Bead Color Ideas: Mockingjays

When I first began to look for common three-color palettes to explore in beads, I imagined that there would be plenty of inspirations to choose from. Neapolitan ice cream and ribbon candy were easy targets, but it wasn’t long before I had to choose larger palettes and split them up into groups of three. This month, I have a solid three-color palette for inspiration, and it might be one of my favorites to date.

If you’ve been anywhere near a television or computer in the past year or so, chances are you’ve heard of The Hunger Games, either as an upcoming film, or as a fantastic series of dystopian teen novels. When I first learned about the books by Suzanne Collins, there was already a lot of hype. All three books were on the market, and schools everywhere were putting The Hunger Games on reading lists. I decided to give it a shot, and ended up losing a lot of sleep, staying up all night to devour each book.

The books themselves offer an interesting palette of black, red and blue that would look fantastic in beads, so in anticipation of The Hunger Games movie release this week, I went looking for some matching trios. The red was quite difficult to imitate, because it’s actually an orangey tomato-red. Only one of the palettes I mixed comes really, really close, but they all look fun anyway.

First we have The Reaping - an all seed bead palette with three different finishes. The matte transparent ruby AB 11/o seed beads were one of my first picks, because their shimmer is so reminiscent of the cover of Catching Fire, even if the color is a little too pink. For some extra drama, I added noir lined aqua AB long magatamas - the shape gives a totally new look to lined seed beads. These intense colors are backed with simple opaque shiny jet black 8/o’s.

The sky blue shade of the Mockingjay cover was almost as difficult to match. For Panem, I started with some turquoise blue art nouveau coins that almost do the trick, and have just the right touch of mystery. Dark orange fiber optic cat eyes look wonderfully fiery against the matte black seed beads.

I couldn’t resist building around some red white-heart beads, which have an intensity that can’t be ignored. Tribute stands out from the rest with the addition of a Swarovski Elements cosmic triangle in jet black. A handful of pretty turquoise seed beads adds a soothing quality that ties the black and red together.

So it’s true that inspiration can come from anywhere, and unexpected color combinations can be made widely appealing through popular association. Have you ever used inspirations from fiction in your work?

Copyright 2012 Inspirational Beading
Suzanne Collins and Scholastic
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