March Challenge Color Palette

Hello dear ABS readers! Oh, this painting. I love, love, love it. Let's take a look, lots of pale grays and neutrals with punches of dark, muted colors like that dark peacock teal, the hint of purple, that dull bit of yellow and the gilded accents of gold on the dishes. 

Use all the colors or pick one or two for your creation. Have fun mixing metals, I see brass, gold, pewter and silver tones in the painting. 

I pulled together some picks from the Art Bead Scene team. 

Top row: Mary Harding and Firefly Design Studio

Middle: Humblebeads, Swoondimples and that pendant is from Tesori Trovati

Bottom row: Creative Impressions in Clay and the Curious Bead Shoppe

Monthly Challenge Details

Etsy Picks with the ABS Team

If all goes to plan, you'll be seeing a few changes and new developments on the blog in the coming months. There has been lots of talk behind the scenes: new features, schemes and plans.  The team are keen to get more involved with the monthly challenges. To this end, we'll be including an Etsy Picks which focuses on beads made by the team (so it will also stray off Etsy to include those team members who sell on independent websites). Hopefully, in time, we bead makers will do more to work with the challenge images in our own work. Until then, here's a selection that picks a little something from each of the team member's shops, all suited to use for this month's challenge.

Let's start with this fabulous clasp from Mary. I'm seriously coveting these clasp, and this one has that all important zigzag.

Okay - I couldn't decide between the clasp and this pendant - just the right colours and also more zigzags in those petals!

Mary Harding Jewellery

This focal from Michelle's shop shares similar qualities.

Firefly Design Studio

I think this triangular button from Tari's shop is perfectly suited. It would be a great clasp!

Tari Sasser

Looking for beads that match the palette of the challenge image?

Humblebeads

Tesori Trovati (That's Erin!)

And don't forget those neutrals!

Rebecca Anderson

And if you don't have zigzags on any of your art beads, you could always reach for some spikes.

Something to do Beads

Finally, not only does this focal from Heather M. come close to the palette of the challenge, there's something in its sentiment - at a bit of a push! - that meets the aesthetics behind it!

Swoondimples

Bye for now, Claire

Etsy Picks

Etsy Picks? On a Sunday? Yes! I'm afraid that having a rather hectic week the week before last led me to accidentally miss my post last Saturday. So, I'm squeezing one in today. How are you getting along with the challenge?

Fabulous, yes? And I have to start with these pieces from Scorched Earth because I'm not sure that the Etsy-verse contains anything more perfectly matched! I couldn't just pick one!

Scorched Earth

Maybe you fancy something with all the shapes but a little more muted?

Copper Heart Beads

VDI Jewelry Findings

Or, more loosely:

Ragged Robyn

I'm also really taken with the colour combinations in the challenge image.

Grubbi

Flaming Fools Lampwork

Mia Only Beads

I'll leave you with a couple of other possibilities.

Spinning Star Studio

Glasskaramelka

Hannah Behrendt Glass

Bye for now, Claire

www.somethingtodo.etsy.com

www.somethingtodobeads.etsy.com

www.somethingtodowithyourhands.com

Monthly Challenge Color Palette

What a striking image for this month's color palette. The reddish-orange and navy blue are taken right out of the playbook of complimentary colors from color theory. One thing that makes this color combination so successful is the strong use of neutrals to balance out the two dominating colors. You'll also notice that the orange is the main color with the navy used less. Take that as a cue when working with complimentary colors, pick one as the main color and use the compliment as an accent.

I hope this month's inspiration gets your heart racing and muse ready to go! Looking forward to seeing your creations.

Here are some Humblebeads picks that match this month's palette.

January Monthly Challenge Palette

This month's color palette can be seen as an icy winter night or a burst of fresh spring shades - it just depends in which direction you decide to take! Do you spy rose quartz and serenity blue? Those Pantone Colors of the Year have potential! And isn't art amazing, a painting created over 100 years ago happens to be right on trend for colors in the year 2016. Just goes to show that great design and color are timeless. 

Here is an example that captures all the inspiration colors for this month. 

Blooms and Birds Set by Humblebeads.

Love the close up of the painting! The brush strokes are so full of energy. And this little snippet shows how you could narrow in a smaller section of the painting to pull your colors from rather than the entire palette. 

