Friday, January 7, 2011

Color challenge finals: Lilies Fresco

This is part of a fresco on some island, probably in Greece or Mesopotamia. I worked on designs for other palettes first, as this color scheme and the art itself was rather unexciting to me. Not to mention I don't have many rusts, mustards, creams or that indeterminate gray-green. But when I stopped thinking about what I thought I saw in the colors, and looked really hard to see what was actually there in the palette, I saw more to work with. Grays and oranges, ideas of natural themes and sedimentary layers began forming, and, as I always do, I remembered some things that 'had been sitting around a while' in the palette. I pulled out some taupe faux suede lacing, copper-lined seed beads, a finely-carved serpentine leaf, a smooth river pebble, banded orange agate drops, dull gold silk... But when I found the champagne-colored, double-drilled mother of pearl stick, I was reminded of Marcie Abney's 'Snowy Peaks' design (featured in the latest issue of Stringing magazine) and knew I had a good start. 
Her necklace features a single pendant suspended from a double-drilled bar, connected with wire to multiple strands of seed beads. My design would need more than one pendant to include all the important colours, so I arranged several elements into a harmonious-looking collage, and beaded them together. I bezeled the river rock first with copper 11s, then attached the leaf and the agate teardrop to it. Next, I ran a strand of 11s from the top of the bezeled stone into each of the bar's holes, making a loop of seed beads to capture the pale honey and striped agate marquise drops to either side. Lastly, I made copper loops to suspend the whole assembly from a strap made of the faux suede lacing and gold silk, knotted, intertwined, and finished with a silver toggle studded with tiny green crystals.

2 comments:

Kokopelli said...

I love how you arranged the stones into this collage. It really looks harmonious. And all those stones are awesome.

Lovia said...

Wow, this is gorgeous; I love the composition.