The theme this month over at the Art Bead Scene is the Lascaux Cave paintings. This was a fun challenge for me. I was forced to work with earth colors, something I rarely do, and I also tried to keep the materials to a minimum. Sometimes I like to limit myself and force myself to work within certain parameters. So I took out my beads and selected a handful to work with.
I started with one of my large porcelain ovals. The glaze on this particular piece looks so incredibly "cave" to me that I just had to use it. The warm rust background is interrupted by lines that mimic both the cave drawings and the natural striations in the stone itself. After that I selected two beautiful pieces of gray fossil - kind of an obvious, cave-ish, ancient-looking choice.
I made these "spears" (above) after looking through a book about the cave paintings and realizing that the only straight lines depicted anywhere in the drawings were of weapons used to hunt with or antlers on the deer. So I made these three spikes with copper wire and glass beads just to break up the design a little (though I think they look more like cattails, which isn't entirely a bad thing, just not very cave-ish).
I stacked some unusual irregular wood chip beads which I think provide a nice textural contrast to the smooth stone and porcelain. And that is about it! Some glass beads in a nice rusty red color, some copper chain and a ring pretty much wrap up this piece. It was nice to do a piece that was primarily designed around color, texture and materials that would usually not be my first choice. Working outside of the comfort zone is a good thing. :)
The theme this month over at the Art Bead Scene is the Lascaux Cave paintings. This was a fun challenge for me. I was forced to work with earth colors, something I rarely do, and I also tried to keep the materials to a minimum. Sometimes I like to limit myself and force myself to work within certain parameters. So I took out my beads and selected a handful to work with.
I started with one of my large porcelain ovals. The glaze on this particular piece looks so incredibly "cave" to me that I just had to use it. The warm rust background is interrupted by lines that mimic both the cave drawings and the natural striations in the stone itself. After that I selected two beautiful pieces of gray fossil - kind of an obvious, cave-ish, ancient-looking choice.
I made these "spears" (above) after looking through a book about the cave paintings and realizing that the only straight lines depicted anywhere in the drawings were of weapons used to hunt with or antlers on the deer. So I made these three spikes with copper wire and glass beads just to break up the design a little (though I think they look more like cattails, which isn't entirely a bad thing, just not very cave-ish).
I stacked some unusual irregular wood chip beads which I think provide a nice textural contrast to the smooth stone and porcelain. And that is about it! Some glass beads in a nice rusty red color, some copper chain and a ring pretty much wrap up this piece. It was nice to do a piece that was primarily designed around color, texture and materials that would usually not be my first choice. Working outside of the comfort zone is a good thing. :)
Comments
Where are you going to be on Saturday???
Dani, I will be in #161 on Saturday. It looks like it's in front of the library.
Enjoy the day!
Erin
Emi
Hugs...
Bobbi