Black Garlic and Purple Asparagus…

  

When I think of garlic… black garlic is not something that immediately comes to my mind. Apparently this specially fermented food product is enjoying surge in popularity among chefs and food enthusiasts.

 

 

 

…and when I think of asparagus, teal green or purple  doesn’t immediate come to my mind. Despite having made asparagus pieces using unusual clor combinations before. At the moment I have engaged myself in the challenge of re-making (and presumably re-fining)  my Asparagus Crown Bracelet by making a series of five similar bracelets.

Colorful Breakfast…

The results of a web contest to design a color scheme inspired by “Good Morning” can be seen here at Zach Dunn’s web design,development and business blog- buildinternet.com It is interesting to see the variety of combinations that the designers submitted.

Here is another option for a “Good Morning” inspiration= a bowl of Fruit Loops. How would you mix the colors of Fruit Loops in polymer clay?  A great starting point would be two custom mixed primaries- red= 1/2 Fuchsia and 1/2 Neon pink, yellow = 1/2 Zinc yellow and 1/2 Neon Yellow - and Cobalt blue.

Colorful Eggs…

As the software continues to evolve…interactive color “Pickers” and mixing guides are becoming increasingly available for a variety of applications- including Easter Egg dying!

Here is the link to  McCormick”s “Perfect Color Mixing Guide” where you can select a color and find the mixing  recipe for cakes, icings and eggs.

…in addition to the tradition food coloring palette, these dyes are also available as neon colors (purple,green, pink and blue). It is fun to move the slider and what the proportions of each color of the dye change in the recipe. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if someone did this for polymer clay color mixing in each of the different brands?

Textile Inspirations in Boston…

I will be presenting my workshop = Combining  Colors with Confidence  /Textile Inspirations for Bead Designer’s International  in Lexington (Boston) MA, April 25th and 26th. The registration is now open to non-members and the  information is here.  You can see this class in action in NYC at Sculpt.com or view the results of Rita Simm, who took her “homework”  from this workshop very seriously here.

 

Combining Colors with Confidence/Textile Inspirations –two day workshop

  Join Lindly Haunani, a nationally recognized colorist for a fun and illuminating weekend workshop. While you may know just what colors you like, exactly how to mix them (or not), using them in harmonious combinations can be challenging. Learn how to add impact to your work with increased color confidence while learning several valuable skills for working with polymer clay.

Almost Perfect Color Mixing…

I was looking over my blog statistics this evening and was surprised to find that the second most searched for article was last year’s April Fool’s day post!

Last weekend I taught a workshop for the Arizona Designers Craftsmen in Tucson, Arizona… if you live in that area or plan to visit, check out their web site, as they have excellent facilities and host many different kinds of workshops that would be of interest to jewelry designers. For example: last month they hosted Nancy Worden.

Halfway into the workshop I noticed that the stripe blends that I was mixing were getting more and more desaturated…then I realized that when I gave this workshop in Florida my demo colors became brighter and brighter, until they included a yellow that was a mixture of  half cadmium yellow and half neon yellow and the “red” became a mixture of half fuchsia and half neon pink. These two primaries were then tempered with 25% white before making my blends. Last month in Kentucky my demo colors were “softer” and hinted of the beginning of the burgeoningof spring – Cadmium yellow, ultramarine blue and fucshia- with about 10% mud= equal parts of these three primaries.

And in Tucson, I was using these same three primaries with 10% white and almost 20% mud. While this is not my usual palette, I realized on the drive back to my home-stay, I had been mixing the colors seen in the local landscape! Wonder what I will be mixing for my demo in Boston?

Special thanks are in order to my lovely hostess Pat Glover  and Barbara Sosna of the Tucson Polymer Clay Guild- who generously loaned her convection oven to the group for the weekend.

Healing Power of Green…

Green is the color most often  associated with the heart chakra and considered a color of healing…and deepening spring . Here is a kaleidoscope that I made on Krazydad from a collage entitled caviar hands.

You can read more about the healing properties of green here by Penny Jentoft =  SolarRaven.

To mix these kelly greens using polymer clay …start with four parts cobalt blue and four parts zinc yellow. For the darker values you can add up to 40% black to that mixture to get a darker kelly green.

Colorful Spring Colors…

The daffodils are sprouting, the light is increasing (even more after I re-set my clock tonight to daylight savings time), there are “new” birds  singing…spring is on it’s way! Soon local asparagus will begin showing up in the markets. I spent part of the afternoon mixing springlike colors= more white, more fluorescent to brighten the colors.

You can download  the Pantone Spring color forecast here… This color from the spring 2009 selections is called dark citron #16-0435 (I bet this is a color that Kim Cavender would like) =the starting pint is –  16 parts cadmium yellow, 8 parts fluorescent yellow, 6 parts ultramarine blue and 1 part fuchsia- after you have mixed this you can use it as is, or add 1/8 black to get a darkered valued version or 1/4 white to get a lighter valued version.

2009 Niche Award for Fashion Jewelry - my ruffle earrings in Citron green on niobium ear-wires. Photo by Hap Sakwa (an incredibly talented photographer)

And the soup I am making now=

Artful Afternoons…

I have posted the udated schedule for my Artful Afternoon workshops in Annadale , Virginia for 2009 – you can visit my 2009 teaching schedule here or read more about the Annadale workshops here

 

 

Colorful “Mustard”…

Here is an interesting post on a mustard colored accent wall at Apartment Therapy . While I am not quite ready to paint a mustard colored accent wall in my apartment- it is a wonderful color and condiment  to consider in the depth of winter.

 

To mix a mustard color using polymer clay = 30 parts cadmium yellow, one part fuschia  and one part ultramarine blue.

Or- you might want to try the yummy mustard potatoes I made the other day…

Color of the Year…

Pantone has announced their 2009 Color of the Year and you can read more about it here. The color chosen  this year is Mimosa.

 ”The color yellow exemplifies the warmth and nurturing quality of the sun, properties we as humans are naturally drawn to for reassurance,” explains Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. “Mimosa also speaks to enlightenment, as it is a hue that sparks imagination and innovation.”

Mimosa is also a popular brunch cocktail made from 3 parts Chanpagne (or sparkling wine) and one part orange juice.

You can mix a great mimosa color= 14 parts fluorescent yellow and two parts fuchsia.