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!