As part of our on-going emphasis on education this year, I want to share some previous posts that may help you fill in some gaps! From creativity to color, from design elements to jewelry school, these resources can point you in the right direction.

Do you want to design for yourself?
This is the conclusion of my series of articles, with links to all the previous articles

Beadwork basics online

Dictionaries, glossaries, and encyclopedias of jewelry making info online

Creativity online

Color training and tools online

Jewelry design tools and articles online

Jewelry class listings by geography

Beading shows with classes

Design school directory

Post from: Jewelry and Beading

Read her excellent article here: What to do when your handmade jewelry isn’t selling

Post from: Jewelry and Beading

Imagination Prompts
Are you looking for some random writing prompts or story starters for your journal, blog, or other creativity-related project?

Oblique strategies
A handy online version of Brian Eno’s creativity tool

Creativity and the periodic table
Roll your mouse over the table to see examples of each strategy

Excellent articles

Don’t wait for the muse
Apparently you shouldn’t sit around waiting for yours even if you do happen to believe you have one!

Creativity. We could all use more.
References three good articles on living creatively

Judith Reilly’s creativity page
Twelve life lessons for creativity

Six myths of creativity
This study may change how you generate ideas

11 tips to suviving a day job with your creativity intact
View your day jobs as the blessing that it truly is!

How to get your day job to leave you
How to naturally outgrow your current life right into the one that you desire

Best sites for a general pick-me-up

Creativity Portal

Tera’s Wish

Artella

Creating Minds

Post from: Jewelry and Beading

This short series of discussions that we’ve been having about the various pathways and journeys that you can take into designing your own original work was not intended to turn your creativity into just another mechanical exercise. It’s also somewhat artificial to imagine that most of us are so organized and linear in our creativity that everything always flows in one pre-determined order. Still, I believe that the more you understand about your own preferences and biases, the more you may be freed to try new things.

I hope you will spend some time thinking about the steps you usually take in designing, and maybe even spend some time mapping them out. Understanding your dominant patterns of working can both help you to play to your strengths, and also to challenge and stretch your creativity.

Perhaps you could deliberately try a completely different approach to your next project, just to see what happens. It may not work. But then again…it could be wonderful! Here is a list of all the articles in this series:

Introduction
Focal Point
Theme
Color Scheme
Materials
Structure
Conclusion

Post from: Jewelry and Beading

No matter how intuitively you work, at some point you will need to make some decisions about the structure and pattern you’re going to use in order to avoid having to go bead buying right in the middle of a project. That is usually not the best time to be making clear-headed decisions!

You might be the type of person who decides what project to do based upon what type of stitch you feel like doing, and you make most of your structural choices at the very beginning of your design process. For me, the technical details are often one of the last things I consider, but like all of the other pathways into designing, structural questions can easily pop up at any time along the way.

In design terminology, pattern generally refers to repetition or lack of it in stringing or weaving a piece. (It can also refer to the plan for the exact placement of beads in something like a flat peyote weaving, but that’s not what I’m referring to here.) The pattern can be repeating, symmetrical, asymmetrical, or random. No matter how complex your piece is, from a single strand to the most intricate multi-strand weaving, these underlying patterns can be detected.

Asymmetrical and random patterns are the most dynamic and challenging to the eye, but can still be peaceful and pleasing if they are balanced visiually, either by color repetition or by judicious placement of larger beads. A peaceful feel may not be your desire, however! Repeating and symmetrical pieces tend to be easy on the eye with a classic feel, but they can also be seen as static and boring. You can use your pattern choices to keep the eye moving around the piece, or to focus it on a spot you choose. Pick the pattern you use to complement your entire theme and be aware of the underlying message pattern can send subliminally. This is certainly not an unimportant afterthought, even if pattern isn’t the first design element you consider!

Other structural considerations in designing include length, complexity, and contruction methods/techniques. Will your necklace be a standard length or adjustable? How many strands will it contain? Will it be needle-woven, strung, loomed, or a combination? Will your design necessitate large-holed beads that can accommodate many thread passages? Will it require special findings that you must buy or make? Will you use thread, wire, or some combination? Do you have enough materials and all the tools you will need?

This is also a good time to fill in all the gaps, before you start constructing. You may need to head back to the torch or go on a (perfectly justifiable) shopping trip. Make sure you’ve got enough of everything, including all the mundane items like thread, wire, crimps, jump rings, and spacer beads, to complete your design.

We’ve almost come to the end of this series now! Next Monday, wrap up and links

Post from: Jewelry and Beading

I usually like to build my working palette and choose my materials after I’ve decided upon focal point, theme, and color, but it can be fun to try it the other way around. Some designers like to use this method most of the time, sorting through their beads and treasures, and letting the raw materials “tell” them what to choose. I’ve personally never had the stones speak to me. My more practical method to building a palette works well for me, whether it is my first step or somewhere further down the designing road. I’ll share it with you in case you want to give it a try.

I usually take my focal piece (or the first item to catch my fancy if I haven’t chosen a focal piece yet) and place it on a white towel. After gathering up all the possible beads, stones, buttons, and other treasures that might look good, I “audition” them by laying out small piles of each candidate near the focal pieces. Keeping my theme in mind as well – if I’ve already picked one – I look at how the colors, sizes, shapes, and textures interact. There is no right or wrong answer to this part of the process, but it often takes a lot of time. Do not let yourself be rushed! If any beads seem too prominent, you may want to remove them, or at least place them judiciously in the mix. keep in mind also whether your idea calls for a variety of shapes and textures or for a more uniform selection. Each choice you make will narrow down future choices, so sometimes you might have to start all over again if it isn’t going the way you want.

