Graduating Gray

Grays are not the most popular color choices for jewelry and home decor, and certainly not in polymer. Gray is completely neutral and is actually a shade, not a color. However, people do have gray outfits to coordinate and, honestly, if you’re going for more subdued accent pieces with a black outfit, gray is an excellent choice.

Using a variety of grays in graduating shades, all either cool or warm,  is one of the best ways to create strong visual impact. Strong lines and graphical elements also work wonderfully with grays. Here is an assembly by Poland’s Jagna that demonstrates the drama of graduated grays and how well it can highlight a single color, even another rather neutral one. In this piece, Jagna goes from pale silver gray to dark slate, but with a trail of gold peeking out from her mokume pattern. Between the graduated grays, the graphic lines, and the contemporary shape contrast, this whole piece is the kind of adornment that could make a little black outfit really shine.

Here is another piece by Jagna that is just gray. It’s still very dramatic and high impact for a uncomplicated necklace design.

The one thing about working with gray (or any monochromatic palette) is that you are forced to rely heavily on your other design elements, rather than depending on color to carry a piece. In fact, one of the tricks we used in art school to analyze composition, contrast,and overall design was to take a black and white photo of the piece in question. If it didn’t work in gray scale, it was usually pretty weak even in color. Try taking a black and white photo of your work next time you get the feeling it’s not quite right, and see if that doesn’t help you find where the issue is.