Art Bead Scene – December 2014

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

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).

I wish you a very MERRY CHRISTMAS, and a new year full of unexpected treasures.