Time and Tide

Time and tide wait for no man ... and this pendant couldn't wait any longer to be made. Incorporating the inner works of a vintage watch, a polymer clay moon face given to me by Judith Skinner, and various beads, stitched onto a leather backing, the pendant is 2-1/4" wide at the widest point, by 2-3/4" tall, including the beaded bale. I haven't had time to make a proper necklace for it yet, but it still looks great on the antiqued ball-and-chain one where it temporarily resides.
Click on the image to embiggen it! (borrowed that word from Rice Freeman-Zachary, thanks Rice!)

Creepy Baby

Here's one of the babies in my Creepy Baby series ... she's not one of the creepiest, but she IS kind of weird! Her name is Circus Baby, and she is a beaded 4-1/2" antique bisque doll. She came into my possession without her original arms, so I created some happy circus arms for her.



And here she is from the back, so you can see her little bonnet:

Some people have asked if the beads are glued on. No, they are peyote-stitched around her body and head with size 15 seed beads, creating a little attached bonnet. My friend Larkin Van Horn (http://www.larkinart.com/) taught me how to peyote-stitch around a solid object, such as a bottle, and I translated the technique to the doll.

Her arms are stuffed, stitched fabric, beaded at the ends and wound around with some gorgeous silk waste yarn donated by a friend (thank you, Jo!)

Floating Downstream on the Planet Jupiter

Floating Downstream on the Planet Jupiter, 6"x4", also started as a needle-felted base, with hand-dyed cheesecloth, ribbon, yarn, and wool. The little Venusian girl was separately beaded as a doll, then attached to the base. She is vacationing on Jupiter, serenely floating downstream, dreaming of a Venusian boy.

New Beginnings

New Beginnings, 4"x6", is an encrusted piece on a painted background. An original design created from a Photoshop-manipulated photo of a flower from my back yard, it ended up looking more like an egg than a flower. Either way, it reminded me of "new beginnings".

The Gift

The Gift, 4"x6", is a combination of two different projects. The original beaded doll on wire was created separately, and I had him on a little doll-stand. The background was needle-felted natural dyed shredded bark, and originally had an entirely different purpose. The two seemed to "fit" together, and became "The Gift".

The Lizard Constellation

The Lizard Constellation, 6"x4"is a painted background, beaded around a beaded button. Larkin Van Horn (http://www.larkinart.com/) taught me to bead a button, and this is a very dimensional piece ... one of my favorites.

Deep Currents

Deep Currents, 4"x6", is also a caged face cabochon. This face is ceramic rather than polymer clay, and has been in my "stuff stash" for several years, so I don't remember where I picked her up. Her veil was created with size 11 and 15 seed beeds, and surrounded by stacked beads. Almost all of the deep sea coral is made up of stacked beads, with a few Swarovski crystals thrown in for sparkle. The surface is a hand-dyed silk chiffon.

A Lunar Blessing

I thought I would add the rest of my 2007 Bead Journal Pages. This one, "A Lunar Blessing", 4"x6", started out as a machine-felted postcard. My friend Betty let me play on her embellishing machine one day, and I had a ball! After the piece was felted, though, it languished in my sewing room for want of a focal point. Once I came across the little polymer clay moon-face, I thought caging her at the center of the moon would be a lovely addition. I used my hand-dyed silk chiffon as the moon-beams, with a spattering of tiny beads added as stars.

She Waits

"She Waits", 4x6", is one of my first caged cabochons that I was entirely pleased with. I'm happy with the effect of the seed beads creating a sort of veil over her forehead, and I think the color scheme goes well with the beautiful ceramic face, given to me as a gift by my friend Larkin Van Horn (http://www.larkinart.com/). (She's also the one who taught me to "cage the wild cabochon"!)


Here's a side view, so you can see how dimensional the piece is.


And here it is framed to 14" x 16". This is the only one of my beaded pieces that is currently for sale ... through the Copper Shade Tree Gallery (http://www.coppershadetree.com/), or here's a direct link to my page on their website ... http://tinyurl.com/6hcxd6.

What Would Nancy Do?

"WWND?", 6x4", was a piece I started as a textural experiment, using different sizes and shapes of beads. Coincidentally, I made and wore the little "WWND" beaded pin to a quilt-art meeting where I knew my friend Nancy Dickey (http://www.nancybdickey.com/) would be. I wanted to both tease her and honor her for her fine, meticulous beading work. Then, once that joke was done, I decided to incorporate the little pin into this Bead Journal Page. It's not exactly a work of art, but it was a lot of fun, and took many, many hours of beading fun.

Eye of the Beholder

"Eye of the Beholder", 6x4", was created on a base of black ultrasuede, something I probably would not do again. The gold painted lines do not want to stay solid on this material. I also don't like the edge treatment I tried on this piece. However, I do like the "eye", which I purchased from a taxidermist, caged with seed beads, and surrounded with bugle beads.

Little Sun

"Little Sun", 6x4", was painted then beaded. I like the combination of "encrusted" beading for the seed area, and the lighter beading in the petal area, allowing the wash of paint colors to show through. Stacked beads worked well for the seeds, I think.

