Pantone Spring 2012 Colors into Clay

I've been making some large Rondelle Spacer Beads in eight of the new Pantone Spring 2012 colors.  They are now available in our Etsy shop and ArtFire studio.  It seems I am constantly making these beads as I find they compliment my other clay beads really well.  Here they are all strung together on a cord.  They remind me of those candy necklaces I use to buy as a kid.

Of course you could always make these beads yourself using the color recipes I've provided and my tutorial.


Click on the pictures below to go to my past blog posts for the eight color recipes using Kato clay:

Pantone Color Margarita

Green is my absolute favorite color -- certain shades of green that is.  I love vibrant yellow greens as well as deep rich olive tones.  When I started working with polymer clay, most of my pieces ended up green.  I had to overcome that tendency of overuse and force myself to work with new colors and combinations.  Do you have a color that is your favorite and find yourself overusing it in some way?


Creating the Pantone colors into clay has helped me in overcoming this issue and I can now see so many other color possibilities.


I have to say though as much as I love the color green, I am not so keen on the Margarita shade.  They refer to it as a "refreshingly piquant yellow-green colour that is like the drink minus the alcohol".  But when you compare the Pantone Margarita swatch to a real Margarita drink I do not see the similarity.  To me the Pantone shade is more like a variation of last year's Peapod and more like a seafoam as opposed to the cool lime colored beverage.  What do you think?

This?

or this?

See the difference?

Personally I love the more lime green combined with the other Pantone summery colors like Tangerine Tango and Cabaret....

I also prefer a more intense yellow shade of green (like in the flowers above) which has more of a "kick" to it than the Pantone shade that is muted.  But then that is my opinion.

Of course this green does have it's place on the color scale and can work as a neutral to tone down some of the other colors if you prefer a softer palette.  Here are a few photos to get you thinking with the clay color recipe below.

Margarita

1 part Cilantro Mix # 7-3 *

4 parts White Mix # 1-2 *

2 parts Ecru Mix # 2-8 *

* Base colors for this recipe are found in my Clay Color System.