Bead Arts

Make Art Monday!

I made this bracelet for a challenge over at the Wearable Arts forum on WetCanvas a couple of weeks ago. It was actually inspired by a photograph of a fruit and vegetable market in Seattle. The beads running down the center of the bracelet are the same color as Rainier cherries, and the ribbon yarn colors reminded me of all the other summer fruit bounty in the photo.

I wrote up some tips on making these finger-woven pieces awhile back.    The process was quite similar, except that I used short lengths of ribbon yarn to tie the square knots in between each bead instead of using one continuous length of cord.

handmade-beaded-jewelry, wearable-art, beads, beading, jewelry, mixed-media

Make Art Monday!

I bought this tigerskin jasper at a recent bead and gem show. It’s not tigereye, which has that wonderful chatoyant reflection: instead, tigerskin has matte bands of purple-brown and dark golden ochres. It mixes beautifully with deep bronze facetted glass beads and small beaded beads.

Tomorrow, I’m going to give you the pattern I came up with for the beaded beads. It’s not difficult, and you can choose any colors you like to create the checkerboard pattern.

[Note ~ now I've been told that it's wood jasper, not tigerskin jasper, so you'll have to decide for yourself!]

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Make Art Monday!

Here’s a piece that I made with some more of the turquoise and other stones that I picked up at the Intergem show last month:

Turquoise Shower

It also uses serpentine, amazonite, chalk turquoise, and copper.

handmade-beaded-jewelry, wearable-art, beads, beading, jewelry, mixed-media

Make Art Monday!

I’ve been having a great time with these Czech facetted beads lately. Many people refer to them as crystals, and although I’ve been known to slip and write that from time to time, they are not really properly called that. True crystals have a high lead content, which gives them a brilliant shine not matched by these beads. Swarovski cut crystals are real crystal. Most Czech beads, at least the ones I know of, are not.

However, I don’t think that the bead police are going to come get you if you use the term wrong. I do think that if you are selling your work, you should definitely try to be as accurate as possible and at least call them Czech crystals so that your customers don’t think they’re getting Swarovski. Oh yes, there is a difference!

Back down off my soapbox now, and off to change all the places in my website descriptions where I used the wrong terms..LOL! Here’s what I made

This is right angle weave around an optical lens. The other side is done with amber colored beads…two for the time it takes to do one!


This bracelet alternates large facetted beads with 2-holed jasper beads.

handmade-beaded-jewelry, wearable-art, beads, beading, jewelry, mixed-media

Make Art Monday!

I painted some aluminum foil a few weeks ago to create some background papers for some of my non-wearable art…collages, digital mixed media images, etc. But of course, at least a couple of wearables had to come out of it, so I ended up making this pin among other things. I’ve got a tutorial for it posted on my mixed media blog, Layers Upon Layers.

Pretty cape amethyst chips and rounds on a base of crocheted wire.

Faerie Bells

handmade-beaded-jewelry, wearable-art, beads, beading, jewelry, mixed-media

Only its temporary home though! In about a month, our collaborative charm necklace will be auctioned off to support breast cancer research.

For those who never heard our story, or who don’t remember it, here’s the summary:
Over the course of a couple months, a small group of my friends and I collaborated on a charm necklace project. None of us had ever met in person, but this project certainly made us feel closer in so many ways. The artists who participated with me were Wendy Van Camp, Illaya Brown, Bobbi Chukran, Leah Hitchcock-Ybarra, Dorothy Lueloff, Ellen Chasse, Amy Fraser, and Dulcey Heller.

Each of us made a charm in an “ocean” color palette that we all agreed upon. The charms were sent to me last July (2006), and it was my responsibility to get them all to play nicely together! Since we had spent quite a bit of time discussing palette and size issue, this did not turn out to be a problem at all.

Our necklace then made the rounds to all of us. We each wore it to a special event and had shared pictures and stories with each other. Some wonderful experiences resulted from the travels of the necklace. In the midst of this, Belle Armoire magazine put out a call for collaborative necklaces…could there have possibly been any better timing? As soon as we finished passing it around, I packaged it up and shipped it off to be photographed for the magazine. “A Charmed Life” should appear in the Sept/Oct issue of Belle Armoire!

