More beadery

Wish I had something to put up here besides pictures of beadwork, but that's about all I've been doing lately. Vernon suggested I excerpt some of the new stitches from Spikes, Loops and Fringes in case anybody wants a preview of the new book but I'm in a mild depression which makes concentrating on the book feel terribly, overwhelmingly difficult.

I can still stitch beads on Ultrasuede, though; in this case it's relatively few beads and a handful of Swarovski crystals because I wanted to showcase the blue pietersite cabochon, not my wonderful bead embroidery. I've been fondling this cabochon for a couple of years; it's scary to commit one of my favorite rocks to a piece of beadwork, but after all the Austin Gem and Mineral Show is in just 5 weeks and if I were at all short of pretty rocks (which I'm not) there'd be every chance to restock then.

Small Klimt Necklace

I've been working on several smaller bead embroidery pieces this summer - in fact I've got quite a lot of bead embroidery done, since it's something you can do sitting down with a fan blowing on you! This piece may not look all that small, but it is in comparison with my larger Klimt Necklace, which is now at a gallery and unavailable for me to wear. As with the larger one, it's worked on gold-foiled suede and the gold glimmers through the millefiori beads; but this one uses a Lucy Lu magnet of "The Kiss" instead of an expensively hand-painted porcelain reproduction of Judith in Klimt's "Judith with the head of Holofernes."

Incestuous backgrounds

Last night, inspired by Vernon's digital work, I was playing around in Photoshop with one of my pictures of the raku/green necklace (now "officially" named "Sea Forests." The Twirl filter combined with a bit of Liquidize around the edges and some layering, flipping, and blending of the image produced this image, which looks vaguely dragon-like to me. I'm thinking about printing it out and emphasizing the dragon-ness of the form with judiciously placed beads and embroidery. It does seem kind of weird to me, to take a snapshot of my own art and squoodge it around and use it as the basis for another piece. I wonder how long I could keep recycling like this? If I do bead the dragon, can I photograph and Photoshop it and come up with a quilt design? The challenge appeals to me.

Of course, first there's the challenge of using my extremely rudimentary drawing skills to move from this swirly shape to a recognizable dragon. Hmm, where did I put that book on how to draw dragons? I'm going to have to do something about wings...

Backgrounds for beadwork?

My talented friend Vernon Sims has been playing with a fractal program and sent me these two images, which he thinks might make good backgrounds for beadwork. I don't know - the red one in particular is so rich that I might print it out and just sit there staring at it and salivating. It almost seems criminal to cover part of it with beads. What I'm wondering is whether beads could enhance it at all.

Crocheted Coral Reef

A member of our local fiberarts group discovered this glorious construction, which is now traveling around the country. Alas, right now it's on exhibit in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. That's a fair distance from Texas; I'll watch, and wait, and pray it comes somewhere closer.

For some time I've been harboring a fantasy about making a beaded coral reef on a base of handmade felt, but so far it hasn't got much past a fantasy - every time I finish a beadwork project I start a new one on Ultrasuede. I really need to slow down, collect my fibers and make the felt.

Gelatin Monoprinting

So I've got Frances Allford's article in the latest Quilting Arts, on monoprinting fabric with fabric paints on a gelatin plate; and I've got a book about monoprinting paper with water-based inks on a gelatin plate. The only thing is, I want to print fabric with the kind of multi-layered, dreamy images shown in the book on paper.

These are what I got from two weekends' experimenting with thickened dyes on gelatin. The first weekend's work was so pale it washed out. The second time I mixed really strong dyes and the color was so strong I could hardly see what I was doing; when half of that washed out, I was left with these results.

Part of the problem seems to be that the dyes sink into the gelatin; my gelatin printing plate was totally saturated with color by the end of each day. I suppose it's time to get on the dyers' list and ask if anyone has had better results with this method, or suggestions as to how to get the dye onto the fabric rather than into the gelatin.

Raku/PMC necklace

I finished this piece just before we left for Nova Scotia, but didn't have time to photograph it until this weekend. It's built to showcase the round bead dangling at the bottom, a true masterwork combining raku with PMC which I bought at a bead show a couple of years ago. The large rectangular bead just above it is titanium-sprayed drusy quartz, and the tiles on either side are raku beads in green and copper (bottom rows) and abalone squares (top row). The fringe on the neck strap took forever to do. At least I didn't have to bother with a clasp; this one is a keeper which I will never ever sell, and I don't like clasps because they get caught in my back hair, so the strap is one continuous piece of free peyote from one side of the front piece to the other.

With, as I said, lots of fringe. Possibly a little too much fringe - it certainly felt like that when I was working on it!