Thursday, April 28, 2016

Art Jewelry Elements: Component of the Month

Time for an Art Jewelry Elements COM reveal! Here were some amulet vessels that Jenny Davies-Reazor made. I saw them at Beadfest and knew I had to play along. I said go big or go home and got the biggest one here.
Here are some amulet vessels I found pictures of...
This next one was to hold liquid... Poison perhaps?
Well I needed to fill my vessel first with amulety type things... I looked up and found that amulets are to ward off bad things and talismans are to bring good luck. So, cloves it is. They are worn to ward away evil spirits plus they smell good!
I used evil eye manik-manik beads from Indonesia ( the colors were perfect! ) some leather and wood plus sari silk to finish it off.
Then I had to seal my vessel so the stuff inside didn't fall out! So, I wire wrapped in a way that mimics the bottom of the vessel.
Thanks to the AJE team and all the guests that played along!
Take a look at everyone's blog and comment!
 

Guests:

Marsha of Marsha Neal Studio

Alison of Alison Adorns

Jess of The Copper Cat

Brooke from Artistic Endeavors

 

AJE Team:

Lesley

Caroline

Niky

Jennifer

Diana

Lindsay

Susan

Jenny

THANK YOU!

 

Inspired by Reading: A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter

Well another month of Inspired by Reading has come and gone. I got this one on my Nook, but I didn't seem to want to read it. IDK why. Everyone said/says it's good and timeless and interesting. I was rushing to find some inspiration without reading the book (WHAT?!) and I found her NON fiction book online. Here's a link to it. I read about the Yellow Emperor because I did find out that one plays a part in the book. THEN I googled the Yellow Emperor and it is actually called Eacles imperialis. which is now known as the Yellow Imperial. Here is a fantastic photo I found of it to show its size and another to show the purple color!

 

I also NEEDED to know the differences between moths and butterflies, here's what I found...

  • Butterflies and moths BOTH belong to the order Lepidoptera some major differences are:
    • A butterfly’s antennae are club-shaped with a long shaft and a bulb at the end. A moth’s antennae are feathery or saw-edged.
    • Butterflies tend to fold their wings vertically up over their backs. Moths tend to hold their wings in a tent-like fashion that hides the abdomen
    • Moths have a frenulum, which is a wing-coupling device. Butterflies do not have frenulums.
    • Butterflies are primariy diurnal, flying in the daytime. Moths are generally nocturnal, flying at night.
    • A moth makes a cocoon, which is wrapped in a silk covering. A butterfly makes a chrysalis, which is hard, smooth and has no silk covering
  • There are exceptions to ALL these rules of course! Info courtesy of Library of Congress.

So here is my half finished Eacles imperialis!

Isn't she a beauty! I think I will make her antennae yellow instead of purple.
Then I will finish her wings with the same pattern. I will wear her as a pendant hung with some yellow or purple sari silk.

Take a look at our Facebook page for Inspired by Reading to see what everyone has accomplished and actually finished! I am betting there are a lot of moths!!

 

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Halcraft Pretty Palette April

This month's Pretty Palette was based more on an idea than a thing. The idea of WabiSabi.

Erin picked out some rusty and worn gears and metal parts as inspiration and used them as the basis for the color palette of copper and turquoise. I found my beads this month at Joann's under the Bliss Beads label by Halcraft. I started with the same color palette. But I wasn't happy...

... I needed more red and orange to show the rust and decay. I really liked the photo in the above quote and used that as my inspiration. So I added some more beads from Michaels and some from my local bead shop, Allegory Gallery. I still wasn't happy, I needed something old or rusty or crusty itself... Then I found an etsy destash of Art beads which included some rustic Inviciti charms with wonderful aging. Then everything fell into place.
The polymer clay rounds are made by Andrew Thornton.
I love the asymmetrical feel of two different pendants but the same image.

The photos are taken on a 30 year old wooden chair that my father-in-law made for my husband. It's a re-creation of the chairs that were at the public pool of our town. My husband and I grew up swimming almost daily at the pool in the summer. The chair has been outside in the elements 365 days a year. The chair is worn and weathered and rusty and creaking but it still works. When you sit you are transported to a simpler time.

