Thursday, March 31, 2016

Inspired by Reading: The Swan Thieves

This month's Inspired by Reading Book Club selection is The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova.  It's a whopper of a book weighing in at 564 pages so it was a struggle to get it finished in time.  It read amazingly fast (at least for me... I was pretty absorbed!) but it's still much lengthier than our usual book club choices.  I didn't quite make it all the way through, but (at page 536) I'm soooo close!   Luckily, inspiration struck at page 432... but I'll get to that in a minute.  (UPDATE: I did actually finish last night right before bed!)


The novel tells the story of troubled artist Robert Oliver and the psychiatrist, Andrew Marlow, who is trying to help him and unravel the mystery of how Oliver came to be institutionalized and under his care.  All we really know at first is that Oliver was arrested after trying to attack a painting in a museum.  The story unfolds from multiple viewpoints, at first mostly through Marlow's eyes, but eventually includes Oliver's ex-wife and former lover.  As things progress, we also slowly get a story from the late 1800's woven into the fabric of the novel by way of love letters and more. 

As usual, I struggle with talking about my impressions of the book without giving too much away.  I truly enjoyed the way the author wove all the components of the story together and oh so slowly started bringing the pieces together.  The mystery elements really drew me in and kept my brain working trying to tease things out.    

In this massive tome filled with descriptions of artists and their artwork... what jumped out at me and inspired my creation this month was really just a tiny, offhand description.  As Mary is describing the first decline of her relationship with Robert along with the changing of the seasons to autumn she says "The ginkgo leaves in my neighborhood turned into yellow crepe paper"

For some reason that line just struck me.  I have always loved ginkgo trees and knew exactly the color she was describing... not only that, I knew just the beads to use in that particular shade of yellow.  I have no idea what these gems are (please let me know in the comments if you know them!) as I got them unmarked from a friend's destash but the color is so yummy.  I'm going to be sad when I use up the last of my little hoard of them.  I was originally planning on a necklace but I couldn't for the life of me find the copper plated ginkgo pendant that I swore that I had.  I tore through most of my messy work space more than once to no avail so I moved onto plan B... earrings!  (Anybody shocked?)  Here they are!


With as much as I enjoyed reading The Swan Thieves, I'm definitely going to put Kostova's first novel, The Historian, on my reading list!

Friday, March 25, 2016

Art Bead Scene: March 2016

I think I may have uttered an audible gasp when I saw this month's inspiration artwork Still Life with Pussy Willows by Taisia K. Afonina over on the Art Bead Scene blog.  This painting just feels like a perfect spring morning to me... I think it's something about how she captured the light.  Usually I respond to color more than anything, so I'm a little surprised that I like this piece so much with it's muted tones.  Maybe I'm just feeling nostalgic about the ending of Downton Abbey and the oh so civilized act of having tea.  :)  You can read more about the artwork and the artist HERE.    

"Still Life with Pussy Willows"
By Taisia K. Afonina
1964, Oil on canvas
Despite my favorable reaction to the painting, I just couldn't figure out what I wanted to make... or even what art beads I might want to use.  Finally, having cleared some other projects off my work table, I was able to get down to business.  It turns out I actually had quite a few art beads that would be appropriate... here's a peek:

Art bead overload!!

 Eventually I narrowed it down and got to work on three different projects... a necklace, a bracelet, and earrings.  I wanted to keep going, but then I never would have gotten a blog post written!  I may find time to go back and play some more with the goodies I had pulled out.  For now, here are my finished jewelry designs!


The first thing I finished was the simplest... the earrings.  Not shocking that I whipped those up before completing anything else.  Truth be told, I started with the bracelet but then started second guessing one of the elements.  But I digress!  My starting place was a pair of polymer clay beads by Heather Powers of Humblebeads.  I love working with polymer clay beads for earrings because they are so light weight.  That allowed me to pair them with some heavier teapot shaped charms without making things too heavy.  To pull out the lighter tones from the painting, I topped things off with some small aquamarine rounds. 

Tea Time earrings!

 Next up was the bracelet.   Since I made a different version of a bracelet that Lorelei Eurto shared in Bead Style magazine for the February ABS challenge (you can see that one HERE if you missed it), I knew that this couldn't be the only thing I made.  That just felt a little like cheating.  The highlight of this design is a lovely lampwork lentil by Sheila Davis of Stone Designs that Eric gave to me for Christmas.  I also used an etched lampwork bead by Tanya McGuire, a large hole gemstone, Czech glass and some various seed and peanut beads.


 
My final design is probably my favorite... a necklace featuring a gorgeous ceramic maple seed wing pendant from Mary Harding.  I started with some kyanite coins and blue aventurine rounds then added in some coordinating Czech glass.  I was lucky enough to have a tube of seed beads that thought were gold when I bought them but (surprise!) ended up being Montana blue with gold luster finish.  (Perhaps I should be more careful when shopping, but it all worked out in the end!)  I finished the back with a length of pale blue silk ribbon... just the perfect way to add a touch of softness to my design.


Mary's pendant deserves a close up!
Thanks for stopping by and seeing what I've been up to!  You can see what others were inspired to make over on the Art Bead Scene challenge Pinterest board HERE.

Monday, March 21, 2016

The Honey Do List: March 2016

This year, my husband Eric has decided to issue me a design challenge each month to get me out of my comfort zone and to help clear out my bead stash... we're calling it the Honey Do List.  This month's challenge posed by my sweet husband is all about working in black and white.  He wanted me to move away from my typically colorful creations and focus on using only black, white, and shades of grey.

