Combining Colors; the Basics for Craft Design

A big thank you to Kari Ackeret for suggesting this topic. :-)

Oh so many colors! How do you decide which color will pair nicely with some other color? Let's start with color basics before we move on to combining the colors.

The primary colors – Red, Blue & Yellow

The secondary colors – Violet (Red + Blue), Green (Blue + Yellow) & Orange (Yellow + Red)

The tertiary colors – Red-orange, Orange-yellow, Yellow-green, Green-blue, Blue-Violet & Violet-red

For information sake will keep it to primary and secondary for now, but the rules apply for tertiary as well...

Color mixing basics -

Primary colors easily pair with each other, 'nuff said.

Complimentary colors (these sit next to each other on the color wheel and combine easily); Red with orange or violet; Blue with violet or green; Yellow with green or orange.

Contrasting colors (these sit opposite each other on the color wheel and are a bit more challenging to combine; Red and green (think Christmas); Yellow with violet (think pansy flowers); Blue with orange (think Denver Broncos).

Tones (warm and cool) -

Complimentary Cool Tones

Complimentary Warm Tones

Cool tones; Violet, Blue & Green; these will pair easily with silver, pewter and steel (complimentary), but will pop paired with “warm” metals like gold, brass and copper (contrasting).

Warm tones; Red, Orange & Yellow; these pair easily with gold, copper and brass (complimentary), but will really pop when paired with “cool” metals like silver, pewter or steel (contrasting).

Tints and Shades -

Tints and shades are the degree of a color (i.e.. Light Red, Red, Dark Red). Tints are a color made lighter by adding white; Shades are a color made darker by adding black. It's an easy way to combine colors, as they are all the same color just different degrees of it.

This actually takes me back to my painting class in High School; My teacher required us to do a color blend chart for all of the primary colors using black and white in various amounts (ie. ½ white + ½ red = pink). The Chart actually had white and the bottom, red (or blue, or yellow) in the middle and black on top. It didn't go too deeply into each color gradation, but was kept pretty simple; 100% white, ¾ white + ¼ red, ½ white + ½ red, ¼ white + ¾ red, 100% red, ¾ red + ¼ black, ½ red + ½ black, ¼ red + ¾ black, 100% black...but I digress

Neutrals -

You can combine neutral colors (i.e.. White, black, grey, brown, etc.) with most other colors and with themselves to lovely effect.

Now that you have the basics, take a little time to lay out your crafty project, or paint some swatches next to each other and just see if you like the way the colors look together. If you do, well, get crafting!

Meet the Design Board!

Sometimes I get stuck when I am trying to design a new piece of jewelry and I need a little help figuring out the layout of the piece.

I have some fun leaf charms that I have been wanting to use in a necklace design for a while now and I decided that I wanted to use them as links instead of dangles. I punched a hole into the leaf ends and then I started laying them out in different ways on my design board until I found the pattern that made me the most happy.

My next post will be about what design I picked and how I finished the piece.



Design 1 - Simple, symmetric

Design 2 - Symmetric with dangle



Design 3- Simple assymetric

Design 4 - Assymetric with single dangle



Design 5 - Assymetric with double dangle

Design 6 - Not so simple assymetric.

What I've been working on lately...

I've been trying out the new copper clay from the makers of Art Clay Silver. It doesn't require a firing vessel or carbon medium to fire. It also fires in a significantly shorter amount of time.

My pal, Krissi Sandvik (creator of Skelekitty) has created some art stamps from her original artwork. For fun, I thought I would try them out with the new copper clay. NOTE: the stamps are copywritted and used with permission. Always get permission before using copywritted stuff in your art/craft-even for personal use!

I have done a step-by-step on metal clay before so I will skip it this time and show you some simple ways to make the design POP. The yarn ball didn't impress as well as I would have liked, so I wanted to do something to bring it out a bit. I swabbed some alcohol ink on the yarn ball portion of the design let it dry thoroughly (about 30 seconds) and then buffed the pendant with a polishing cloth. The ink on the top of the piece buffed off, but the ink in the recesses remained.