Have fun creating this month! We are giving away over $150 worth of art beads for this challenge. Make it your goal for 2016 to participate in each monthly challenge. Here are the challenge details if you are just joining us. 

January Monthly Challenge

Landscape with Stars 

by Henri-Edmond Cross

Watercolor over graphite on paper

Date: ca. 1905–1908 

Image Credit: www.metmuseum.org 

About the Art

"This poetic depiction of a star-streaked sky combines the long broken brushstrokes of Cross's late works with a murky landscape of pen and ink, reminiscent in its impressionistic forms of Japanese painting." - Metropolitan Museum of Art

Let's pull out the stars and moons for this month's wintry-hued challenge. We have a slight variation on last month's color palette, so you may have beads that you didn't use last month that will fit with this challenge. It's a great excuse to test drive Pantone's colors of the year! 

About the Artist

Henri-Edmond Cross, born Henri-Edmond-Joseph Delacroix, was a French painter and printmaker. He is most acclaimed as a master of Neo-Impressionism, and he played an important role in shaping the second phase of that movement. He was very influential to Henri Matisse and many other artists, and his work was an instrumental influence in the development of Fauvism.

Born and raised in Northern France Henri-Edmond's talents were recognized early. He studied under several artists and schools to complete his education.

In 1884, Cross co-founded the Société des Artistes Indépendants, which consisted of artists displeased with the practices of the official Salon. There he met and became friends with many artists involved in the Neo-Impressionist movement. The change from his early, somber, Realist work was gradual. His color palette became lighter and he worked en plein air, he painted in the brighter colors of Impressionism. In the latter part of the 1880s, he painted pure landscapes which showed the influence of Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro.

Cross's paintings of the early- to mid-1890s are characteristically Pointillist, with closely and regularly positioned tiny dots of color. Beginning around 1895, he gradually shifted his technique, instead using broad, blocky brushstrokes and leaving small areas of exposed bare canvas between the strokes. The resulting surfaces of the paintings resembled mosaics, and the works may be seen as precursors to Fauvism and Cubism.

Cross was plagued by a variety of health problems and account for his small but influential body of work. You can see more of his paintings in chronological order here. It's interesting to see his progress over the years. Our inspiration painting is in the signature style of his later works.

(Biography credit: Wikipedia.) 

Our Sponsors

Our Sponsors this month are Humblebeads, Art Incendi and Donna Perlinplim.

Please visit us tomorrow to see the prizes!

How to enter the Monthly Challenge:

1. You need to have a Pinterest account. Go get one ASAP if you don't have one already. It's easy, fun and inspiring.

2. Email us at absmonthlychallenge@gmail.com to get added to the monthly challenge board.

Subject: Monthly Challenge Board Request

You will be emailed an invite to the board within 48 hours. Accept the invite and you are ready to pin your entries.

3. Two ways to pin your entry to the board.

Pin your photo from the internet (on your blog, Etsy shop, etc.)

Add your photo directly from your computer

Create something using an art bead that fits within our monthly theme. We post the art to be used as your inspiration to create. This challenge is open to jewelry-makers, fiber artists, collage artist, etc. The art bead can be created by you or someone else. The challenge is to inspire those who use art beads and to see all the different ways art beads can be incorporated into your handiwork.

An Art Bead must be used in your piece to qualify for the monthly challenge.

***Beads strung on a chain, by themselves and beads simply added to wire or cord will not be accepted.***

Please add the tag or title JAN ABS to your photos. Include a short description, who created the art beads and a link to your blog, if you have one.

Deadline is January 31st. 

You may upload 2 entries per month.

ENTRIES for ART BEAD ARTISTS!!

• Beads Makers Pinterest Board-Art beads must be created by you and fit the Art Bead Scene's monthly challenge theme. They can be made for the challenge or ones you have made before. 2 entries per month are allowed. 

One entry will be picked by the editors each month for a free month of advertising on the Art Bead Scene. Bead entries have to be pinned by the 30th of the month.

Beads only - do not post jewelry on this board. If a post doesn't fit the challenge it will be deleted.

Monthly Challenge Recap

• Please post at least one single shot of your creation on the Pinterest Board. This will be used to make a collage for the Monthly Challenge Gallery. Every creation will be added to the collage, regardless of a blog post. So everyone gets included!

