Sunday, May 23, 2010

May Bead Journal Project


When I started to bead the May piece, it came together as a collection of items - some from here, some from there. I'd had the large flower for a while - it came from a beadshop in Portland, which means it's about 5 years old. And the smaller flowers are new - purchased at a bead sale earlier in the year. Some of the beads (and certainly the buttons) are vintage, but new to me, so the button is a real mix of different things. It's also the first work to incorporate my own lampwork beads, even if it's a tiny, tiny spacer. I guess the work really does mirror how the month has gone - some good, some bad, somethings that just have to be dealt with.

I wanted to follow up on my colour wheel comments from the last post. In some respects, the colour wheel is limiting, but it is also forcing me to use and look at beads that I wouldn't have otherwise. The small yellow flowers are like that - I don't usually use flowers in my work, and I'm not a huge yellow fan, but they showed up when I was browsing beads at the bead sale, and I knew I had to have a few for this piece.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

April Bead Journal Project

Here, and only a little late, is April's bead journal project. I'm enjoying the aspect of "journaling" through beads. I hadn't really thought much about representing my life, and the year, through beads. This month I think I've caught on to the concept, and the April piece, with its one blue dot against a background of orange, is about feeling alone in a lot of ways. My work situation changed drastically in the last year, and I'm still trying to figure out if the changes are good or bad.

Now that I'm 4 (almost 5 months) in, I don't know if I'd choose to do a colour wheel again. It gives me a chance to work in a lot of colours that I don't normally use, but there are colours I really don't like, such as orange, and having to put together a whole piece with that colour is sometimes tough.