Art Bead Scene Challenge, January 2017

Every month the ABS team issue an inspiration photo for their monthly challenge for participants to  create and share a design inspired by the chosen piece. For this month it was this artwork by Egon Schiele.

Field of Flowers, Egon Schiele, 1910, Chalk on Paper

Looking at all the postings on Pinterest it’s clear that a good number of participants were inspired by the shades of red throughout the painting. For me, and a large number of other participants, it was the oranges and the yellows.

Sitting on my bench were a number of lampwork beads created by Sue Kennedy of SueBeads, of which 2 sets were in the perfect colours, a creamy yellow tone and a soft orange. I went digging in my stash and found complementary bright orange ones. Note that I’m keeping it real here giving up on calling it “inventory”, at least for now

Field Colours

Remembering that I had just recently bought some colourful buttons in a destash by Lesley Watt I brought out a couple of styles to try. The large and lovely leaf button by Marla James fit the theme perfectly. Larger seed beads in a lovely matte finish, along with some glossy white ones for balance, were used to fill in the spaces, all strung on waxed linen in a complementary colour. I felt the bracelet needed more, so I used freshwater pearls dyed an orangeish colour called Maize, along with small seed beads that matched the larger ones, to add a second strand to the bracelet. I chose to run the beading thread through a couple of the lampwork beads. The 2^nd strand will lay beside the 1^st when worn.

While searching for the buttons I found a couple more bead sets that fit the theme, and my orange focus, perfectly.

Earth Totem

The stack of earthenware and ceramic beads in this pendant came from Linda Landig. I added a couple of faceted glass beads to the stack to give it a totem feel. The beads are all strung on waxed linen tied to a large copper ring that I made, and chose to use a copper chain to hang it from.

I love that the back of the disc was also finished. Here’s the reverse

Reverse Side, Earth Totem

This little fox with his forest leaf has been hanging out in my stash for quite some time and this challenge felt like the perfect opportunity to bring him out to play.

Foxy

The fox and his little dangle were created by Lesley Watt and are glazed front and back. The colour is very true to the little foxes often spotted in the nature conservation areas immediately around here.

To the fox I added a brass spacer and a ceramic bead created by Linda Landig, both to help bring his natural forest habitat into the theme. Waxed linen in complementary colours was finished with a bronze toggle clasp

Continuing the fun I put together some Valentine earrings with lampwork hearts I had just received from Sue Kennedy this week. I used 14 Kt Gold Filled wires for all 3 pairs. The 2 orange pairs have Swarovski Crystals added to the top (the clear ones on the far right pair don’t show up well in this photo) and the red pair are finished with 14 Kt Gold Filled beads at both top and bottom

My Heart

All of these pieces are available in my online store here. There’s also a direct link on each photo.

On January 31^st please visit the blog reveal to see what everyone else made

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day