Here's the inspiration photo Eric gave us to work with and what he had to say about it:


Something I've discovered as I take more pictures is that some are all about the colors, while others are about structure or shadow and light.  As I watched Sarajo creating colorful jewelry with glass, crystals, stones, and textiles, I decided to make this month a little more challenging.  This month I want you to create a piece in black and white (including shades of grey)!  Feel free to take inspiration from the photos, or ignore them completely and just work with monochrome. 

The first thing that popped into my brain was to make a black and white (and shades of grey!) version of the macrame bracelet I learned in Erin Siegel's class on my first Bead Cruise.  I had just ordered some zebra jasper rounds and black waxed Irish linen, so I had everything I needed to get going!  These bracelets are super fun to make and kind of addictive... so I had to make two!  For my second one, I used some pyrite rounds I had in my stash for a version that's all different shades of silver.  In an odd way I made a nod to each of the photos Eric chose with the buttons I used.  The zebra jasper version has a geometric pattern to it while the pyrite one is a leafy design, perfect to pair with the flower.



Not content to stop there, I also made a necklace.  I may have cheated a tiny bit by choosing a flower shaped pendant with a little bit of yellow in the center.  Everything else in the design plays by the rules so I'm pretending that the center of Eric's flower picture was colorized!  I kept this strung design pretty simple... just using black Czech glass, onyx rounds, black seed beads, with some flower shaped pewter beads to break up all that black!  







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Friday, March 18, 2016

We're All Ears: March 2016

Erin Prais-Hintz has truly outdone herself with her pick for the We're All Ears challenge hosted on the Earrings Everyday blog this month!  She's chosen a collection of breathtaking photographs of decorative tile work from Instagram photographer Mehrdad Rasoulifard.  The photos are part of a project to document ancient Persian and Iranian architecture.  The arabesque art found there focuses on intricate geometric patterns and exhibits a lovely range of colors.  I've picked out a couple of my favorite photographs to share here but I encourage you to check out Erin's inspiration post HERE to see all the gorgeous photos there.

Celling of Hazrate-Masomeh’s mosque in Qom, Iran
Celling of Sheikh-Lotfollah’s mosque in Esfahan, Iran
Sheikh Lotfollah mosque in Esfahan,Iran, about 400 years old

My first thought when I saw the photographs was to play with some of my Vintaj DecoEmboss and DecoEtch dies and patinas.  I pulled out a variety of different shaped brass blanks and started to play!  Here's a picture of my decorated and painted pieces midway through the sanding and sealing process:


Some of them didn't come out exactly how I was hoping but it's hard to tell until you have things sanded down.  In all honesty, I didn't love the way the multi-colored striped pieces were looking at this point or even once I sanded them.  I'm super happy with the finished result after I applied a mix of glaze and bronze paint over the tops.  What I love about these paints is that things are almost never a total lost cause... you can add more layers of paint or use a tinted layer of glaze to change the look. 

Here are the finished pieces:


Can you tell I was most inspired by the turquoise and teal tones from the inspiration photos?  The two pairs on the ends were etched and embossed just for the challenge.  The middle pair had been around for awhile unpainted but I thought the texture of the design (if not the color I chose) worked well.  Whenever I get out the paints, I always have extra pieces to paint if I end up with extra paint... I hate to waste!  I accidentally ended up with waaaay too much of this blue color mixed up so I just rolled with it!  


This second set ended up being my favorite designs despite not being happy with the early stages of my paint job.  What a difference some bronze paint added to the glaze coat made!  I feel like these are the most true to the colors of the inspiration photos.


This final set wasn't originally destined to be part of this post either, but once they were done, I thought the texture in the brass pieces fit... ok, maybe not the purple but who knows, there could be a mosque with purple and gold tones out there somewhere! 

Pop over to the Earrings Everyday blog to see what everyone else was inspired to make this month HERE!

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

March 2016 Inspiration for the Honey Do List

Welcome to March!  I don't know how you're feeling, but this new year is already flying by for me!  This year, my husband Eric has decided to issue me a design challenge each month to get me out of my comfort zone and to help clear out my bead stash... we're calling it the Honey Do List.

Eric and I were so inspired by the response to last month's Honey Do List challenge that we decided to do a blog post to announce the inspiration for the March challenge in hopes of getting folks excited about playing along!  Once again, Eric has offered up some of his photography as a jumping off place.

Without further ado, here are his photos and what he has to say about this month's challenge:


Something I've discovered as I take more pictures is that some are all about the colors, while others are about structure or shadow and light.  As I watched Sarajo creating colorful jewelry with glass, crystals, stones, and textiles, I decided to make this month a little more challenging.  This month I want you to create a piece in black and white (including shades of grey)!  Feel free to take inspiration from the photos, or ignore them completely and just work with monochrome.  Good luck!  

The reveal date will be Monday, March 21.  To make it super easy for you to participate and share your blog links, I'll set up an Inlinkz link up so folks can add their blogs as they are ready.  Just stop by my blog on March 21st and join the fun!  No blog?  No worries!  Feel free to send me a picture of your creation and some brief comments and I'll happily share in my blog post.  You can reach me at sjdesignsjewelry@gmail.com  The more the merrier, so I hope you'll play along with me this month!