I sit on it everyday to have my coffee in the morning, outside with my dogs.

This is my Wabi-Sabi.

 

Monday, April 25, 2016

Art Bead Scene April Challenge

It's Art Bead Scene time again! I love to participate in this challenge because it gets the visual part of my brain stimulated. I usually give Google a run for its money because I google the crap out of the artist and genre and art work. EXCEPT for this one. I can honestly say I am not at all inspired by this piece and did not want to know more. I did, however, Google to find a clearer crisper photo, and I did... This one shows nice details even her signature. This one clearly shows the differences between the beige, pink, and lilac. Also the orange and rust are more defined as well. But, the green pencil lines and circles really stand out in this one which is what I don't like about it. Oh well. I am certainly not an art critic so, what do I know! :-)
Check out the original post to find out more about the art, artist, and challenge.

What I DO know is I found the perfect art beads at Bead Fest Spring. I lucked upon them in Karen Leonardo Lampwork booth.
I also have some little clay spacers from Shipwreck Dandy when she was making polymer pieces. I am not sure if she still is, I haven't checked in a while but when I last looked she was not. They were the perfect combo of pink and lilac. The little lilac pinch beads are from Allegory Gallery and the teracotta beads are from Potomac Bead Co in Hagerstown MD.
Check these lampwork beads! They are soo fun, the look like colored chocolate rolled in crushed nuts!
Here's the polymer clay spacers, aren't they cute?
As you can see, I made a lariat style to evoke the Ladder part of the name of the piece. (Jacob's Ladder) The ring part of the lariat was from an awesome goodie bag that Michelle Mach put together for a weekend class at Allegory Gallery. In it was cool findings to promote her book Unexpected Findings. Which I have, which I love. Thanks Michelle!
Thanks to all at Art Bead Scene! Check out the inLinkz on the blog to see what everyone made this month. Also, find them on Pinterest and Facebook!

 

Sunday, April 24, 2016

Sarajo's Honey Do Challenge

Okay, I know I say this for every challenge, but this one is DEFINITELY my favorite BY FAR!

The Beer Label HoneyDo Challenge

Some background: I work in the restaurant industry. I work in a full service family restaurant. We started featuring and highlighting a craft brew or micro brew every week for cheap so people would be more likely to try these interesting brews. We have one on tap and a different one in a bottle. It worked! We upped our beer sales over the last year! Yay! I've seen lots and lots of labels, but the MOST exciting is to see what the tap handles are!

So for this challenge I used the 'just kicked' brew's tap handle, the current brew's tap handle and the 'on deck' brew's tap handle that we had at work. Here they are...

DuClaw Brewing Co of BelAir MD. Kona Brewing Co of Kailua-Kona HI. Blue Point Brewery of Patchogue NY.

Fun Right!!!

Well, I have two finished. The wizard seems easy, but I am waiting on the perfect wizard focal for him, I'll post when I find it. So here are my other two.

First up Neon Gypsy by DuClaw Brewing:

Seed bead layering necklaces with tassels are really popular classes at the bead shop Allegory Gallery where I work and play. Here I used some fun vintage plastic in neon green and yellow plus a glass art bead in the perfect colors! That art bead has been in my stash for a while and I actually got it from one of my cooks. She does macramé necklaces so we traded some big hole beads.
Doesn't the hand made tassel scream Neon Gypsy! Thanks to Zach, our resident tassel maker!

 

Next up Koko Brown by Kona Brewing:

Allegory Gallery always has some cool lava rock strands, so I knew I wanted to use those... Then I found some white coral chips and I had some blue cultured sea glass and wooden tube beads. The flower made some changes along the way until I found this laser cut wood flower at Allegory Gallery. Even though there is no bird on the handle, I imagine there are some in Hawaii, ;-) so I had to add a Humblebeads birdie!

The perfect navy blue beads are very hard to find! These bean shaped beads I found at Michaels and used for another challenge as well (Art Bead Scene monthly art challenge).

Thanks Eric and Sarajo for this challenge! I will be newly inspired weekly by our tap handles at work. Keep your eyes on my blog for the Blue Point wizard to make his debut.

Hop to Sarajo's page to see what everyone else created for the Beer Label HoneyDo Challenge!

