Keepsake Crafts

Many of you have asked me for advice in choosing and using colors in your jewelry and polymer clay work. It always makes me so sad to hear of folks who say they are afraid to use color, as for me it’s such a fun, enjoyable and intuitive thing.

Using color shouldn’t be scary, but joyful. What a wonderful and blessed thing our creator gave us when he introduced all of the colors into the world!

When I was younger I used to think there were certain rules about using color, like red and purple don’t go together, nor do pink and orange. But now I think that any color can go with any color as long as you get the tones, shades and tints right. One of my favorite sights is a riot of colors in a garden, the more the merrier!

In today’s video I will give you several tips and ideas for how to approach using color in your creative work. I usually don’t start with the color wheel although, as I mentioned in the video, I do always keep the color wheel in mind because it is the basic tool and understanding its principles will only help you. 

One of the more helpful things I have learned about using color I learned from quilt making, specifically a project in Gai Perry’s book Color From the Heart. The lesson is that the more shades of the color you throw into a project, the richer and more interesting it will look. Above is a mini quilt that I made many years ago as an exercise from the book. The colors are green and purple, but the greens range from bright kelly green to blue greens, light greens, dark greens and yellow greens. The purples are bright purples to fuchsias, blue purples, deep purples and lavenders. It’s so much more fascinating to look at than if I had just used two or three greens and purples. I try to apply these principles in anything I do, whether it’s a piece of jewelry or a polymer clay sculpture.

One thing I didn’t think to mention in the video is that if you have a smart phone there are a multitude of apps to help you play with/design with color. 

Here are a few color resources you may find helpful:

• Color From the Heart
• Polymer Clay Color Inspirations
• Color Wheel tool
• ColorMixr app (mostly for polymer clay but can be used for other things)

 Enjoy the video and happy creating!

Watch the How To Choose Colors With Confidence-Friday Findings Tutorial at YouTube.