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...

4th annual Challenge of Color

I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to do something for this challenge when signing up, but the idea Erin presented for this the 4th annual Challenge of Color was so fun that I finally did sign up.  Keeping my fingers crossed that there'll be something to blog about today.

You can read about the colour challenge game here. In short it's a combination of a colour game and a word game where you start off with one word and search for a colour using it and then use the last word of that colour to search for the next colour. I'll be showing two colour palettes I made using this game/challenge here. First up is my very first try at it. (Note that you can click on the palette thumbnails to see a bigger picture of it at Colourlovers.)

Color by COLOURlovers

dragon prince  
prince charming  
charming orange  
orange dusk  
dusk of blue

Not surprisingly it started out with the word dragon and ended with something less predictable for me: blue. Read as a text it looks like notes for a fantasy story about a dragon prince watching the sunset or something.

While I didn't have any plan for the colour combinations other than to pick colours that looked pretty (and with a name that made it possible to continue the game), I did end up with a palette that turned out to be pretty easy to work with considering I decided on making this a stash busting challenge. I do have components in these colours, even the blue, but even more so I realised I've got some space-dyed viscose gimp in pretty much exactly this palette. No cheating, I swear it wasn't until rummaging through the stash that I realised it.

Ok, it's got a somewhat green tint on one side and it would've been better if combined with the light copper and montana blue cord I also have, but it's still pretty close (not sure how well the colours show up in my photos though).

So it does perhaps look like an easy challenge, but I still procrastinated and got very little done as I felt stuck. In the last minute I made this simple necklace using the whole skein of gimp. It's pretty much just folded on the middle with strands held together with rubber o-rings (quicker than whipping the ends, but wish I had some other colour than black) and copper jump rings attaching the clasp to the cord.

But that does not feel like a finished piece and I really, really wanted a pendant or some other form of focalpiece. Or maybe even just some beads randomly placed on the cords. It's just... I haven't found a focal that feels right yet. One idea was to make a clasp using a big flower or something, but there wasn't one in the right size and colour for me to use -- and I want the dark colours in front.

The closest I've found is this:

But I don't know... Just before going to bed my brain asked me why I didn't just make a pendant using my ginormous stash of seed beads and cabs. A bit too late, brain! Well, if nothing else I could just keep it as is, without any kind of focal, or wrap it a couple of times around my wrist and wear it as a bracelet instead (= no need for focals)...

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For my second palette, I picked one of my own colours to start with. Partially because I couldn't think of a good word to start with, but partially also to challenge myself to use something other than just the favourite words that kept popping up in my head that day. So that way my first colour and starting point became powdered thyme.

Color by COLOURlovers

powdered thyme  

thyme & again  
again home  
home is Argentina  
Argentina sky

Again, the challenge ended up somewhere quite unexpected. Starting with thyme and ending with the argentinian sky. And creating a lovely, soft palette along the road.
 
While I really like the colours and should be able to find quite a few matching beads or fibres in the stash right away, I didn't end up with enough time to make something. At least not something tangible, but I did do something creative with it: a pattern (using the pattern template Peonies by yoksel) that I later used in my twitter background (not that I use my twitter account, but I do have one and wanted a prettier background than the one I had). There's a special "Twitter Profile Designer" on Colourlovers called Themeleon that allows you to use your own or others' patterns on your Twitter.


Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers

That's the pattern above (click on it to go to Colourlovers and see it full scale) and here's the Twitter page:

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So that's what I ended up doing, but as I see it this will be an ongoing challenge. I'll keep doing these word/colour games on Colourlovers (here's my profile if interested) and find inspiration for my creative process in it. It's a lot of fun almost a bit addictive once you start. If you haven't tried it, you should! Therefore I want to end this post with a big thank you, Erin, for coming up with this fun, inspirational challenge for us to play with!


PS! To see all participants in this challenge blog hop, please click here.

Copper and lime/chartreuse

I don't know... am I weird for loving this colour combo? I know I have a couple of colour combos that no one seems to like as much as I do. This might be one of them -- or is there others out there that likes this too?

