A Brief, Dizzying, Barely Controlled Fall Into the Terrifying World of Multi-Color

I decided to take a page from the design sensibility of the fabulous Lorelei Eurto, and take a small, wavering step away from my beloved Woobie, Monochrome/Duochrome. Just for the day.

It was terrifying.

This is what issued from my fevered brain during my descent into madness, into the topsy-turvy world of More Than Two Colors.

The bracelet above features, from upper right, denim blue coral, little Czech rounds in Montana blue, striped lampwork from Blue Seraphim, some weird seed-like bead I got from Ben Franklin (the store, not the man), green magnesite, lampwork from Kelley Wenzel, wood, a pewter Celtic charm, lampwork from Being Beads, more Montana blue Czech glass and wood, and lastly another lampwork Bead from Kelley Wenzel. Rolo chain from Lima Beads. As you can see I cheated just a little and kept everything pretty much in muted, earthy tones, even the (gulp) blue.

I stepped out just a tad further on this one, with the brighter blue of the little sodalite rounds, but I still had one hand on the Woobie. The beads are (deep breath) first, a lovely lampwork bead at center by Kelley Wenzel, yellow turquoise (which would be green in this case), golden jade, carnelian, sodalite, blue aventurine, chrysanthemum stone, brecciated jasper, Czech pressed and fire-polished glass, striped Javanese glass beads, mahogany obsidian, and green magnesite. This is going to be a FPITA to price out. Perhaps one of the reasons I avoid using a lot of different kinds of beads in something. Oh, and that's annealed steel wire. I formed and hammered every one of those little rat bastard spirals.


This one technically has more than two colors--brown, cream, and green, but one could argue that the brown/cream distinction is mere semantics and I cheated. So sue me. The stones/beads starting from the big barrel bead in the middle are an etched agate barrel (from my recent goodie bag from Kelley Wenzel) which looks amazingly like an ancient African clay bead, a half-dome "shell cap", more yellow (a/k/a green) turquoise, a commercial lampwork bead (I think) from Bead Outlet, a fabulous ceramic bead from Macarrol, lampwork from Kelley Wenzel (right next to the clasp), wood, and lampwork from Blue Seraphim.


I started to feel panicky after this however so I retreated back to the safety of Just Two Colors, and made these. The first one is just basically pink and green. Unless you count copper as a color. Large lampwork bead from Bebes Glass Beads (it's actually a nice olive green, can't see it here), pink jasper nuggets, commercial lampwork from Bead Outlet, yellow (i.e., green) turquoise, another nubby green "seed" bead, and dangling cherry quartz, moukaite, apple green howlite, green magnesite and pearls. Rolo chain from Ornamentea. (I don't really care for any of the pictures I took today--I was all happy because there was bright overcast light but it just looked like fake light. Going to have to redo them all one day.)


I don't like this one. I don't really like yellow and green together all by themselves but I felt constrained by the verdite. I don't want to take it apart because of all the silver I used. If anybody has any suggestions for making it less putrid, I'd be thrilled. I'm not going to list it until it's less putrid.


I have other bead combinations lying around that involve more than two colors but I ran out of time and energy to make them into anything. I'm soooo slow. However, I think I had best come off the color highwire for awhile and do some monochrome. I miss my Woobie.

It's Not Nice to Plagiarize Mother Nature

Tom and I were sitting by Flathead Lake this weekend and I was seized with a fit of creativity and had a relapse of my childhood rock fetish. Most of the mountain lakes, and the rivers around here lie over and are surrounded by the most astounding assortments of tumbled river rock, in wonderful, smooth shapes and vivid colors. Up til recently, most of my jewelry designs have been largely monochromatic and tone-on-tone, or at least in the same color family. I LOVE that look. I haven't really been enticed into making multicolor pieces. But, once again, Lorelei Eurto (this is getting broken record-y, got to find a new minor deity artistic inspiration) has broadened my horizons. She had this nifty little bracelet on Facebook in pinks and oranges (I'd put a picture here but I think she sold it), and I thought, Eureka, it CAN be done. Of course a lot of her stuff is multicolor, I just wasn't willing to see it yet.

So as I looked at these rocks, I saw color combinations that I wouldn't have considered before. And I thought, this could be a really fun way to explore new palettes for jewelry pieces. I started collecting the best specimens and brought them home and photographed them in different combinations. Granted there's some colors missing (fuschia, lime, any shade of blue, etc.), but there was an amazing assortment of muted tones (a dearth of cool colors, alas). These are some of my favorite combinations:











And lastly my compulsive ode to tone-on-tone.


I feel inspired, although I still have a mental block about cool colors. And pink and purple. I hate pink and purple. I used those pink and purple rocks out of sheer iron will and discipline. Keep loving those fall colors...I should get a house on Mars.