Your entry must be on Pinterest 2 days BEFORE the recap to be included.

• Be sure to share with us the name of the art bead artist in the description of your photo so that if you are selected for the weekly Perfect Pairings on Wednesdays, both you as the designer and the art bead artist can get the credit you both deserve!

• An InLinkz button will be added to the bottom of the Monthly Challenge Recap post. Here you will be able to link up your blog post if you have one. It is no longer necessary to add your blog post URL to the description unless you want to. Be sure to hop around and see all the great inspiration and leave some comment love!

• The Monthly Challenge Recap with Blog Tour will be posted on January 30th.

Monthly Challenge Winners

• One prize winner will be selected at random from all pictures posted on the Pinterest board.

• One prize winner will be selected at random from all blog posts added to the hop for the Monthly Challenge Recap post. So if you want to be in the pool for the second prize, be sure to use the InLinkz code at the bottom of the post to share your process and inspirations!

• Winners will be randomly chosen from all the qualifying entries on February 1st.

Perfect Pairings :: Designer + Art Bead Artist

• Formerly the Featured Designer of the Week, our new Perfect Pairings will focus on both the jewelry designer and the art bead artist. 

• Be sure to point out all the art bead artists in your work in the description of the photo on the Pinterest Board. Links to their website or shop are appreciated. That way we can all find new art beads to love!

• From all the entries during the month, an editor will pick their favorite design to be featured every Wednesday here on ABS, so get those entries in soon.

What is an Art Bead?

An art bead is a bead, charm, button or finding made by an independent artist. Art beads are the vision and handiwork of an individual artist. You can read more about art beads here.

***A bead that is handmade is not necessarily an art bead. Hill Tribe Silver, Kazuri ceramic beads or lampwork beads made in factories are examples of handmade beads that are not considered art beads.

Beaded beads, stamped metal pendants or wire-wrapped components are not considered art beads for our challenge.***

November Challenge Color Palette

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns." - George Eliot

I can't help think of this quote when I look at the colors in this silkscreen. In fact, I can look up from the my computer, out over our woodland meadow surrounding my home and see the exact same color palette. I printed this out right away and ran to the studio to make new beads!

I could get lost in the sophisticated play of hues, overlapping and peeking through each other to create new muted colors. Mixed in with all of those muddy, tertiary colors I love the pop of teal, cornflower blue, olive green and those wonderful rusty oranges. I could play for days in this color palate. 

Have fun pulling out leaf, floral and fern themed beads this month or just revel in the colors as your inspiration. 

See my new beads inspired by the color palette in my Etsy shop. 

November Monthly Challenge Sponsors + Prizes

Our Wonderful sponsors for the October Challenge.
We will have 2 Lucky Winners this Month!

Humblebeads

Heather Powers of Humblebeads creates Handcrafted Art Beads Inspired by Nature and Art History. She is also the founder of Art Bead Scene, The Bead Cruise and Inspired by Nature Retreats. Heather is always creating new and wonderful designs and jewelry.

Humblebeads is located in New Haven, Michigan.

Heather is donating a $50 gift certificate.

Visit Heather on Facebook, Blog, Instagram, Etsy and Website.

: : :

Firefly Design Studio

Michelle McCarthy of Firefly Designs makes ceramic pendants, buttons and jewelry components. Great gifts for the jewelry maker on your list!
Firefly Design Studio is located in Port Charlotte, Florida.

Michelle is donating a beads worth $64.

Visit Michelle at her blog, Etsy Shop, Website, and Facebook.

: : :

Submit photos of your wonderful Jewelry creations using one or more Art Beads here.

Submit photos of your wonderful Bead creations here.

Autumn Flowers by Marguerite Zorach has many different elements that can be used for inspiration: Flowers, foliage, still-life, pottery, textiles, windows, reds, browns, yellow, blue and orange.

We can't wait to see where your creativity takes you with the art for this months challenge! 

**IMPORTANT** Please remember to put NOV ABS in the title or tag of your submission(s).  Pinterest doesn't keep Pins in the order they are posted.

Provide us with the artist of the Art Beads used and we always love to know all the materials you used. 