It's especially the mix of coppery autumn leaves and yellow-green foliage as you can see in these pics of wild strawberry plants and fallen horse-chestnut leaves. There's just something about the brilliance of the colours that I fall for even if such bright lime/chartreuse colours, almost neon at times, isn't usually my cup of tea (OT: I don't like tea so tea isn't my cup of tea either). Perhaps it's the environment in which I find these colours that does it. The garden when summer turns into autumn with leaves often bright and crisp as they've been washed by a rain shower or covered by dew after a cold night. Add to that the warm light from a sun that sets early -- now more to the west than during summer and thus in a straight angle to the garden.

This isn't a new thing either, not a sudden love of an eye-catching colour that'll fade as fast as it came (as my current interest in neon pink -- have suddered at the mere mentioning of neon, but loved them as a kid and kind of fell in love with that crazy colour again when neon came into fashion again). This is something I've been thinking of and enjoyed taking photos of for several years now -- see e.g. this post and others tagged autumn. But still I've probably never used the colour combo in my works. Probably because I worry about not finding the right beads, that the colours won't have the crisp vibrance they have in the leaves around the farm.

Alas, I just have to mention that there's a sad thing about these photos. Had I taken them these few last weeks it'd would've been nothing but lovely autumn photos, but they're taken on july 25th. In the middle of the summer our beautiful, big horse chestnut tree looked like this:

Half the tree never even got leaves this spring and the half that did started shedding them way too early. I so hope it isn't really diseased and have to come down. There's been something afflicting horse chestnut trees around the country for some years now and I hope this isn't it. I'd cry seeing this tree being cut down. It's always been there in the middle of the garden for as long as I can remember. Not an ideal climbing tree, we still tried to climb up it several times. We've played around it and gathered conkers and leaves every autumn when we were kids. It's not the farm's vårdträd ("warden tree"), I'd say the ash by the road is that, but it's still one of two remaining big trees in the garden (the other being the much older ash, the third used to be the century-old pear tree that snapped in a storm years ago and which is now but a stump though still alive). I just wish it has many more years left to live. It'd leave a big empty space behind if it died, not just literally in the garden but in my heart. I love our big, old trees.

July bead soup palette

Well, just got a lot of cats before the weekend so this monday I'm doing things a bit differently and will just be showing this colour palette -- if you want another cat, check out the last version I made of the Julle digital doodles on my Flickr page.

You might recognize the silk cord from this post, but I think the colours look better in this photo. The beads are also a new addition -- one that made my sis wonder what was happening: something must be wrong or at least weird when I buy blue stuff. I opened the envelope and showed the beads I'd bought, most in more or less my usual colour palette (gilt lavender, black diamond, brown-lined montana, mauve, paprika etc) which perhaps made this colour stand out even more in her eyes. It was the first thing she saw and the first thing she commented. To my defence, it's a slightly violet purple so it's not such a big leap as it might seem to those who know of my disinterest -- yeah, let's call it that -- in blue.

Anyway, this month's palette turned out to be an analogue colour scheme. Just two items, but they are both variegated which add some depth and life to the mix. The silk is mainly blue with periwinkle, blue-violet and violet. The beads are in a similar blue with mauve accents. It's a simple palette, but one with a lot of colour to draw the eye towards it while at the same time being calm and serene.

For this palette I chose to use colour-lined seed beads. I really like this type for two reasons. First of all because of the interaction between the colour in the glass itself and the colour of the lining, I love seeing what happens when combining colours this way. Secondly, this bead finish combines the qualities of both transparent and opaque beads. It has the depth, shine and lightness of a transparent bead paired with the solid colour of opaque beads. If you haven't tried colour-lined beads, but want something with more opacity and impact than transparent beads, but without the "flat" appearance of opaque beads, you should give this bead type a go.

What's the deal with glow in the dark?

Those of you who don't know me very well (and it's not many that do), might not be aware of my penchant for glow-in-the-dark supplies. It's nothing you see me use very often and it's not like I have some compulsion to buy all kinds of glow-in-the-dark stuff. It's just that I have this childish fascination for glow-in-the-dark (aka GITD) craft supplies like glass beads, embroidery floss, yarn, clay, paint, craft and beading wire, sequins, inkjet paper etc.

