Friday, November 5, 2010

Color Me Happy

This month, the lovely artisans of Etsy’s Best Kept Secrets is discussing color. Is it important to me? Does it influence my designs? The short answer is, yes. I’ll quote myself from my Etsy profile:

“I have always been fascinated with color and form. When I was little (just a few years ago, of course ... eh-hum!), I colored just about anything and everything. Since my mother was an artist, I was blessed to always have paper and coloring books, pens, markers and crayons handy.”

I love working with colors, and I’m blessed to have a full-time job that involves color and form. I have incorporated the same principles into my jewelry designs, pairing my favorite colors and stretching my imagination trying to color outside the lines. But not only that, I have gone from being a girl who wanted every room in her condo white to incorporating just about every color on a color wheel on the walls of my house.


Looking back at what I have created, I see that I tend to gravitate toward the same color combinations over and over again—the same colors I like to surround myself with on a daily basis: blue and green (both colors are in my bedroom), pink (my youngest daughter’s bedroom) and purple (the brand new color in my foyer), gray and black (this fall’s favorite colors to wear). But I also use more yellow in the pieces I make—and the layouts I design—than I would ever wear on my person (yellow is just not my color … and yet I just painted three walls in my dining room a golden yellow).


But, is color the only thing that inspires me? No. When I design pieces, I start with the focal stone and depending on the shape and the color, it may end up taking me in a completely different direction than I had first planned.


Take the gorgeous oblong kyanites below: Normally, I would have paired them with green garnet or Prehnite, but this time they were really calling out to be paired with yellow. Yellow? I must have been homesick at the time!


Is color important to me? Does color influence my designs? Yes, it certainly does. Even when it takes me in a surprising direction.

6 comments:

Al said...

Lovely post Katja. You really need to get your studio up and running now. I miss your creations. :)

Oh .... and it seems I'm the only one not very influenced by colour though. LOL

katja said...

Aww, thank you, dearest Anna-Karin! I felt just blergh about it, as I didn't feel it was my most inspired writing. Challenging to write about something that you are not actually experiencing at the moment. =(

So, yes, it's time. Of course, it's also time for the price of silver to come back down!

PS. You saw the space I'm going to use, right?

Modeste Parisienne said...

Hey Katja! What a pleasure to revisit some of your creations...I hope you get the itch to pick up those pliers soon again. They all look so pretty and happy. I can feel the fun you had putting those colors together!:)

Gemheaven said...

You so have to get back to designing lovely ~ how beautiful they are ♥

katja said...

Aww, you guys are making me cry! Thank you, Catherine and Jo! Well, not thank you for making me cry, but thank you for your sweet words and for your encouragement.

Joanne said...

Katja, you have been playing with color. I have seen some of the walls of your house and I feel so inspired by your color combos! I was great to revisit your past works. I am so looking forward to seeing what the new shop will be filled with!