Getting a Grip on Bead Surface Finishes
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A quick study of how a bead's level of reflectivity causes it (and its color) to visually behave can help you turn an ordinary beaded design into an extrordinary, even stunning piece. Surface finishes make a world of difference in how colors interact and what your eye perceives.
As discussed at length in the Color and Seed Beads section of The Beader's Guide to Color, highly reflective, shiny surfaces, like silver-lined, advance and cause colors to appear brighter and warmer. Rough textures of low reflectivity, like matte finishes, absorb light and cause colors to appear flatter and more saturated.
Transparent beads allow light to pass through them. The glass is full of color, but the true color is only perceived if light (or the color white) is behind it. Thus, transparent beads visually recede, and look much darker when worn than in their tube. Their hue changes not only with their backdrop, but also with the color of the thread stringing them.
Ceylons and pearl finishes have a milky, translucent quality: not too shiny, not too dull. They reflect light gently and emit a soft, subdued quality which carries lighter colors well. Because of their lightness in value, they tend to visually advance, depending on the beads surrounding them.
Ambient light, surface finish, reflectivity, thread color, and our brain all cause a bead’s color to visually shift, because color is relative to its context. The best way to know how a bead will look in context is to weave sample swatches. Even then, you may not be able to accurately predict the outcome. Yet this is what makes seed bead work so much fun. How delightful when a transparent bead surprises you by adding more depth to the shadow of a landscape than you had anticipated. Or that little glint of gold makes an entire piece spring to life.
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