SED 13: What Kind of Rainbow is it?

[kerravonsen]

My favourite craft book ever is "The Complete Book of Beads" by Janet Coles & Robert Budwig. Unfortunately, it is out of print, though a diligent seeker might find it second-hand. The reason why I love this book is because, unlike practically every other craft book ever, it doesn't just have "recipes" to make stuff, but it discusses design, and has fabulous pictures of beads and necklaces to inspire you. It talked about planning, about shape, texture, size and weight. And it talked about colours and themes. Awesome.

So today I'd like to talk about colour. Mainly in regard to bead-stringing, but this is also applicable to other crafts where you have to choose coloured items from a limited palette, such as perler beads, chainmaille rings, and yarn. Color Terms for Art and Design 1 tells you about hues, the colour wheel, primary, secondary and tertiary colours, analogous colours, and complementary colours, so go and read it if you don't know what they are, because it has pretty pictures and I don't.

* Colour Theory: Hue and Saturation is a good video; while it is talking about painting, the stuff he talks about can apply to colour-choice as well.
* Colour Theory: Balance and Harmony actually explains choosing colours a lot better than I was going to attempt to! Yes, again he's talking about painting, but it can still be applied to choosing colours rather than mixing colours.

So... how does all this apply to choosing colours for beading?

1. Black and White and Silver are your friends. They go with anything. They balance out bright contrasting colours. They let the eye rest in between bright colours.
If you want bright eye-popping saturated colours, separate out the colours with black in between and it will look great. Shove them all next to each other and it will be an eyesore.

2. Monochromatic colour scheme: pick one hue, and use darker and lighter shades of it.

3. One colour plus neutral: One colour plus black/white/silver/grey.

4. Analogous colour scheme: pick colours next to each other on the colour wheel.

5. Balanced colour schemes: as in the video, pick colours that will balance out on the colour wheel.

6. It is easier to balance colours of similar intensity/saturation; it isn't required to do so, but it is easier.
If you're doing a rainbow of colours, definitely try to match the colour saturation, it's much too difficult otherwise.

Have some examples from my own work....

Analogous: gold/brown/red


Monochromatic desaturated



One colour plus black


One colour plus silver


Monochromatic: shades of blue


Brown & Green (not sure what category that falls under)


One colour plus black, grey & silver


Analogous: mostly greens, with a bit of blue


Analogous: purple/blue - note that the tone of the two colours of the cord is close; if they were different, it might not work so well


Black is your friend


Copper & Pale green. Note how the pale green is picked up as an accent in the cord.


Dark green + rainbow. Note how none of the colours are neon-bright; the least saturated colours are pale, and the most saturated colours are dark... it all manages to balance out somehow


Analogous plus monochromatic desaturated: black & grey & silver plus brown & champagne & gold


Shades of brown & cream


I fear this means that I am terribly unadventurous in my colour schemes. Oh well. It works for me.

I hope this post has been helpful in thinking about colours.

Comments

[fred_mouse]

A quibble regarding keeping saturation the same for rainbows - with very strong colours, it gets in your face. However, if the intensity grades up then down with the rainbow (so that when you wrap around the rainbow you have the same intensity together) it can work well. Although, the one piece (blanket, crochet) I did this with, the range of intensities is quite small, and I actually have an eight colour rainbow.

[dreamflower]

One thing often influences me in color choice. One of the rules of heraldry is "No color on color or metal on metal".

Metal colors are argent (white or silver) and or (yellow or gold).

All other colors are just colors, including black. So for maximum visibility and contrast, you separate metal colors from color colors. This means instead of putting, say, a blue design on a green background, you put a white or yellow (or silver or gold) outline between the design and the background. Or you can separate a gold and silver stripe by a narrow black border.

(This is pretty close to your principal number one, but includes gold/yellow as well.)

Of course there are often times when I don't want maximum contrast, in which case leaving the outline or border off works to help blend the colors visually.

There are exceptions to every rule of course, but I find it a great rule of thumb. (I've noticed that modern traffic signs adhere to this ancient design principal--and so do most successful business logos!)

[kerravonsen]

Of course there are often times when I don't want maximum contrast, in which case leaving the outline or border off works to help blend the colors visually.

Indeed. Because one isn't always designing a shield or a logo.