So now it has temporarily come back to live with me until it’s time for the auction!

handmade-beaded-jewelry, wearable-art, beads, beading, jewelry, mixed-media

Make Art Monday!

I made this simple knotted necklace with some of the turquoise that I bought at the Intergem show a couple of weeks ago. The cording that I used is C-Lon, which I originally bought when all of us at WetCanvas went nuts over finger-woven bracelets and necklaces!

Tomorrow, I’ll share with you how I made it!

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Make-Art Monday!

So what do you call it when the colors remind you of Florida and the shape is reminiscent of a cascading waterfall? Flamingo Waterfall, of course!

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I’m still not posting a picture of my revolting ugly necklace here on the blog. The Land of Odd’s contest for the ugliest necklace is almost over, and I thought I would explain how I came to make this piece. You can see it here: Queasy It’s #9, near the bottom.

During the planning process, I kept thinking through all the different ways that rules of good design could be broken. It actually took me a lot more time to think through the whole piece than it did to make it. It’s just not that easy to make something that you know is hideous! Here are the major design elements and principles that I violated:

The shape and texture are hideous: fake vomit is visually disturbing

The color scheme uses a poisonous-looking triad in non-harmonious proportions with poor saturation choices: orange, lime green, purple-brown

The value contrast is unexciting: all medium value colors were chosen

The sizes and shapes are inappropriate and poorly proportioned, used with no balance in the rhythm and repetition of elements: neckstrap too thin for central pendant, wired bead links uneven lengths, wrapped loops uneven sizes, beads allowed to slide freely with no spacers, bead holes too large for wire gauge

The choice of materials is inexplicable: cheap plastic mixed with lampworked glass, closure a mix of fibers and a geometric shape atop a chain neckstrap and “organic” shaped vomit, fringe fibers wired onto the chain, all giving the piece no sense of harmony or unity

The pattern on the lampwork beads is poorly done: random numbers of eyes, one bead with reverse colors

The gradation is unbalanced and backwards: neckstrap beads graduated the wrong way, unequal amounts of fringe on either side of centerpiece

The overall effect of all these violations in Queasy is a piece that has no harmony or unity among its elements. There is no sense that this piece is a cohesive whole, with all elements integrated to express a meaningfully complete thought, unless that thought happens to be dis-unity!

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Make Art Monday!

Cute, easy, lightweight for summer…who could ask for more?

Well, how about the instructions LOL!! Stay tuned till tomorrow…

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Make Art Monday!

Blue Bells

I really like those tiny clapperless bells that are made in India. When you add some clusters of them to a strand of beads, the jingling sound has a nice bohemian quality to it. Tomorrow for Technique Tuesday, I’m going to share the steps to making one of these necklaces.

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Make Art Monday!

Dreamers

A couple of weeks ago, I received a very exciting email from Sandra at Rockport/Quarry that my necklace Dreamers was being requested for the upcoming book 1,000 Jewelry Details, and was needed right away for inclusion in the “dummy” sales tool that is created for each new book.

Now that this has happened a few times, you’d think that I’d start to feel like a real grownup!

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Make Art Monday!

These adorable medallions were made by my friend Amy Fraser from polymer clay!

Trout Season

Tomorrow I’ll outline the really simple steps to making this cute necklace.

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Make Art Monday!

My newest mixed media necklace is finished. I started off calling her “grape girl” for lack of a better idea. The central cabochon was created by making a mold of a vintage piece that I have. I’m pretty satisfied with the way she turned out, and more than happy with how well the mold worked. I’m thinking about what to do next with this basic idea.

Chardonnay


The piece is not quite as light and bright as this photo suggests. The colors are a bit more subdued and purple…the beads in the strap are not pink like they appear. I’ve got to figure out this lighting stuff when photographing gently-tinted pieces!

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