From there, I added white acrylic paint over the skelekitten portion of the pendant and let dry to tacky, but not completely dry (hard to get off when totally dry), then buffed again.

The paint highlights the bones on the skelekitten. Tomorrow, when everything is completely dry and set I will spray the pendant with a light coat of acrylic sealant, to protect the colors on the pendant.

Little Box Pendant.

So today I am trying something different. I saw an article in the newest issue (Winter '10) of Belle Armoire Jewelry that intrigued me. It was "Vintage Lace Assemblages" by Sheri Replogle. So the style of the pieces that she made were totally not my style, but I liked the little box she made to create her assemblages in. She made a little box out of sheet copper and then soldered over it. Okay, so I thought I would give it a try. That is when I realized I lost my magazine...since when has not having the directions to something stopped me. So here we go...

Warning: you must have soldering skills to create this project.

What you need -

Sheet copper

Flux (and flux brush)

Pewter solder

Jump ring(s)

Ruler

Something to cut the sheet copper (I used jewelers metal shears, but you could use a saw instead)

Copper foil tape

Soldering iron (with stand and a really wet sponge)

Soldering tile (the hot metal you are working on sits on this)

Locking hemostats or tweezers or something to hold the hot metal that isn't your bare fingers (no burns please)

A bench block and chasing hammer to flatten the jump ring a little

Okay, ready? Plug in your soldering iron, so that it will be hot when you are ready for it.

Carefully take the copper sheet out of it's package (you might want to wear gloves for this, as the metal edges can be very sharp).

Take the ruler and mark out the size you want the box to be plus 1/2 an inch for box sides. Carefully cut out the overall square for the box. Cut a notch 1/4 inch from each edge on the top and bottom of the square.

Score along the 1/4 inch lines on all four sides of the square and gently (with flat nose pliers if you have them) bend up the two short sides of the square. Then, bend up the long sides and wrap the long ends around the short sides.



Take the copper foil tape and wrap it over the edges of the box, including the overlapping pieces (this will help seal it). Burnish the tape down (I used a bone folder for this, but you can even use just your finger nails).



Turn your box upside down and place it on you soldering tile. Use your flux brush and liberally brush flux all over the back of your box. The flux cleans the metal and helps the solder flow.

Now for the fun part, soldering! Holding the soldering iron in your dominant hand and the solder in the other hand, melt some solder off the roll and onto your box. Start with a tinning layer (you know how to solder, so you know what this means) all around the box on the outside, and then flip the box over and do the same on the inside. Okay, so you can flip the box back over and build up the solder to the level that you prefer now. I like mine a little on the thick side.

When you have the solder on the box to your liking, get the jump ring settled into the locking hemostats (or hold it with the tweezers, if that's what you have) and brush it with flux. Brush the box with a bit more flux where you want to place the jump ring. Hold the jump ring in place and add a bit of solder to the tip of your soldering iron and flow it over the jump ring, securing it to the back of the box.

Clean the finished box with a damp cloth.

Voila! You can put anything you want into your new little box. I will probably make a little collage in mine an then seal it with resin. I'll let you know.

Trying to get out of my rut...

Okay, so for reasons too many to name, I have been feeling a little bit cranky-pants lately, which has thrown me into a rut. I craft for stress relief (every wondered how I made so much jewelry, now you now!), well anyway, I have been in such a funk I wasn't crafting AT ALL (horrible what with the nice fixed up workspace and all). So, today I decided "FUNK OVER" (well at least that was my goal.
I recently picked up a copy of "Collage Discovery Workshop" by Claudine Hellmuth and have been perusing it for ideas for my little tiny collages. Well, what with the "FUNK OVER" idea, I decided to stretch my self creatively (really give my brain something else to concentrate on entirely, as it where.). I stopped of at Michaels (you know, the craft grocery store), on the way home and picked up the worlds smallest (okay well maybe not the smallest...) stretched canvas (4x5 inches) and some cheap brushes (I wanted to stretch myself, but not go into hock to do it.). I had plenty of artsy-craftsy supplies at home to complete the rest. So please take a minute to look at the following pictures to see how I spent the last couple of hours. These are all new techniques to me, but I think I did okay.

