that can be a nice addition in some designs.

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By the way, I mentioned the men's palette. Below is a comparison between the women's (the palette you'll see most of online) and the men's palette. The women's palette is the top one.

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See what I mean about Magenta Purple and Blackberry? They guys' violet is called Violet Haze and called "a deeper, stronger version of Violet Tulip" -- and Magenta Purple is called "a more robust version of Radiant Orchid". Well, hopefully we gals will get a deeper, darker purple too in autumn if Swarovski is any indication.

Anyway, my favourite colour combo from the trend report would actually be Radiant Orchid and Magenta Purple.

Told you I love purple the most...

Pink as autumn colour

These are some photos I took last year when I, inspired -- or if you prefer, challenged -- by the Pantone Color of the Year 2011 ( Honeysuckle) and the photos I showed in Autumn in pink and chartreuse, thought about different ways of using pink in my beadwork.

I had used a special kind of pink, the lovely juicy padparadscha, with my favourite brown and olive green/kakhi autumn colours several times so it wasn't a novel idea to me, pink as part of an autumnal palette. But this time I tried a few other combos too, using varying pinks such as rose satin and indian pink instead of just padparadscha. Never got around to post the pics during autumn and them came winter and if felt too late. But now I'm dusting them off.

This post is related to my "Turquoise as an autumn colour" and "Lime and chartreuse as autumn colours" on my other blog. There I discussed these colours that you might not consider autumnal and how to use them in autumn-themed colour palettes.

Tangerine Tango bracelet

I'm not just embroidering, I do still make jewellery. As mentioned before, I've taken on the Pantone Colour of the Year, Tangerine Tango, as a personal colour challenge for 2012. Here's my first finished piece inspired by that vibrant red orange.

This is a simple braclet made from a large gold-plated curb chain and heavy space-dyed rayon yarn that I wove through the links of the chain. I finished off by adding a big lobster clasp to the chain (with unsoldered chains like this one you don't need jump rings, just attach the clasp directly to the chain by opening the link like a jump ring).

Simple, but I like it. Not my favourite colours, but I don't hate them. I'm probably going to do some more bracelets in this design, trying different yarns, cords and ribbons to see how that changes the look.

So, anyone else who's challenged themselves and made something Tangerine Tango yet?

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Previous post on the "Tangerine Tango challenge":

• Tangerine Tango -- a new personal colour challenge
• Tangerine Tango? (I do have an idea for that gimp now actually)

Tangerine Tango?

In an earlier post, I wrote about taking on Pantone's Color of the Year as a personal colour challenge. I've been going through my stash to try and find something in the appropriate shade and it came as no surpise that most of my oranges where brownish, such as different topaz shades and indian red. Most of my reds are dark, maroon and burgundy. But I did find some hyacinth orange glass beads, a red-yellow murano flower bead that's sort of red-orange like Tangerine Tango -- and then my orange and purple viscose gimp cord, as seen above.

I bought this space-dyed cord from Stef Francis, thinking I like purple and that orange was kind of nice paired with my favourite colour, but since then I just haven't found a good project for it. Guess it's time to find one now. The purple is sort of the kind of purple found in the Pantone spring colour trend report, I'll be using for my challenge. Maybe it isn't exactly Tangerine Tango, but this will be an interesting part of my challenge, finding a good use for this gimp.

PS! I have used gimp in my jewellery at least once before: the green cord in my ribbon jewellery project Vaucresson Rose necklace.

Tangerine Tango -- a new personal colour challenge

I like when Pantone (and other paint companies for that matter) announce a new Color of the Year. Not because I follow fashion trends or anything like that, but because I treat it like a colour challenge. Especially these last couple of years when it has been at least partially about colours I don't use very often, such as Honeysuckle (I actually do like it a lot!), whatever turquoise/sky blue it was the year before and the egg yolk yellow Mimosa before that.

This year it's Tangerine Tango, a vivid and warm red orange, that got the honor. Described by Pantone as "Sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive, Tangerine Tango is an orange with a lot of depth to it /.../ Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy."

But most interesting is perhaps that it's used as a spring colour. I use orange sometimes, but almost always mixed with browns, yellows, reds and other autumn tones. Often using beads that mix  two or more of those colours in one piece. I have even done a piece using topaz yellow, carnelian orange and dark pink. It's not my favourite colour and a really bright orange can have me stumped, but what's going to be my personal challenge is using this colour either on its own (or as a main colour) or mixing it with colours from Pantone's spring colour trend report, as seen below.

So I've tried orange-yellow-pink before. And orange with purple. (And orange-white-copper, but that's a whole other story.) Have seen orange and dark blue done by someone else and not sure if I'll do that (but maybe I should -- and add some of that dark pink to it just for fun).  The big challenge would be to use at least one colour from the second row. Not the nougat Starfish, a neutral is trying to take the easy way out.

Oh, I must admit to really liking the look of that dramatic pink (Cabaret) next to the dark blue (Sodalite Blue). Remember when Swarovski launched their innovations with those two colours? Never thought I'd like that combo as much as I do!



PS! You can read more about Tangerine Tango here. Inspiration for beaders can be found at e.g. Beverly Ash Gilbert's blog or in Rena Klingenberg's report on the news. For colour trends from bead manufacturers like Swarovski and Preciosa, please see my other blog for on trend colours for 2012. I've also pinned some of them on my Inspirational colour palettes pinboard, I think.