Sometimes you will find that you just don’t have everything you need to proceed with beading. Don’t look at this as a problem! Instead, this is the perfect justification for buying more beads!

Next Monday: Structure!

Post from: Jewelry and Beading

Have you ever thought about selling your designs? Not the finished product, but the designs themselves? Here’s how Christina Ritchey decided to go about it:

Creating and selling jewelry tutorials

Post from: Jewelry and Beading

Color is one of the basic elements of design, and many designers start off with just knowing that they want to make something purple. Or green. Or green and gold. Choosing your color scheme first is a perfectly natural pathway into designing. You might find that making your color decisions overlap your decisions about focal point or theme. Sometimes the focal point and color scheme develop together, one from another. Other times your theme will suggest or limit a color scheme. And still other times…you just simply want to make something purple. It’s all good. Usually I will choose the focal piece first and let the color scheme develop from that, but I’ve certainly also been known to do it the other way around.

This piece is an example. I was participating in a year-long project headed up by Dulcey Heller and Mary Elter, called Bead Art Exploration. One of our assignments was to pick a color scheme that we wouldn’t normally use.

Nomadic Treasure

We all have our favorite colors and color schemes, but sometimes it’s nice to stretch a bit and see what else is possible. I have discovered that, using my focal piece to start, I will most naturally gravitate toward a monochromatic (tints, tones, shades, and pure color of a single hue) or analogous (several hues in close proximity on the color wheel) scheme if I make the choices intuitively. These are just combinations that I find naturally attractive. I will usually add a metallic color or a neutral (black, white, or grey) which best suits the warm or cool undertones of the main colors. But in the case of Nomadic Treasure, I chose to use a triadic scheme. Ouch! It didn’t feel natural at all, but I liked the results.

Another method I have used to choose colors is to take my cue from a painting that I admire. Not surprisingly, the color scheme still most often ends up being monochromatic or analogous! I like to have a lot of textural interest in my work, but to avoid a cluttered look, and I’ve always felt that these two schemes allow me to achieve that. Still, it’s fun to play sometimes.

In another attempt to stretch my safe and predictable color schemes, I read a book that I would highly recommend to everyone: Exploring Color, by Nita Leland. Although it was written for painters, Nita gives wonderfully clear explanations (with glorious full-color examples) of different color schemes and also of different ways of achieving contrast through color choices. She points out that the color wheel palette you use does not have to be based upon primary hues. The wheel could consist instead of tints, earthy shades, high intensities, muted tones, transparents, opaques, etc. Maybe this will seem obvious to you, but since I’m not primarily a painter, and was raised on the primary color wheel in school, this was very exciting stuff to me!

Next Monday’s design element: Materials!

Post from: Jewelry and Beading

Suppose that you have an idea or a concept that won’t leave you alone…you just must design something with that theme in mind, but you can’t find the notion of theme on your list of design elements and principles? Never fear, theme is a wonderful potential pathway into designing. Many many of my necklaces started out as a concept or theme, and then hung around my brain or notebook just waiting until the right focal pieces and materials fell into place. I made several Hand of G-d necklaces that started out this way. Here’s one:

For Such a Time As This

I knew what I wanted this necklace to convey long before I had the items to make it. In this case, I made the focal beads specifically for the necklace, after having chosen the name and all the symbols that would be included, including the colors.

When you chose to enter a contest, you are often called upon to create something to fit a theme. This is a great way to stretch your creativity, but you can easily set your own concept challenges. Practically anything that is important to you, from the sublime to the ridiculous, can be the inspriation for a conceptual piece of jewelry. The grandeur of the earth and heavens, or the minute detail in a seashell…Creation itself is very inspiring to many artists. Places you’ve traveled to, especially places much different from home. Favorite hobbies and pass-times. Lines from a favorite poem. Verses of sacred scripture. Family and pets. Ancient, antique, or ethnic styles. Look anywhere and everywhere for the things that stir your soul.

We’ll be continuing this series with color scheme next Monday.

Post from: Jewelry and Beading

Just as it does in a painting, the focal point in a wonderful piece of jewelry captures your gaze and directs your eye where to settle. Additional focal points can create a sense of movement by guiding your eye around a piece. Having a strong focal point can create a sense of dominance and unity in your piece.

Choosing your focal point first is a common way to start for many designers: you have a beautiful cabochon, a treasured charm, or a stunning glass bead. It’s not good enough just to own this treasure…you want to be able to wear it!

The greatest challenge in designing when you start with a focal point is to feature your speical item, show it off, without overwhelming it. I often start my own design work with a focal point. I am captivated by an object and it inspries me to build it a home. My Beaded Geode Pendant, shown above, is an example of following this pathway into design. The geode was beautiful and meaningful to me, but the back was ugly and the silly thing didn’t have a hole in it, so I needed to find a creative way to be able to wear it. In this case, I chose a color palette that harmonized with the geode, and a pattern for the strap that consisted of a simple repetition that wouldn’t draw attention away from the focal point.

Tomorrow, I’ll share with you how to make a beaded geode pendant similar to the one above.  Next Monday, we’ll have the next installment in the design series, this time discussing theme 

Post from: Jewelry and Beading