Fun with Metal Clay-Finishing up the firing

Wow...so it took two hours to fire the clay in the kiln and another three for the whole thing to cool down enough to take the firing container out and remove the copper pieces.

I could hear the carbon pieces hopping around in the container, they were still so hot.

The kiln was a bit of a mess inside, as some of the carbon escaped from the container, which is probably why the copper pieces are a bit dark. The high heat and air would oxidize the metal...No problem though, a little polishing will do wonders (plus antiqued metal is all the rage these days!)

Some of the larger pieces were still a bit hot when I took them out of the firing container, so I quenched them in a bowl of room temperature water, to finish the cooling process.

It was pretty late by the end of all this, so i just cleaned up my work room and put the copper pieces aside until monday.

Fun with metal clay

I love silver metal clay. There, I said it. I really do. BUT, and yes, its a big but...silver metal clay is expensive! A 10 gram packet of Art Clay Silver costs a little over $15 at metalclaysupply.com, which is were I have found it for the least amount of money. Yes, that works out to be about $1.50 per gram. So...A couple months ago, the great and powerful "They" (in this instance They being Metal Adventure) came out with a new product, BronzClay (clay that fires into bronze). Well, way less expensive at 17.09 for a 100 gram packet (less than $.20 per gram), but you need "Stuff" and bronze, not really my medium. The happy folks at Metal Adventures, no slackers there, were brewing up a new batch of fun, one that I couldn't pass up trying at least once, to see how I like it. Yup, that's right, my second favorite metal to work with...COPPER! The following is my first adventure with CopprClay. I made a couple of flat projects that can be used as pendants, if they turn out.

Supply list for my CopprClay adventure
Coppr Clay (100 gram packet) - I only pinched off about a fifth of the lump, as this was my first try

A plastic roller

Mat board (like from a picture frame)
Olive oil
My non-stick sheet (I think its Teflon, but I've had it so long, I forgot)
Assorted cookie cutters
Rubber stamps
Clay drill
Emory board
My food dehydrator
My kiln (we call her Lilly)
A stainless steel firing container
Coconut Carbon
A wire brush

Ready? Here we go…

I rubbed a little olive oil on my hands and the roller, cutters and rubber stamp (just a little, like, a couple of drops).

I unwrapped the clay and pinch off a bit and rolled it around in my palms until it formed soft little ball. I put the ball on my work surface and put the mat board next to the ball of clay and used the roller to start rolling out the clay. Relieved the CopprClay is stickier than SIlver metal clay and got out the olive oil again. Continued rolling and turning the clay until it was an even thickness with the mat board. Used the rubber stamp to texture the clay and then used a large butterfly cutter to cut out the bulk of the pendant. I rolled up the scraps and repeated the process for 2 more smaller butterflys, a star with a small star cut out to hang as a charm, and a flat rectangle frame to put something into later.

I out all the pieces into the dehydrator and then cleaned up some of my work area and got ready for sanding. This is really important as something that is not too big a deal in the greenware (ceramic) stage will be sharp or slicy after firing. Smoothed all the edges and felt around for and bumpy bits (these equal sharp metal spikes after firing). Drilled holes for jump rings etc. then checked for dryness. The pieces must be bone dry before firing or they could crack.

When I decided the pieces were dry enough, I put an inch of the coconut carbon in the firing vessel, laid down the clay pieces (at least a 1/2 inch away from each other) and the filled the vessel to the top with the coconut carbon.

Now for the fun part, firing! I had to figure out how to program Lilly as I have only used her for firing silver metal clay and she is preprogrammed for that. Once I got her figured out though...I put the firing vessel into the kiln (making sure not to touch the sides ot the magic thing in the back that takes care of the heat), closed the door and hit start. Now I am waiting...The hold time is 2 hours, then I have to wait for the kiln to cool before I can see what I've got.

I'll let you know as soon as I can but for now, lets have some dinner, or something.