Art Bead Scene: May 2015

This month's Art Bead Scene challenge inspiration is an untitled piece by Augustin Lesage.  You can read more about the artist and the artwork over on the ABS blog HERE.  I have to admit that I felt a little overwhelmed by all the colors, patterns, and shapes in this piece.  There is a whole lot going on here!  In theory, the business should have made it easier to work with since there are so many different options... but, for me, that was actually the problem.  My mind just wasn't wanting to focus in on any one element but just kept going crazy.

Untitled, 1926-1954

By Augustin Lesage

This has been a crazy busy month with travel, library jewelry making classes, and more.  With my attention pulled in a thousand directions, I was beginning to worry that I might have to sit out another one of my favorite challenges (I'd already missed We're All Ears over on the Earrings Everyday blog.)  Luckily my May installment of Erin Prais-Hintz's Simple Truths Sampler arrived just in the nick of time and inspiration immediately struck!

Per usual, I forgot to take a picture of Erin's lovely pendant before I got started working with it... I was just too excited!  I love the way she combined multiple colors of polymer clay that she had first silk screened like miniature jigsaw puzzles.  The colors feel so lush under the high gloss of the resin.

As often is the case with Erin's little works of art, I really wanted to let the pendant do most of the talking here.  The style of the pendant, to me anyway, lends itself to being strung.  I chose to go with a multi-strand design with different seed beads on each strand that picked up on various colors from the pendant (and painting!).  I had a great size 8 mix from Glass Garden Beads that I knew would make up one strand and then I played around with different combinations of alternating sizes of beads for the other two strands until I was happy with the mix.