Hello lovely people!
I hope you are well and have been enjoying the first days of Spring. The weather here in Brighton has been very typically British - rain, sun, rain, sun, rain, sun and repeat... We had a terrific storm here over the weekend that uprooted trees and de-roofed some houses, but between the bluster we have been enjoying some actual warm sunshine!
The art work chosen for the March Art Bead Scene Challenge certainly has a hint of spring about it. The soft warm colours and wonderful use of light suggests that first warm day when the windows are thrown open to air out the staleness of winter. The pussy willow branches in their tall glass are full of grace and the hope for new life.
The colours in this painting, warm blue punctuated with purples, greens and yellows, reminded me of a wonderful lampwork bead by Mindy MacGregor of Moogin (aren't they always wonderful?). I wanted to create a beaded tassel evoking the pussy willow braches to go with it, using blue lace agate and chain. However the design didn't quite end up pussy willowish - I tried several combinations to capture the look, but it just wouldn't quite sit right! I still ended up with a tassel, and I think it still evokes Spring and the essence of this picture.
This necklace ended up being made almost entirely from gemstone beads - the jewel tones in that gorgeous beads just matched them perfectly. There is blue lace agate, peridot, amethyst and prehnite used here, with some copper accents and a little spotty lampwork spacer from my stash (unfortunately I can't remember the artist).
I'm pretty happy with the final result! Not so happy with my photography skills though - if anyone has tips on photographing long necklaces I would be very grateful!
Thank you for visiting, please take a moment to check out the other challenge entries here at ABS!
