One of the most exciting color schemes is using triadic colors. On a color wheel, triadic colors are equally spaced in a triangle. These colors are often seen as clashing, and the key to making them work is to pick one shade to be dominant, with the other two supporting it.

The easiest are the primary and secondary colors. Blue-red-yellow with the addition of white looks very patriotic, green-purple-orange with the addition of black is a traditional Halloween palette. However, you can also use tertiary colors as well. Red-orange with blue-purple and yellow-green or red-purple with blue-green and yellow-orange are the simple tertiary triadic color combinations.


Triadic color schemes are energetic and exciting even when you use muted shades. In pastels they can be reminiscent of a sunset and in jewel tones they are incredible.

When you're shopping for beads in a triadic scheme, start by looking for a primary color. Choose a color you love, then decide where it falls on the color wheel. A deep garnet red for example can have a tint of orange, or sea-green is a light green with a bit of blue. Then fill out your other two colors based on that. Blue-violet and chartreuse for the garnet, lavender with pink tones and a sunny light orange with the sea-green.

The below bracelet patterns are based on primary triadic colors (the diamonds), secondary colors (the swirls) and tertiary colors (the horizontal chevron). They can of course be done in any 3 color palette. Right click and save the patterns or click on the printer friendly link at the bottom of the page to print the patterns. They are all separate images. The swirls are 17 beads wide, the other 2 are 9 beads wide in odd count peyote. The 9 bead wide bracelets would make a nice beaded version of friendship bracelets.
In the first one, the main color is yellow, in the second, the main color is orange and the final one, the main color is a blue toned pink.


Check out my other color articles.
Monochromatic Colors with a Heart Pin Pattern
Complementary Colors with Triangle Earring Patterns

For a lot more information on color palettes in beading,check out these books. At the time of this writing, Beaded Colorways is bargain priced at 10.00, making it a wonderful buy.



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