Therefore you can right now find GITD sequins, Accu-Cord beading wire and seed beads (including twin beads) on my wishlist. Things some of you probably weren't even aware of existed. As for the two first items, I didn't know they existed until I got the idea to google it. I mean, it's GITD. If I can imagine a product in GITD, surely, someone out there somewhere must have already thought of it and begun making it. And it looks like they did.

As the days are getting darker, it feels like the perfect time to start thinking of some glow-in-the-dark project to make.I have made one, a GITD light garland, the which you can read about here (and/or here for a tutorial in Swedish). I do quite enjoy that one. I put the lights up in my bedroom and now that the evenings and nights are darker, I fall asleep under my own little starry sky.

In that post I also mentioned how my sis and I painted a night sky on a ceiling. I'm sorry to say it's just impossible for me to get a decent pic of it as it's so discreet in daylight (we tried our best to do it in a grown-up, stylish way...) and so hard to photograph at night. The best I can give you is one of the walls were you can see the house with GITD windows. I mixed the GITD paint with the wall paint to get a subdued glow, not as strong as in the stars but rather diffused (a trick I learned from a woman who gave me a tip about GITD polyclay and how I could mix it with other colours of clay). There is a constellation further up on the wall, but it's pretty much impossible to see in that artificial light.

(Yeah, painting those apple tree branches was a slight PITA. First tracing them on the painted wall using a strong lamp and a branch placed in the right angle and distance from the wall and then painting the whole thing using small brushes and paint mixed to one or so shade darker than the wall. Fun fact: guess how long it took before the cats dirtied the wall? Yepp, that fast.)

Anyway, back to my GITD stash. Many things are still just on my wishlist, but I have a few fun things to play with anyway.

First there's this glow-in-the-dark polyester embroidery floss from DMC. Really good glow in it and very soft and pliable. This thread is part of DMC's Light Effects range, no. E940. Do believe there are other GITD embroidery threads available too, but this is the only one I have.

Then there's my never opened package of nightglow Fimo polymer clay. Have thought about using this as mentioned above, blended with other colours. Not sure exactly what I want to do with this, though.

Then there's my beads. The starfish pendant actually belongs to my sis now. It's one of those sold without the GITD particles in it mentioned. Fun surprise for some, not so fun for others. My favourite amongst the few czech and chinese GITD glass beads I have are without a doubt the czech pinkish flower and leaf beads. Unlike many beads, the GITD effect isn't that apparent in daylight. No spooky-coloured spots or whitish lines as in the other beads in the pic. They look very normal -- unlike you turn off the light.

In the background you can also see som of my Hama "perler beads". When I got the idea to make my GITD lights, I had to buy a whole package of these beads, about 1 000 of which I used perhaps 100-150 for the light project. So I have a lot of plastic beads left to play with.

And that's pretty much it. They things I have to work with for a GITD project right now. I wonder what I'll do with it?


PS! For a longer, but still far from complete, list of GITD supplies of interest to beaders and jewellery makers, see this post in my other blog.

PPS! Couldn't keep from making a new Pinterest board: Glow in the dark craft ideas.

Tinted patina

Double post today. Just a quick snapshot of a couple of ammonia patina'd bronze tags. Like most of my tags, the most intense blues faded from the crusty patina surface. Having seen metal colouring techniques and patinas that were made on a base of a "primer" patina, I thought why not dye the verdigris crust with some alcohol ink. To boost the colour in the first case (left) and add another colour in the second (right).

You could probably do something more interesting with this that just add a few drops in the middle of the tag like here. This was just a first try to see how the ink reacted with the patina, how it'd spread and how well it'd stick.

Adding the pic, I was reminded of an old photo of a rose I made using layers of alcohol inks in a two or three different shades on a brass ox flower. Add a really matte spray lacquer and you get a nice velvet-like feel. (That white smudge is made by the nick in the lens on my old camera -- will not be missing that about it!)