Pantone Colors of the Year - 2021

The Very Nice Group on Facebook had a challenge to come up with designs based on the Pantone colors of the year for 2021.  The colors are "illuminating" (yellow) and "ultimate gray".  Here is the inspiration picture we got.

I'm having a LOT of fun with enameling, and crackle enamel is what I've been playing with for many months now, so I decided to start by combining those colors in enameling.  With crackle enamel you layer many different colors layers, heat them up and the crackle enamel causes the colors to separate showing the colors below.  It is part science and part luck what you end up creating.  For these enamel pieces I used 3 colors for all - opaque grey, transparent and opaque yellow.  For some I also used a transparent opalescent white.  Just changing the order of the layers creates very different results. 

Here are the designs I created. The first 2 have enamels in the same colors and order.

Sunshine and Gray Skies - SOLD - Enamel on copper, artisan lampwork, citrine and copper

Relics - enamel on brass, dinosaur bone, citrine and brass

Going Tribal - for these I changed the order of the enamel.  Gray was added at the end and it almost disappeared as the crackle enamel caused the colors to move.  The transparent yellow turned out brown as it reacted with the copper.  The patterns and shape reminded me of sea slugs - LOL!

For this pair I enameled in gray, added some gold highlights and then did feather raku to get those random black patterns.  Feather raku is a challenge.  You want to get some nice random patterns, but don't want a big black smudge.  I also used gold fill/vermeil beads and wire for the yellow rather than a yellow gemstone.

Golden Gray Skies - SOLD - enamel on copper, artisan lampwork, gold vermeil and gold fill

And, finally, I made a pair with just gemstones - though the lemon quartz is AAA quality with fabulous step faceting.

Leaves and Sunshine - Botswana agate carved leaves, AAA lemon quartz and sterling silver

This was a fun challenge and I enjoyed making a variety of designs in yellow and gray and it was a popular color palette for several of my customers as well!