Today's post is not entirely altruistic on my part. It's my turn this week to create our weekly inspiration, and I have still not been able to get out of my creative slump. Now that I've posted this, I've just set myself up to be forced to create something truly awesome... yikes!
Here are are some tips that should help get you moving in a new direction.
Colour - This one is always difficult for me, colour combining/mixing/matching does not come naturally for me. In fact, I consider myself to be quite colour challenged. This is where I always cheat. I love looking at photo's, especially of nature. Mother nature is never wrong :-)
If I want to evoke a calming, serene feel I look to pictures of the sea.
For happy, brilliant colour - garden pictures!
For colour inspiration, I also love looking through the treasuries on on Etsy. The treasuries are currated by members who generally have a really good eye for colour.
If you are interested in learning about colour theory, I just found this short little tutorial.
Techniques
Try something new! If you're like me - a complete book junkie, go through your library of beading and jewellery books and magazines. Challenge yourself to actually try one of the projects that you've passed over previously, maybe thinking that it wasn't for you, or might be a challenge based on your current abilities.
There are also a ton of resources available online for either a low fee, or free. Here are some sites below that offer tutorials online.
These two I posted about the other day
http://www.beadingdaily.com
http://www.enioken.com
http://www.beadfx.com/inspirations.php - us of course! ;-)
http://www.youtube.com - try searching for bead jewelry, beading tutorials, and others. This will keep you busy for a while
http://www.beaducation.com - take on online video based class
http://www.beadalon.com/designworkshop.asp - inspiration and techniques from Beadalon
Hopefully, these will help you - and me!
3 comments:
After having gotten COMPLETELY sidetracked on that Etsy adventure you sent me on LOL I had to add a few comments/suggestions to add to your excellent blog.
I guess I come at beading from the opposite of your fence. My whole art/craft experience is all about the colour...I am in LOVE with colour!
If beads came in black and white only, I probably wouldn't be here.
As it is, I am inpired by the colour and the element of light added to colour which makes beading a colour adventure for me.
Some further suggestions for inspiration:
I ALWAYS purchase the "colour" issue of the home dec magazines and cut out those pics which particulary appeal to me. The photography in them is wonderful, especially House Beautiful.
Fashion magazines also provide lots of ideas.
Much of the work I do is as charity fundraisers for an organization I belong to. As such, I use their logo colours and themes to provide ideas.
I also use pictures of an "event" to make memory pieces which will evoke the event~without being specifically a "photograph" of it. For example, a friend's recent trip to Mexico made me creat "Christmas in Mexico" a bright, three strand bracelet which immediately reminds us of that trip.
PS "The Beader's Colour Mixing Directory" by Sandra Wallace is an excellent book which I highly recommend, and I'm sure you probably have it in the store.
Lori
Hey Lori, if you love colour you're gonna love Margie Deeb's new book, "The Beader's Color Palette". I just brought it in and it should be up on the BeadFX website in a week or two.
Cool! I get her podcasts but haven't yet purchased the book. (I like to see 'em first LOL)
I'll be in to have a look!
Lori
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