Non-Art Daily, Nov 14

Yes, two posts on the same day, having to do with my Non-Art project. It's just that I'm catching up and had to finish today's piece.

 

Using acrylics again, I took inspiration from another FusionBeads ad, but this time it turned out pretty much nothing like the original ad. I used aubergine, purples, some pink, a bit of cobalt blue, touches of yellow and managed to mix a tan/brown to moderate all the bright colour. Topping it all off are splashes of bright scarlet, which also rims the painting. This painting turned out fairly chaotic, but I tried to keep both a sense of movement with the big aubergine stripe, and balance/unity with the repeated splotches of scarlet along with matching frame. 

The inspiration was this ad:

In a state of excitement for color theory

Lately I've really been focusing on color theory. I've also been using loop fringe. Blue and orange are complementary on the color wheel, so my challenge was to make something based in blue and orange that DIDN'T look terrible (I have difficulties with complementary colors). One trick I learned from reading all those books on color was to use multiple shades of complementaries, plus a neighboring color.
I made a pair of earrings first, then a matching necklace.

I decided that orange was going to be the main point of the earrings, with yellow as the neighboring colour, so I used a 'backbone' of matte, almost-cobalt blue cubes to stitch the fringe through. I used 5 shades of orange and 2 shades of yellow, in 3 finishes. Then I stitched silverlined light-cobalt 15s through the blue cubes, so the backbone had a visual element (the silver lining) in common with the fringe.
For the earrings, I folded up loops of fringe at the top and bottom. On one side, I added a large pearl, and on the other, a jumpring for the ear hoop.

For the necklace, I ran a simple blue satin cord through the top half of the loops, gathering the loops like ruffles. The resulting necklace slightly resembles an ancient collar, perhaps Egyptian or Minoan.

Marcie, Margie & Me colour challenge

Having discovered Marcie Abney's blog, La Bella Joya and her ongoing Margie and Me color-themed challenge, I've been working with colours I would not have otherwise paired. The latest challenge was to be inspired by a Rococo church ceiling shown above, incorporating pale blues, pinks and golds.
I made two pieces. The first was this crystal pendant in mellow gold, with a royal blue peyote/herringbone bail accented with gold in its 'spine'. The pink came from a pair of faceted glass beads at the point of the bail, and the satin cord on which the pendant hangs.

I've been doing a lot of loop fringe lately, so I decided to make a loop fringe pendant in the challenge colours. Since my bead box has its limits, I used the colours I needed in the shapes I had: cubes, hexes, delicas and Czech size 11s.

I started with sea blue 6s, then added matte medium and sky blue cubes, medium blue AB 6s, pink hexes, a mix of pink Delicas, then gold Delicas and copper AB Czech 11s. I sewed a path of pink Delicas down the center, added a pink octagon Swarovski crystal, and finished the piece with a sky blue satin cord.
Thanks Marcie and Margie--this was a great exercise in creativity!

A leap forward in colour theory and execution!

These earrings represent a leap forward in both color theory AND designing on the fly. Usually I wouldn't think to pair hot red-orange, aqua, lavender, and orange (never mind how much of each to use), but I noticed how well my hyacinth AB2X bicones harminized with a tube of lavender-lined 15s that happend to be lying next to each other, and that's what got me started. Peering closely at the surface effect of the AB finish, I noticed that in addition to lavender, it had a bit of aqua in the color play. So, rejecting a stronger shade which might compete with the crystal, I dug out my single pair of dyed light aqua quartz rondelles, which had been waiting for months for the right project. Then I pulled a juicy pink-lined seed bead shade as a supporting player, and at the last minute, frosted silver-lined orange seed beads. At that point I had little idea what I'd do with them--usually a bad sign that I'll spend an hour or two rearranging my bead selection, and after attempting a prototype with a few stitches, decide it's 'not right' and put the beads away. But this time, the elements came together! I started with two units of right-angle weave, modified in places to fit the aqua rondelle in the center. Maybe effects of that last Jimi Hendrix cd were lingering, because I knew what to do then--I pulled out my orange seeds and added them to the top corners for just a glint of brightness. I put a single pink-lined seed in the center of each long side, then remembered a design element I'd never done before--the cross-RAW-unit line of seed beads. It was time for more lavender! Exiting a top bicone, I strung a line of tiny lavender beads, and went through the hole of the aqua rondelle, on the side facing away from the bicone hole I'd exited. Then I repeated the process in reverse for the bottom half of the beadwork, exiting the rondelle and entering the opposite hole of the bottom bicone. To finish the beadwork, I put small jumprings into the top orange seed beads and attached a short length of chain. They're attached to small silver clip-on hoops.