Art Bead Scene – December 2014

23 Tue Dec 2014

Posted by fulgorine in Art Bead Scene, My work

Tags

art bead, bead earrings, Cate van Alphen, DEC ABS, earring, handmade beads, monthly challenge, polymer clay

The earrings I made for this month’s Art Bead Scene Challenge may seem a little abstract because I can’t share all the steps I took to get there (yet!). The beads I used are handmade by me from polymer clay (other than the gold seed beads in the last pair of earrings).

Choir of Sint-Bavokerk, Haarlem 1635 by Pieter Jansz Saenedam
Oil on Oak Panel, 37.1 x 48.2 cm

Rustic sequin stack earrings by Cate van Alphen

Monochrome earrings – inspired by the geometric structure of the painting.

White stack and glitter bead earrings by Cate van Alphen

Earrings with gold glitter beads (because it’s Christmas). I thought I could get away with these because of the gold chandelier in the painting.

Offset stack bead earrings by Cate van Alphen

The last pair is a bit of a tangent away from the painting. I was worried the stacks of flat disk beads looked a little like electric power line insulators so I tried a pair with the holes drilled off centre. I discovered that I needed to drill two holes to prevent the beads spinning around inelegantly. I was trying to achieve a look of an impossibly precarious cairn. The idea is pretty much the opposite of the order and structure of the painting, but don’t tell the muse!

ABS December – from rockpool to snowscape

22 Sun Dec 2013

Posted by fulgorine in Art Bead Scene, Challenge, My work

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

art bead, creature bead, DEC ABS, focal bead, handmade bead, pendant, polymer clay, snowscape, Wassily Kandinsky

I love my creature beads, but sometimes they can be real divas to work with! Take for example “Rockpool Creature”…

I made this bead at the end of summer, and I pictured colourful corals in tropical rockpools. As I was getting it ready for listing in my shop, it kept insisting it was in fact this month’s ABS inspiration painting – Winter Landscape by Wassily Kandinsky.

Winter Landscape by Wassily Kandinsky, 1909
Oil on cardboard 75.5 cm × 97.5 cm

You start to feel silly arguing with a bead, so I gave in 🙂 I wired the bead with the yellows on the horizon brightening to white cloud above like the landscape. I added some dark blue wire to represent the bare trees (I think some of the shapes came from “Cannons“). Then I added some crystals and pale blue and purple icicle dangles.

This bead did NOT want to be a necklace. I think it really wanted to be an ornament but, as parents do, I thought it should work for a living. So it became a pendant (for now).