Art Bead Scene: May 2016

This month's inspiration for the Art Bead Scene challenge is "On a Shaker Theme" by Charles Sheeler.  Overall, it's a bit more modern and angular than what I am usually drawn to, but I do like the color palette.  For some reason, the white of the buildings coupled with the blue tones makes me think of the Greek isles... but that's neither here nor there!  You can read more about the artwork and the artist over on the ABS blog HERE.

"On a Shaker Theme", 1956

by Charles Sheeler

oil on canvas

I decided that this challenge was a perfect time to pull out one of the remaining little house beads by Tracee Dock of The Classic Bead that I've had squirreled away for ages.  The one I picked has nice cream and grey tones to it with some subtle blue undertones.  I grabbed a set of lampwork glass by local glass artist Jeff Barber to pull in the blues and found several wooden beads to round things out.

I used a mix of blue and brown waxed Irish linen to knot the necklace.  I'd hoped to use two strands of each, but I couldn't quite get them all through the house bead or the oblong wooden bead.  I ended up using a doubled over length of blue linen and managed to tie on one strand of brown.  The round wooden beads have been in my stash since my first year of beading so it's nice to see them finally find their way into a design.  (Although per my usual neurosis, I'm sad that they are almost gone now!)  I used a larger round link chain to finish off the back of the necklace... I usually save this chain for bracelets, but I like the balance here.

We're All Ears: April 2015

Once again, Erin Prais-Hintz has come up with some amazing inspiration for us to play with for the We're All Ears monthly challenge over on the Earrings Everyday blog.  For this month, she has chosen a selection of photos of the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, Spain.  This complex was created to honor the melding of science, technology, nature, and art.  You can see more photos and read more about it over on the Earrings Everyday blog HERE.

I took inspiration from the great expanses of windows in many of these structures... and also the pointy bits at the top of that last picture.  I've been having LOTS of fun making earrings with a variety of decorivets from Vintaj lately, so this pair was a natural extension of that play.

I grabbed a pair of the diamond shaped decorivets that I had just bought that have a great marcasite type texture to them (echoing the pointy bits I mentioned earlier) and paired them with some faceted pyrite puff squares.  The shine and facets of the pyrite made me think of the windows and the puff shape reflected the curves that these structures all share.

This is a blog hop, check out what everyone else was inspired to make this month!

An InLinkz Link-up