Art Bead Scene: June 2017

June's inspiration artwork for the Art Bead Scene challenge is a gorgeous riot of color!  This drawing done in pastels by Odelin Redon is called Profile on Red Meanders.  For some reason, it reminds me of the crayon resist artwork I got to do in elementary school... you know where you paint over your crayon drawing with black paint and the paint doesn't stick to the waxy crayon marks.  It goes without saying that my childhood drawings were not nearly this sophisticated, but the contrast of the black with the super vibrant just took my brain there.  But I digress!  You can read more about the artist and the artwork over on the ABS blog HERE.  

Profile on Red Meanders

formerly Jeanne d'Arc

Odelin Redon, 1900

I ordered the little booklet that the ABS did for this year's challenges so I'd been percolating several ideas for this one for some time.  I had several promising options, but narrowed it down to two projects in the end.  (I'm thinking some of the others will get made in the very near future before I forget what they were or lose the beads in messy workspace!)

A while back I won some adorable and super colorful polymer clay charms made by Susana Paredas of Earth Expressions by participating in a challenge in the Artisans Create Together Facebook group.  The bright colors were perfect for this challenge so it was time for them to become earrings!  I added a collection of Czech beads in greens, purples, and fuchsia to make a fun dangly design.

My second design is a far more subdued take on the inspiration artwork.  It started with a pendant that I made playing with a Mokume Gane technique with polymer clay that I learned on this year's Bead Cruise with Eva Sherman.  In all honesty, my mix of colors didn't turn out exactly as I'd hoped/envisioned... I'm still getting the hang of picking colors for maximum contrast!  Nevertheless, it ended up being a happy accident that the colors I chose went well with this month's artwork.  I picked a dark purple, a light purple, green, and a light coppery color to go in some copper plated bezels and bracelets from Nunn Design.

My colors all lined up and ready to go!

Lucky me, I picked up some medium sized English cut Czech glass in a lovely mix of metallics at Bead & Button that included purples, golds, copper, and green shades... a perfect compliment to the pendant and the artwork!  I added in some plated hematite cornerless cubes, metallic O-beads, tiny copper colored Czech glass, and some seed beads to string this necklace.  It was hard for me to capture the metallic shimmer of the pendant but, trust me, it's there!  

Here's a closer look at the pendant and beads!

I made two different pendants with these colors but haven't had time to finish the necklace for the second one yet.  The pattern is much tighter and chaotic feeling on the second one.  I've been kicking around some ideas for a multi-strand design for the other one.  Here's a tiny sneak peek at what I'm hoping to do... stay tuned!

A design waiting in the wings...