Celebrating Beads of Color: Pantone Summer Color Bead Swap

Tangerine Tango? A color study. Oil on canvas by artist Christiane Nault, circa 1990.

Celebrating Beads of Color! 

As jewelry designers, understanding the art of using color in design can be tremendously beneficial, if not imperative, to creating outstanding work. The complexities of color in design can be challenging to master without a formal art education, yet color-ways are an integral part of creating handcrafted jewelry. Understanding and using color well is a skill that can be practiced and improved upon, even informally. Purposely focusing on and expanding your use of color in jewelry design is as important to your craft as perfecting a technique or defining a personal style.

Lori Anderson’s Pantone Summer 2012 Bead Swap was an excellent way for jewelry artisans to focus on creating color-ways. Anderson paired interested artists from her Facebook group, “Bead Soup Café”, and the nationally and internationally paired artisans swapped beads using the Pantone Summer 2012 Colors as a guide. As a simple swap, it was up to each pair of artisans to decide what colors and how many beads to trade, with no further requirement to create jewelry with the swapped beads or participate in a blog hop later. Here are the Spring/Summer 2012 Colors, including Pantone’s color of the year, Tangerine Tango! 

Pantone's Ten Colors for Spring/ Summer 2012 (women).

I swapped beads with clay expert instructor and artist extraordinaire Tina Holden of Beadcomber. Holden is a certified instructor for Donna Kato, and currently has an intermediate level class on Kato's CraftArtEdu, "Textured Flower and Wire Pendants" using her own original Origami color gradient blend and a Wire Basket Weaving technique to assemble the pedals. Donna Kato's CraftArtEdu instructors are considered world class, and as I explored Holden's art I began to realize the great honor I had in swapping beads with Holden! (I'd actually asked Holden if she was comfortable with wire wrap or perhaps wanted beads only! lol...I'm so embarrassed now, but she graciously named the many jewelry techniques she is a master of, and was full of kindness and patience with me. I realized Jewel School desperately is missing a Kato clay artist and information on the clay arts!) Holden has invented clay arts techniques. She is a contributor to Step by Step and PolymerCAFE magazines, and her art is simply stunning. We decided to swap all ten colors, laughing when our bead swap became BIG! But our swap was as much fun as it was BIG, and although I was more than a little nervous to create ten beautiful bead soups for an artist like Holden, I think I met the task. Here's what I sent:

Tangerine Tango

Polymer clay focal by Second Surf, panda beads, Mexican fire opal rondelles, pearls, carnelian, agate focals, Japanese 12-2 flowers in copper & orange, MOP resin beads, quartz, Mop diamonds, silk tube beads.

Tangerine Tango Colorway: Light, Mid, & Dark Palette

Solar Power

Yellow chalcedony, "Summer Breeze" flowers (design by Lauren Andersen), pearls, yellow quartz, faceted lemon quartz, MOP coins, gold-tone Austrian crystal rondelles, lemon beads, gold panda beads, carved yellow jade beads.

Solar Power Colorway: Light, Mid, & Dark Palette

Sodalite

                                                    Lapis rectangles, rounds & pears, Himalayan Kyanite, blue coral rounds, panda beads, banded agate focal and tube beads, "captured" lapis chainmaille beads, blue goldstone carved flower beads and faceted elongated pears, squares & rounds, blue glass squares, AB rondelles, MOP diamonds.

Sodalite Colorway: Light, Mid, & Dark Palette

Bellflower

Sugilite rondelles, charoite beads, Mojave purple turq- jasper marquis beads, amethyst, purple aventurine, carved jasper focal beads, faceted crystal quartz, purple faceted rondelles, carved glass roses, chainmaille "Summer Breezes" flowers (design by Lauren Andersen), MOP discs, Ice-flake quartz.

 Bellflower Colorway: Light, Mid, & Dark Palette

Cabaret

Crazy lace agate focals, silk beads, Japanese 12-2 flowers, drusy focal, pearls, Swarovski bicones, agate focal

Cabaret Colorway: Light, Mid, & Dark Palette

Cockatoo

Amazonite faceted rounds, rondelles and pears, crackle quartz coins, rondelles, banded agate, crazy lace agate focal, MOP focals, silvertone rondelles with Australian crystals, pearls, Japanese 12-2 flowers and diamonds

Cockatoo Colorway: Light, Mid, & Dark Palette

Margarita

Jade ombre focal, ombre agate, Czech two-tone glass, glass foil focal & bead, tourmalinated prasiolite, panda beads, green chalcedony, pearls, green and white jasper, green glass, ice flake quartz coins

Margarita Colorway: Light, Mid, & Dark Palette

Driftwood

Abalone & bone focal, abalone & shiva eye focal, faceted rainbow glass, faceted labradorite rondelles, panda beads, abalone diamonds, black lip shell, gunmetal rondelles with Austrian crystals, rainbow hematite

Driftwood Colorway: Light, Mid & Dark palette

Starfish

Half-Persian 3-1 autumn jasper focal, gold sandstone carved & round beads, shells, ocean japer pears, MOP stars, shiva eye shells, tiger eye elongated pears, champagne AB glass, bronze glass, brown lip shell focal, blister pearl focal, pearls

Starfish Colorway: Light, Mid, & Dark Palette

Sweet Lilac

Opalite leaves, diamonds, rondelles, "Summer Breeze" flowers with Swarovski, wonder beads, pearls, morganite nuggets, faceted AB rondelles, Ausrtrian crystal watch component/ focal, panda beads, light amethyst beads

Sweet Lilac Colorway: Light, Mid, & Dark Palette

 Because I wanted to include handcrafted elements with my bead swap mixes, I decided to create a few silk  beads, chainmaille captures, and several types of chain maille Japanese flowers using wire for color:

Japenese 12-2 flowers, captures, diamonds & Lauren Andersen's "Summer Breeze" flowers, available in an e-book from STEP BY STEP WIRE JEWELRY, "Ten Wire and Crystal Projects"

I learned the importance and challenge of color in jewelry design from this bead swap. By simply exploring colors of beads, I thought of jewelry design in a way I hadn't before: with color as an inspiration for and  basis of a design. Creating jewelry with beads of color is a new approach for me, and there is so much to learn! Shades of purple are complex, for example, as Pantone's "Bellflower" is more a periwinkle blue, like Tanzanite, and "Sweet Lilac" is a more red based lavender. As always, Lori Anderson is ingenious and generous, sharing her time and wisdom with the jewelry arts community with empowering events like the Pantone Summer Bead Swap. How fortunate we are that she creates all the time in so many ways: with bead swaps, blog hops, literary art and of course, her jewelry art!

Celebrate beads of color. Try new colorways. Upload a photo or two or just one color to the CSS DRIVE and see what color-ways await your jewelry designs. Let color be your inspiration, and let color move you  to express and create and re-create. Let color tell your story.

Color can represent identity, community, and personal taste. Color-ways can represent one’s culture, or express admiration for artists like Monet, Andersen, Kato or Kahlo. Color can reflect the personal, such as being drawn to warm shades of copper or cool grays of silver in jewelry metalwork --  yet just as strongly reflects popular culture too, such as rich shades of gunmetal.  Color in jewelry design can even celebrate the handcrafted community -- honoring, for example, the amazing range of color clay artisans are able to create in soft, beautiful shades, much like the gorgeous bead soup mixes Holden sent me and posted on her blog, "Polymer Clay Bites!"


Color interconnects us and lets us express our individuality; it defines us yet unites us. Celebrate beads of color, and try some of the Pantone Summer colorways this summer. Enjoy!