Art Bead Scene: April 2017

The artwork for this month's Art Bead Scene challenge is Matamoe or Landscape with Peacocks by Paul Gauguin.  This oil on canvas is one of the artist's Tahitian works... he lived in Tahiti during his later life.  The painting certainly has a rich and exotic feel to it.  You can read more about the artist and his artwork on the ABS blog HERE.

Matamoe or Landscape with Peacocks

Paul Gauguin

1892

Oil On Canvas

There are some seriously bright and saturated colors in this month's inspiration artwork... I think it's fair to call it a color riot!  While temperatures are starting to warm up, spring blooms are still a long way off in Minnesota so it's nice to see some color instead of the bare, grey landscape outside my window.

The art bead in my stash that yelled the loudest was a large lampwork focal from Outa Torch Glasswerks that I bought ages ago out at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival.  The swirling colors were pretty spot on for the artwork and I liked that the colors were almost smeared... which is how I feel about the painting too.

Having just come down off a tassel making binge (see my post HERE if you missed that), I decided that a chain tassel would work well for this design.  To keep it colorful and vibrant like the artwork, I chose to make tiny bead dangles in a mix of gemstones to attach to the end of each piece of chain.  I feel like the resulting effect is reminiscent of a peacock's tail.

For the rest of the necklace I made links with a variety of Czech glass beads in different colors and shapes.  I picked colors to match the color palette of the painting and the colors in the focal bead.  I think the end result is fun and colorful without being too crazy.    

I'm still hoping to complete another necklace design for this month, but for now, I'll stop here.  Vacation is calling me so I need to get some things done so I'll be ready to go!