Desert Tortoise

"Desert Tortoise", 6x4", began as a painted cotton fabric background (Setacolor opaque paints), with the shell created by choosing irregularly-shaped polished rock beads. The desert flowers always seem so brave to me, so they had their say with tiny red sparks of color against the dry landscape.

Carnivale

"Carnivale", 6x4", was my June Bead Journal Page for Robin Atkins' 2007 project http://beadjournalproject.blogspot.com/. It has a base of black sweatshirt fabric, machine-needle-felted with fibers, and embellished with a hand-needle-felted "button". The beads seemed like explosions of light from a fireworks display to me, and so it became "Carnivale".

Beads beads beads

My friend Larkin was here for a week, and despite her raging bronchitis, she proved to be a real trooper. We went to the Round Top Antiques Festival and found some wonderful treasures to use in our art. Some were old postcards, some were little bottles for beading, and some were what we called "Rusty Stuff", which Larkin was very sharp-eyed at spotting for me!

Of course we couldn't let our evenings go by without some beading, so Larkin showed me how to bezel a rivoli bead "in the air" ... a difficult and "fiddly" technique, but so much fun once I mastered it! Larkin, as many of you know, is a wonderful teacher (http://www.larkinart.com/) and is so generous with her knowledge.

Here's my first attempt at a bezeled 3/4" rivoli (two views because the colors look different at different angles) ...





Then, once I realized how to do the Peyote stitch on a solid object rather than on fabric (which was the only way I'd done it before), I was encouraged to try it on a tiny bottle ... only 2-1/4" tall ... here are the results ... front and back:




(I didn't want to cover up the Benjamin Franklin image on the bottle, so I added a little "cuff" along the sides.) Both the bezeled rivoli and the beaded bottle were done in Delicas.

Poor Larkin is recovering at home now, after I ran her all over the countryside ... but we did get some good video-viewing in, as well as some great visiting. Thanks, Larkin!

Another Bead Journal Page

... and here's the latest Bead Journal Page that I started months ago and just now finished ... now I'm "only" two months behind schedule!



(October, 2007) - She Waits


She Waits, side view. This page is very dimensional ... actually "stuffed" inside with batting.

Bead Journal Project

I thought I'd catch up on posting some photos of my Bead Journal pages that I've made for Robin Atkins' Bead Journal Project which she started back in June of this year. It's a year-long project, with a "page" per month. I've chosen to make my pages post-card size (4x6"), and here's what I've completed so far.


(June, 2007) Desert Tortoise - painted background, lightly beaded.


(July, 2007) Eye of the Beholder - using a painted background and a taxidermy eye.
(subtitled The Migraine.)


(August, 2007) WWND? (What Would Nancy Do?) - A reference to my friend Nancy Dickey.


(September, 2007) The Lizard Constellation - Painted background, with beaded button.

I'll post my October piece in the next day or two.

Demo Day at Copper Shade Tree Gallery

On Saturday, December 1, Gerald and Debbie Tobola had a Demo Day at their Copper Shade Tree Gallery (http://geraldtobola.com/coppershadetree.htm) in Round Top, Texas. They invited Patricia Daugherty, Jerry Potenza, Dave Hardin and me to spend the day demonstrating our various art techniques to the patrons of their gallery. It was a cool, windy day, and the Christmas Parade brought out lots of folks for the day, so it was a lot of fun.

Above is my little demo table with my beads. Along with my Bead Journal Pages that I'm doing for Robin Atkins' Bead Journal Project, I also brought a few of my beaded dolls to show ... "The Fishwife" and "Red Hot Alien Mama". "Tiny Dancer" is just visible inside the polymer clay-covered box.

Above is Dave Hardin with one of his smaller, portable looms. He makes gorgeous scarves on this little loom (I have two of them myself).

Jerry Potenza, above, did some beautiful leatherwork, and both Patricia and I were also interested in his vast array of specialty tools. He displays and sells his work in the gallery as well.

Patricia Daugherty, above, is demonstrating her method of "mokume gane" in polymer clay. She had lots of admirers, and even made some sales of some items she hadn't intended to sell!

Patricia and Denna, near the end of the day. Denna was sweet enough to go home and make up a poultice for my bee sting ... thank you so much, Denna! (I thought of posting a picture of my sting, but it was too gross!)

After Demo Day was over, Patricia and I drove out to Dave & Denna Hardin's A Light Unto My Path Retreat (http://www.alightuntomypath.com/) to see the new patio gate that they had had specially made from the bottoms of old wine bottles. It is gorgeous! I made Dave stand in front of it for a picture.

Copper Leaf-worthy?

I had been wanting to make a necklace worthy of the hand-hammered copper leaf made for me by Gerald Tobola of the Copper Shade Tree Gallery in Round Top, Texas ( http://geraldtobola.com/ ), but just hadn't come up with anything I liked well enough. Finally, the Spiral Rope technique that Ann taught me the other day struck me as just right, so I made one in copper and antique blue beads, to show off the copper leaf. Here it is.


The leaf itself is about 1-1/2" x 4", and the rope is 18" long, with a dyed fresh-water pearl for the catch.