 

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Allegory Gallery Challenge: Hidden Cove Reveal

What a beautiful kit this was! Taken from Pantone's colors of the season, Andrew picked the blues and tans this time. I think one is actually called Snorkel Blue!

Here is an AMAZING MakuRaku pendant I've been hoarding that I wanted something to help pull out the colors of the bird...

Isn't Raku beautiful! It seems eternally liquid or wet, but that is the way good Raku looks with all the iridescence. I thought this color blue would be a perfect fit. It was, take a look...

I like loved the large hole big blue vintage plastic so much that I bought more from Allegory Gallery along with the green large hole that I found there.

Check out how close this plastic looks to matte stone, it's pretty darn cool!

Please hop along to others through the Facebook page for Allegory Gallery Design Challenges! Check out the diverse creativity that these challenges bring out!

 

Sunday, April 10, 2016

April To Do List

My list of challenges I would like to finish for this month.

This challenge kit is all about the Pantone colors of the year and blue waters! 


This one is all about Craft and Micro Beer labels!

Wabi-Sabi! Finding beauty in imperfection and natural decay. Seeking beauty in the broken, rusty and decayed.

Always based on a piece of artwork. This month it's the abstract piece "Jacob's Ladder" by Helen Frankenthaler.

This challenge always centers around an artist's component, this month it's an amulet vessel.

 Book Club + Jewelry Making = awesome fun

This challenge you must use all the colors they post in the palette. 


 



Monday, April 4, 2016

Inspired by Reading: Swan Thieves

I forgot to post this! I posted on the Inspired by Reading Facebook site, but completely forgot to blog about it!

I had already listened to this book on cd twice. Plus read her first novel The Historian. I loved them. Very long, but keeps your interest. Since it had been a while since I read it, I thought I would do some projects on the IDEAS that she used to tell the story.

Étretat, Normandy Coast, France was called "the beach of artists and writers" in the late nineteenth century. Gustave Courbet, Eugene Boudin, and Claude Monet to name a few.

In the winter of 1868-1869 Monet's attention was drawn to Etretat in the Caux region of Normandy. He then returned there every year between 1883 and 1886. Like many painters, particularly Gustave Courbet, Monet was captivated by the picturesque qualities of the place, and took inspiration from it for more than fifty of his paintings.
The configuration of "these high cliffs pierced by these strange arches called the Gates" (Maupassant, Adieu, 1884) gives an unusual character to the landscape. The largest of the three openings in the cliffs, the Manneporte, "an enormous vault through which a liner could pass" (Maupassant, Guillemot Rock, 1882), appears in only two of Monet's paintings. This work can be dated 1885, by analogy with another painting of equal size, signed and dated 1885: The Manneport, Etretat in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

I fell in love with this one of the series...

Here are a few more...

Here's my necklace to represent Monet's cliffs at sunset...

The hand blown glass beads are from Ooooh Beads out of France. I LOVE that she makes glass tassel caps to match large hole beads. There's some huge Allegory Gallery handmade polymer clay beads on there as well.
The Myth of Leda and the Swan in a story and subject of art from Greek mythology in which the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces or rapes Leda. According to later Greek mythology, Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus, while at the same time bearing Castor and Clytemnestra, children of her husband Tyndareus, the King of Sparta. According to many versions of the story, Zeus took the form of a swan and raped or seduced Leda on the same night she slept with her husband King Tyndareus. In some versions, she laid two eggs from which the children hatched.
Although there is a more famous painting by Michelangelo depicting this, there was another famous Renaissance painting of the subject. Correggio's elaborate composition of c. 1530 (Berlin); this was damaged whilst in the collection of Philippe II, the Regent of France. His son Louis, though a great lover of painting, was very pious and "had periodic crises of conscience about his way of life, in one of which he attacked the figure of Leda with a knife." The damage has been repaired, though full restoration to the original condition was not possible. The original remains but a headless Leda has been restored by Schlesingen.
Here is my necklace to represent Leda and the Swan and Zeus...

The Leda with the Swan is a DeviantArt piece I found while researching...

 

Art Elements: September 2019 Challenge

September Art Elements Challenge Wow, it’s been a year since I last used the blog. I always liked using my blog instead of Facebook, I act...