02 December 2013

4th Annual Challenge of Color :: ColourLovers

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Welcome to the 4th Annual Challenge of Color!

This year I suggested that we get our palettes from the ColourLovers.com website. The people who are part of that community do a great job of making really interesting palettes and also naming the colors and their corresponding palettes very intriguingly! One of the things that hooked me on the site, was the ability to make my own palettes using the names of the colors as the guide in a community game called WordLinks. You can read more about the game and how to play on my original blog post.

I will admit that even though this is my Challenge, it can be a real challenge to me, too! My biggest nemesis is time. So on Sunday night at about 7:30 I was actually able to sit down and build a palette and create something. I had hoped to do more than this, but time just didn't seem to slow down, even though my computer made it seem like time had stood still. I have issues with this old beast in that I can move from one page or window to another, but it takes like 20 minutes to refresh. And of course, I had the ubiquitous camera issues since I dropped my camera a few months ago. So please bear with me!

I decided to give myself the twist - the Word Link palette.
 
I had a beautiful ceramic pendant from Marsha Neal Studios on my table so I knew that I wanted to start with a nice deep red, so I chose Red Red Wine. What followed next is exactly plucked from the rabbit hole of the color palette generator!

Red_red_wine


Red Red Wine led to Wine Stained which brought me to Stained Green.


I had this lovely beaded component from Kristen Stevens. I love her little beaded gems! The deep garnet and soft touch of matte green would make a beautiful focal!

And I also happened to have this half strand of mossy green jasper, not sure what it is called. Perfect for the Stained Green color!

The next one was the wildcard. The greatest thing with the Word Links challenge is making a circular link where the first word of the first color matches the last word of the last color. So I knew that I needed to end on Red.

Typing in Green Gem gave me a lot to choose from with that color name. Everything from bright lime to deep forest. But my eye was drawn to the more mellow teal color. This is a surprising twist in this palette. But I like it! I chose to use a beautiful rough cut emerald stone to represent the Green Gem, since that is a true green gem. Yes, these are real emeralds! Not heat treated or highly polished, but a rich and saturated deep blue-green. I got them at Soft Flex who happens to be having a 70% off sale on their beads and gemstones.

And that led me back to Red. Gems Red!

For a little motion, I added these little rizo beads that look like funky little colored bits of rice. They have a hole at the top and are coated with an AB finish on one side, giving them a unique color and flash.I like to think not only of color, but texture when I am designing. This broke up the field of color and shape and played with the light.

I call my necklace Wine-Stained Gems in reference to the palette.


 

Here are the Word Link colors with their Hex numbers:

Red Red Wine 6E0000
Wine-Stained 351A22
Stained Green 506C05
Green Gem 0C6457
Gems Red 4 691A30

You will notice that the colors in this palette are all in a more muted shade. None of them are outside of the same saturation level as the others. I think that is why it works, but I am no color guru! Speaking of color gurus...if you haven't already checked out Brandi's blog she is the one to watch. Her posts on color theory are awesome and her book, Understanding Color,  is a great reference. She just relaunched her Color Palette Club as a reference tool that will be fantastic for designers!

And just for fun, I created this pattern using their online tools.



I really wanted to make a few more things based off a few more palettes, and I think I will, because I had a lot of fun making the palettes themselves. A good tool to remember when I find myself stuck in a drab color rut!

If you were able to carve out some time to play along with me, please feel free to add your blog to the InLinkz code below. If the holidays took over and you find yourself with more ideas than time, no worries! The number one rule is this is supposed to be FUN! If you are not having fun, you aren't doing it right! ;-)



14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Erin, I played around so much with the Colour Lovers site, I found myself muttering late at night "and here is another fine mess you have gotten me into". I have enjoyed making palettes and patterns, why you could design a whole wardrobe using this site, accessorizing with the colors from y9ur palettes. Great fun once again.
I do love the muted tones in your palette. I find myself being more monochromatic and need to learn to get that wild card in there. Great necklace of course.

