I am the Kat that Walks By Itself

Hello peoples! I spent a lot of time today rearranging my computer desktop to change the way my social media stuff is organised. Hopefully one of the consequences of this is that I'll stop neglecting y'all on Dreamwidth.

But, on to the proper topic of this post - 2025 Goals for Craft stuff (as distinct from goals for my entire life). I figure that since it's still currently January, I can get away with not having posted this, like, on New Year's Day. Though one advantage is that I've actually completed a few of these goals already, in this month of January! I don't really want to call these "New Year's Resolutions" because that seems too burdensome. But it's fine to make plans, yeah?

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That's probably enough to go on with.

One of the first things to consider when choosing a colour scheme for jewellery is "Silver or Gold?" One reason is that the most common colours for findings are silver and gold. The more important reason is that jewellery, unlike paintings, is made for wearing, and it is usually worn close to the skin; the skin is the backdrop of the jewellery. Some people have warm skin tones, and some people have cool skin tones(*). If the jewellery doesn't match the skin tone, the person can end up looking washed-out and ill. Warm skin tones need warm colours (gold), and cool skin tones need cool colours (silver).

The colour wheel can be divided into cool colours and warm colours. The warm colours are fire colours and autumn colours: the reds, oranges, yellows, golds, browns. The cool colours centre around blue: blues, greens, purples. Green and purple, however, are on the edge; the yellow in green can make it warm, and the red in purple can make it warm. Purple can be a bit paradoxical; it can look cool against warm colours and warm against cool colours. Green can look good with either warm or cool colours. Pastels also tend to be cool, because they have a lot of white in them, and white is cool. Silver, white, grey and black are all cool.

Just because you want your jewellery to be warm or cool doesn't mean you're limited to use only certain colours. One can often "warm up" or "cool down" a colour scheme by adding lots of gold to warm it up, or lots of silver to cool it down.
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P.S. One thing I don't understand, I have no theory for, is why "jewel-toned" colours work with cool skin tones. I mean, things like sapphire-blue and emerald-green are understandable, but why does ruby-red work? Tomato-red is awful, but things that are crimson and scarlet - those dark, deep reds - they work well. Why?

Sometimes, when people look at my work, they say "I wish I could make stuff like that. You are so talented! I could never do that!" and I want to stamp my foot and say "Yes, yes you CAN!" Because it isn't that hard, really. I mean, yes, I am talented (being honest, here) and some crafts are harder than others, but "never" is too strong a word. I will concede that if you are colourblind, blind, have no use of your hands, or have the attention span of a deranged ferret, the obstacles to making craft are extremely high, but otherwise, no.

But maybe I'm making assumptions. So here is a survey.

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Crossposted to http://kerravonsen.livejournal.com/1035232.html