Happy Monday, my friends! I hope that this post finds you all safe and well. With the stay at home order in place in Minnesota, I’ve had plenty of time to create for Art Journey 3. Ok, let’s be honest, I’m pretty much a hermit anyway so my daily life hasn’t changed dramatically except that vacation plans have been put on indefinite hold so my husband was home the last week staycationing.
As difficult as I initially found thinking about art beads to go along with this amazing collection of quilts from Gee’s Bend, I ended up having a ton of fun designing! I even broke out of my normal symmetrical mindset for a couple of my pieces.
I started with a pair of earrings that was inspired by (ok, ok, totally copied from!) Heather’s earrings from her most recent post. When I saw them I immediately remembered that I had a package of little black tassels that I got in a retreat goody bag. With black being the foundation for the Housetop Nine-Block Half Log Cabin variation quilt by Sue Willie Seltzer, I knew I could find beads to reflect the pink and teal colors to go with the tassels. Of course I had perfect pair of Humblebeads polymer clay discs to bring in the pink colors. (I buy almost every new set I can get my greedy little paws on!) I topped them off with some Czech glass with a lovely blue and a bronze-purple finish on the edges. I really had thought I’d skip making something for this quilt, so I’m happy that Heather unknowingly gave me a kick in the pants to make these little ear bobs!
The next thing I made features a pendant that I actually made in class with our own Erin Prais-Hintz last summer. It was done with her Petri Dish technique using resin and alcohol inks. Not only was the color of my pendant appropriate for Lucy Pettway’s Birds in the Air quilt, but it’s triangular shape was spot on for this inspiration as well! I just couldn’t with the purple from the quilt and the red wasn’t really making me happy in this design either (although I did try that one). I knew I had to include more than just shades of yellow and cream (too monochromatic even for me!) so I ended up adding a couple of sizes of black Czech glass rondelles to my bead links. Keeping with the super geometric nature of the quilt pattern, I also added some square plated hematite spacers into each link. That seemed fitting since the triangles in the quilt come together into squares.
The lovely pendant in this next piece was initially the only art bead that I thought I had that would be suitable. It’s from my fellow Art Bead Scene member, Erin Prais-Hintz of Tesori Trovati and I just love the deep, rich colors she used for this patchwork style piece! I thought it worked so nicely for the Annie Mae Young’s Strips quilt. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought Erin was inspired by this work of textile art. I did a subtly asymmetrical strung design with a mix of Czech glass, plated hematite, and some apatite rounds.
This last necklace may very well be my favorite, and the Housetop variation quilt by Loretta Pettway is my favorite of the quilts. Save the best for last, right? This one started with the gorgeous enameled pendant by Gardanne Beads. I was pretty smitten with the white focal bead that Ann Schroeder used in one of her designs for this Journey (you can see that HERE.) Opaque white is not something that I have much of in my bead stash but I remembered some bead mixes from Allegory Gallery that might include just what I needed. I was not disappointed! I found a nice large barrel bead and several squared tube beads. I started playing with patterns from there with a mix of Czech glass in red and turquoise with some pops of silver from pewter and silver plated spacers.
Thanks for stopping by to see what I’ve been creating! You can go to our Art Bead Scene Lounge Facebook Group to submit your creations for this Art Journey HERE. Remember, you can enter as often as you like… the only rule is that you have to use at least one art bead or component. The deadline for entries is May 8th.
Sarajo Wentling, Your Monday Muse