Tanya said...

Erin, thank you so much for hosting the challenge. While I had a bit of trouble with this one, I had fun playing with the palettes and plan to revisit them again.

(And one of these days, my palettes will come full circle. I never could get them to do that.)

Your necklace is amazing! I love how you used the rizo beads. They go so well with the pearls. The hints of blue and green are perfect.

Janine said...

Erin, thank you so much for hosting this blog hop and for the inspiration. And for the new addiction....Gosh, creating your own palette is great fun and you just can't stop.

Love the palette you made. To me it has a very oriental/middle eastern feel to it.

Your necklace is simply amazing.

Anonymous said...

I like that colour palette a lot! The focal on your necklace is gorgeous too. I always worry with red and green together - does it looks too Christmassy? But your necklace looks so elegant and cool!

Thank you for pointing us in the direction of ColourLovers - I reckon I will be using them a lot in the future!

Ann Schroeder said...

It is so fun to see the palettes people have created and then the pieces they create from the palettes! Lovely necklace! Love those little rizo beads!

Marsha of Marsha Neal Studio said...

Oh - HOW addictive is that site!!! I get their email newsletters and it's like a splash of color inspiration in amongst all the junk mail - wonderful!!!

Very cool seeing what everyone is inspired by and a nice reminder that sometimes it is great to do a bit of inspirational research to get the creative juices flowing right before you sit and design.

Thanks for the shout out for the pendant - your work is SO beautiful!
:)

AntiquityTravelers said...

I need to get on a mailing list so I don't miss your challenges! I just love them!! And that paisley you created? you created it? I LOVE it! I might need to use that for inspiration

Karen Williams said...

Playing with color is such fun, and even more so with names like "Red Red Wine"! I hadn't considered using the names to help build a palette - fun. :)

Your necklace - is it a photograph or is it a sketch, or is it a combination of the two? I couldn't tell, but I really like the effect.

Maneki said...


Thank you for hosting this fun challenge! Colourlovers really is a great source of inspiration and addictive colour tools.

Lovely, colourful autumn palette you got there! And the style of the necklace also have that autumn feel not just in colour but also in the shape of the beads.

Time really likes to mess with creative challenges like this, doesn't it? I can't really blame it on being preoccupied as much as being an incurable procrastinator (even procrastinating blog hopping...) and sometimes falling into a creative slump, but in the end the problem is the same, a lack of a very important component in the creative process called time. To make it worse, my forte is seed beads and working with needle n thread -- and you can't just whip something together in an hour using such slow techniques. Otherwise I can find that a lack of time can be beneficial too when you just have to throw something together and it turns out that the things you instinctively grab turn into something rather good. It keep one from over-thinking a design at least and/or help you stop dilly-dallying and just make a decision about details you get stuck on. But, yeah, it works best if you're good at stringing etc and working with striking beads rather than seeds (which are more like pixels you have to piece together in order to make them interesting while focals and other beads have more of a design in themselves to build on so to speak).

Unknown said...

Miss Erin you rock my world!!!!! I loved seeing your amazing necklace and I am so sorry I missed this challenge!!!

Anonymous said...

Thanks again for a fabulous challenge! I'll definitely be going back to Colourlovers, just probably not this month!
And your palette is beautiful, as is the necklace it inspired. I do like the idea of starting with a focal and creating a palette around it.

Caron Michelle said...

Thank you Erin for creating another fabulous challenge, I just loved the thought process you put into creating the challenges for us all! The designs and palettes created are sensational - bravo to all!

Laurel said...

This is my first every blog challenge and I have to say how much I enjoyed it! I went a little crazy with palettes and patterns and plan to make more jewelry using different color combinations. I did have trouble finding good color names to build from, but still had a great time. Thank you for your great inspirational blog and example.

Jean Katherine Baldridge said...

I love this blog hop! xox jean

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