May Theme Challenge – Tide Pools

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Lesley Watt from the Arts Elements group issued a challenge for the month of May. There are no limits on what you can create for this challenge as it’s open to all mediums and any interpretation of the theme you choose. Your design can be inspired by colors, shapes, textures…it can be realistic or abstract, decorative or functional.  The only requirement is that the creation has to be inspired by tide pools.  Tide pools or rock pools are shallow pools of seawater that form on the rocky intertidal shore. Many of these pools exist as separate bodies of water only at low tide.

Photo by Austin Neill on Unsplash

I love everything about the beach so right away I knew that I was going to make something for this challenge. I try to buy beach themed beads that I love whenever I get a chance.  When I visited my stash of beachy beads, I spotted two that I thought would be perfect candidates for this challenge.  I had some ceramic beads by Maya Honey that I have been hoarding a while.  This ceramic has tiny shells and sand on it.  To me this is a tide pool--sand and shells in water.  I also selected a blue seahorse ceramic by Sherill Mallery.

Seahorse Necklace by BayMoonDesign

Seahorse Necklace by BayMoonDesign

I added an aqua ceramic bead by Mary Harding and a pretty aqua, yellow, and white Czech bead to create my focal pendant. I used a 20 Vintaj chain. The pendant hangs 2 inches below. This necklace is available in BayMoonDesign online store.  This handmade ceramic seahorse necklace is a great gift for the beach lover. 

Photo by Austin Neill on Unsplash

Please visit the other participants to see what they came up with.  A special thanks to Lesley Watt for hosting the challenge.

Guests

Raven

Kelly 

Cat

Kathy     (HERE)

Tammy 

Alyson

Elaine 

Mischelle 

Deborah  

Anita 

Jill

Shirlee

Sarajo

Mellisa

AE Team Members:

Caroline

Cathy

Claire

Jen 

Laney 

Lesley (hostess)

Marsha 

Niky

Sue

Lindsay

Jenny Davies-Reazor

May Art Bead Scene

Title: Primavera
By: Sandro Botticelli
Date: 1478
Medium: Tempra on panel

Every month the Art Bead Scene challenges their readers to create jewelry inspired by a featured artwork. You have until the end of the month to share your work and then they pick two winners to receive beads and jewelry-making supplies from their sponsors. The only rule is that you must use at least one art bead in your piece!

May's challenge is based on Primavera by  Sandro Botticelli and it is one of the most written about paintings from the Renaissance.  His two most famous paintings are the allegorical subjects Venus in Primavera and the Birth of Venus. Most of his work focused on symbolism, allegory and religious subjects. His paintings were more stylized than other Renaissance artists with elongated features, weightless bodies and unnatural poses.  Many of his subjects focused on classical Greek and Roman myths.

I choose to base my necklace on the colors in the painting. The painting has lots of creams, blacks, brown and a little orange red. I was inspired to pull out a lighthouse bracelet bar by Brooke Bock which had the same creams and browns. After looking at it for a time, I decided to use it as a necklace focal. I just snipped some steel wire and filled the tiny hole to make the change from bracelet bar to focal.

Lighthouse Necklace  by BayMoonDesign

Size of  Lighthouse focal

I combined Brooke's cream lighthouse pendant with a ceramic bead by artisan Sandra Sapienza, and a black vintage bead. The neutral cream and black colors in the necklace have orange red beads included to add a pop of color. The beads are connected with black steel wire that I prepared by rubbing the wire with steel wool and Renaissance wax.  I think that the black links help to add more of the dark overtones of the painting to the necklace.  I used a natural copper chain with a handmade copper clasp that I made.  This lighthouse necklace is for sale in my online store.

What are your thoughts on this necklace?  Do you think that I was able to capture the colors? 

We're All Ears :: May Inspiration :: Movement + Momentum

Photo by Alex Stuart on Unsplash

May's We're All Ears Challenge inspiration is the mobiles of Alexander Calder. We are to pick our favorite Calder mobile and make some earrings inspired by it! Since earrings are the perfect embodiment of kinetic sculptures this makes sense. In designing earrings with Calder's mobiles in mind, creating the ability for the earrings to have some momentum seems to be a necessity. When we look around us, we see momentum created by Mother Nature in the oceans, sky, and earth.

Calder room at National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Alexander Calder (1846-1923) was born to a family of sculptors. He is best known for his colorful, whimsical abstract public sculptures and his innovative mobiles, kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents. I found it interesting that Calder studied to be an engineer at the Stevens Institute of Technology before attending the Art Students League in New York. It was the French artist Marcel Duchamp who christened Calder's hanging sculptures "mobiles." To create these mobiles, Calder cut sheet metal into various shapes and assembled these elements in a chain-linked system so that the flat metal pieces move in response to currents of air. Many of his mobiles use bold, primary colors. Others like the one below are black.

Mobile by Alexander Calder

I found a number of online articles that describe how to create a "Calder mobile.  Some of the articles are geared toward adults, but there are directions available for activities with students in upper elementary through high school.  

Casual Beige Earrings by BayMoonDesign

Since momentum is the force that allows something to continue or to grow stronger or faster as time passes, I had to find a way to make that happen in my earrings. Just as Calder used chain to create motion in his mobiles, my earring design made use of black and brown chain. Both of those colors are in the ceramics I selected by Marsha Neal Studio. The beige ceramics have a gray that shows through in the handmade ceramics. Some brass beads and tiny seed beads dangle from chain and create momentum. These earrings are available for purchase in my online store.

Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash

I am anxious to see what other jewelry designers create. Personally, I found this a difficult challenge. It did result in my thinking about my earring design.  It also made me aware of all of the examples of momentum that surround us in nature.  I spent a lot of time figuring out how to construct the earrings. I ended up with a pair of earrings that are very different than anything else that I have made. That is a great benefit to participating in these challenges. A special thanks to  Erin Prais-Hintz the creator of this challenge.

We're All Ears :: April Challenge :: Paradise Calling April 20

April's We're All Ears Challenge is perfect for me and all my fellow beach lovers. The theme is paradise calling. I love the beach and I feel warmer temperatures calling to me and I am beginning to dream in tropical colors.

[Photo Credit :: via Unsplash :: clockwise from top left :: Gaddafi Rusli :: Ren Ran :: Pedro Lastra :: David Straight]

I love the water and I had enameled tin components by Kimberly Rodgers of Numinosity.  The colors remind me of the ocean.  They are primarily blue with specs of aqua and white. The top third of these component had an open space of gray tin.  Since the components are tin they are very light weight. This presented lots of design opportunities to try without the concern of ending with heavy earrings.  I try to keep my earrings around 2 inches and on the light side.  

Earrings by BayMoonDesign

I wrapped Irish linen thread with blue seed beads added around the upper third to accentuate the colors.  I used treated black steel wire to attach the tin components to the crystals and then to the fancy ear wires.  These earrings turned out to be less then 2 inches.  

earrings by BayMoonDesign

I made another pair of earrings that are inspired by the color of water.  I used ceramics by Jenny Davies-Reazor, handmade sterling earwires by BayMoonDesign, sterling links, metal loops in this pair.

Water in the Florida Keys

This is a perfect challenge for me.  I love the ocean and spend a lot of time gathering inspiration from it.  I am getting ready for a craft show in my beach town of Lewes, Delaware so this challenge helped me get ready for it.

By the way, which pair is your favorite?