***Art Beads MUST be used in your entry.***

Feather Pendants: Inspired by the Monthly Challenge

I decided to jump in and take the challenge this month along with our talented readers. I was month's inspiration was immediately drawn to amazing wings and went right to that source for my creations.

I loved the look of the layers of feathers on the wings and wanted to recreate that with layers of feathers on my pendants. I created polymer clay feathers and paired them up with textured copper feathers that I created. I did two color combinations. The first were several variations of teal, navy, white and copper. 

The second combination was less inspired by the painting with orange, copper, purple, navy and cream.

This one is my favorite. I love the look of layering my polymer clay pieces with copper.

I could see these on a simple chain, linked with copper wire and beads or knotted with leather and bohemian Czech glass and wood. 

The challenge details are here. 

You can find the feathers in my Etsy shop here. 

Can't wait to see what you guys create for the challenge! 

October Challenge Color Palettes

What a fun challenge for this month! The color palette is very gemstone inspired, isn't it? Carnelian orange, lapis blue, dark turquoise and golden yellow. Here are a few color palettes to inspire your creations this month.

First up, I picked the brighter hues in the painting. Don't be afraid to use gold or raw brass instead of the a yellow hue in your jewelry. Or use darkened copper for the copper hues. Metals count as a color. When working with a brighter palette like this one, you may want to zero in on one color as the main color of the design and use the other hues as accents. 

For the second palette, I focused on the complementary colors and omitted the golden hues. Focusing on the oranges, turquoise and blue narrows the color palette. I'd probably throw in some white to lighten up the palette too.

The third palette moves away from the brighter colors and I went for more of the muted tones in the painting. This offers a nice alternative for those of you who might not be feeling those brighter colors.

So what do you think? Are you ready to jump in and create something amazing this month?

Monthly challenge guidelines can be found here.

September Monthly Challenge Palette & Inspiration

The color palette from Vanessa Bell's View of Pond at Charleston reminds me of the fading colors of September before autumn sets the world ablaze. I loved the nostalgic feel of not wanting summer to end, filled with warm and wonderful memories. The muted colors of dark rose, peach and yellow play off of the warm and cool mix of greens with a nice variety of neutrals. 

Play with leaves, trees, floral or vessel themes in your jewelry this month or you could do less literal and use just the colors inspired by the painting. 

These are my Humblebeads picks to go with this month's painting. Click here to see all my choices from my collection that would work with this month's inspiration. 

Click here to read all the details on entering our Monthly challenge. Pull out those art beads and have fun creating with us this month! 

Color Play with the Monthly Challenge

When I ran across this painting picking artwork for the year, I fell in love with all the wonderful color combinations and play of colors found in each segment in the painting. So I decided to break down a few of my favorite color palettes hidden in this gem and pair them up with beads from my shop. 

For my first color palette I mixed some of the dominate brights with the neutrals of gray and brown.

The hard part about using an abstract painting can be the unlimited choices and no real theme. But one thing our brains are wired to do is look for imagery when faced with an abstract work of art, we can't help it! So I see feathers, leaves and flowers in these abstract forms. This feather pendant picks up the color palette, I would pair it up with dark brown waxed linen and Czech glass in the same colors. 

For my next palette, I focused on a small part of the painting and grabbed colors from some of the stripes. I like this coral color mixed with orchid, pinks and orange. I still pulled in some of the brown neutral shades to tone it down a bit.

I think this would be perfect with my Dahlia pendant. Mix it up with some of the colorful hues from above for a bright and cheery design perfect for summer.

The great thing about this painting is your can focus on just a small piece and pull a set of colors that work together in interesting and unusual combinations. Here I focused on some of the pastel purples and blues with muted warm tones of gold and coral. Again, the brown neutral is so dominate in the painting that I feel it works with almost every combination. 

My periwinkle Branch Lentil would go nicely with stones and glass in the colors above with dark wood beads added in for texture and pick up the darker neutral. 

For this color palette I choose the more neutral and lighter colors of the painting. The combinations are both floral and woodsy. 

My Blooms and Bark Woodland Disk set pulls in all those colors. You could mix in stones and wood in neutral tones and letting the subtle colors in the disks take center stage. 

Feel free to print out any of the color palettes and pull beads from your stash. We are excited to see what you create inspired by this month's challenge.