Mellow Yellow

Yellow. What does it mean to you? Sunny days, DANGER, beestings, buttercups, joy....like so many colours, it carries a lot of emotion and symbolism, depending on the shade and the person beholding it.

For me, yellow is a colour which I long-avoided in jewellery design. It's not a colour that suits my pale complexion, so even my multi-hued wardrobe showed a distinct lack of this particular colour. When I was just starting out with wirework, it was silver all the way, I steered clear of gold-toned metals and similarly of any beads approaching the yellow family of colour. Even through my development as a designer, moving to antique copper, bronze, brass; moving away from monochromatic colour schemes, I still left yellow on the sidelines. I am sure everyone reading this will have a similar colour or shade - one that they just can't warm to and avoid buying and using beads in. Is it yellow for you? Or perhaps olive, or steel blue, or lime green....what's the colour that you steer clear of when bead shopping and designing?

Colour is a constant inspiration and challenge to me. Inspiration because - well, what's not to be inspired by with colour? - and challenge because I was unadventurous with it for too long in my jewellery design, and 2012 was the year I really upped the ante, and challenged myself to push my own personal colour boundaries.

Starting for me with yellow....having talked to other jewellery designers, I would say this is one of the most oft-avoided colours in jewellery design. It certainly was in my own colour palette. Is it a challenge for you? Have a look at these pieces and see if you can be inspired to use yellow - or another shade that usually eludes you - in your own work. It pairs with mint, royal blue, orange, fuchsia, purple, lilac, apple green, turquoise...what other colours could you combine this tricky colour with?

So my challenge to you is this - can you incorporate yellow into your work, either as an accent bead, or as the focal colour? Can you use predominantly yellow art beads in your designs? One thing I will tell you is that seven out of these nine pieces, all created in the past three months, have sold....so obviously handmade jewellery lovers like yellow! 

Here are some of my picks from etsy - all handmade beads featuring the colour yellow

'Mellow Yellow' by songbead

A selection of art beads from around the world, featuring yellow...

Summer Jam, 2 green, blue an... Beadfairy $9.00	Handmade Porcelain Ceramic B... MarshaNealStud... $32.00	AZ Lampwork Handmade Yellow ... AzLampworkBead... $12.00	Handmade Lampwork 8 Glass Be... veradacraft $25.00
handmade lampwork glass bead... paulbead $25.00	AZ Lampwork Handmade Velvet ... AzLampworkBead... $9.00	Enameled Five petal flower p... GardanneBeads $8.00	Handmade Lampwork Beads Ghee... HeatherBehrend... $12.49
Lampwork Glass Beads handma... catalinaglass $30.00	Handmade Lampwork Beads, Fin... byStudioSharon $29.00	Lampwork Beads Sun Spots se... edenartglass $60.00	Daisy Pendant humblebeads $18.00
Harvest pear- handmade ceram... kylieparry $12.00	Handmade Polymer Clay Button... BeadsByEarthTo... $5.00	Yellow Chick Bird handmade l... TheBeadYouNeed $9.00	Lampwork glass bell flower h... GardanneBeads $14.00

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

I look forward to seeing your yellow creations!

Rebecca is a Scottish jewellery designer and singer, currently living in Manchester, England. You can read more about beads and singing at her blog, songbeads.blogspot.com and see more of her jewellery at songbead.etsy.com.