Welcome to Inside the Studio!
Each week one of our contributors gives you a sneak peek into their studio, creative process or inspirations. We ask a related question of our readers and hope you'll leave comments! As an incentive we offer a free prize each week to bribe you to use that keyboard. The following week we choose a random winner.
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This week it's my turn to give you a sneak peek behind the scenes here with me with Songbead and The Curious Bead Shop. What have I been up to this year? Well, maybe it's my Monday Amuse the Muse posts, but I have been rather taken with Pantone's colour of the year for 2015, Marsala.
I'm pretty sure you're quite familiar with it now, but just in case...
Are you a fan? I wasn't sure at first, but I definitely am now. I think my family are quite fed up with me now - every time I spot it out and about, I have to point it out to them - look - Marsala cushions! Marsala gloves! Marsala plates!.....well, you get the picture. I think I really should confine my marsala obsession to beads and all things bead-related.
I haven't actually got round to purchasing any new art beads in marsala, can you believe (January is tax return month here in the UK; I fear that may have something to do with my lack of beady purchases...) but I have stitched some beads of my own. It's taken a little experimenting to find marsala shades that I am happy with, but I'm pretty happy with the ones I have made. Glass beads have a special way of changing colour depending on the light and what they are next to, don't they? Here are the beads I've come up with so far:
I've also been thinking about which colours will go well with marsala. Not necessarily taken from the rest of Pantone's Spring/Summer palette, although that is also growing upon me. I have never really got into Pinterest somehow, until this year. Since downloading the app onto my newish iPad, I am unstoppable! I can see why it's always described as a serious time-drain. It certainly has been for me. Here's the board I've created based on Marsala. Investigating it in this way threw up lots of interesting combinations and palettes. My favourite is without doubt marsala combined with amethyst, maybe with a little spring green thrown in:
I would never have put a deep rust-red with amethyst, but if you take a peek at my board, you'll see these two colours paired together again and again.
Here's another classic palette - marsala, rust and teal. Another absolute favourite of mine.
Another thing I like about these two palettes is that the marsala red has been used sparingly - if it's not your thing (yet!) you can still use it in moderation, although I think a healthier dose of it would work with both of these palettes too.
These two pictures I've shared above show contrasting shades combined with marsala (split-complementary, I believe...), but of course it works beautifully in a more homogenous scheme (analogous) as in the palette below:
(All of these images can be found over on my Pinterest board, with links back to the original sources.)
Here's the little sampler of beads I created using a combination of rust and marsala:
I plan to make another couple of samplers using seafoam green and a nice amethyst purple, if I can find one. It's tricky to find seed beads in good purples! You can find all of these handwoven beads available in The Curious Bead Shop.
Along with these handwoven beads, I have a few more beads from a marsala palette, some of which are brand new in with me for this year:
I've also made a few pieces of jewellery, at least partially inspired by the colour of the year:
Most of these have flown away but the earrings on the bottom left are still available :-) More of a pinkish burgundy at work here; I've utilised another classic combination of burgundy and charcoal here. Another palette I plan to continue experimenting with and expanding upon!
Here's a peek at the other colours Pantone have selected for us for 2015 (again, it's pinned to my Pinterest board):
What do you think of this colour? Are you inspired by/annoyed with/indifferent to Pantone's Spring/Summer colours and their colour of the year? (I was seriously turned off by last year's Radiant Orchid.)
All responses are valid! I want to know what you think about these colours. Tell me all about it to be in with the chance to win some handwoven beads in yes, you guessed it, marsala! I will send the lucky winner a pair of Lustre, Frosted and Opal Marsala handwoven beads. Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
