Art Bead Scene Challenge

Don't you just love a good challenge? Now, I'm not talking about dumping perfectly good ice water over your head, or wasting expensive cinnamon by the tablespoons, or even trying to out plank your fellow barre friend (ok this one is a secret one, but let's be honest, we ALL do it!) No, I'm talking about a great creative challenge, complete with awesome prompts of masterpiece paintings and topped off with a Pinterest board! I'm talking about the monthly art challenge for jewelry designers created by Art Bead Scene!

This is February's prompt: An oil on canvas, titled "The Two Crowns" by Sir Francis Dicksee

I decided that with all that wonderful color, that I would make one of my paper Dragon Beads. They are crafted using well over 100 circles of paper that are then inked around the edges and adhered to a 16 mm wooden core bead. They are finished off with Ice Resin for durability.

Here is the other side of the same bead

What do you think? Do you think this qualifies as an art bead? I can't wait to start on next month's challenge! I'm thinking that one will involve polymer clay...

Until Next Time...Challenge Yourself!

Wanting Walden

Henry David Thoreau once said, "Man wanted a home, a place for warmth, or comfort, first of physical warmth, then the warmth of the affections." I'll agree with that, but I want mine to be nestled into the mountainside with great wifi reception, unobstructed views of the stars and a natural gas supply! Seriously though, for as long as I can remember, I've had a love for cabins and barns...log cabins, stone cabins, shacks, horse barns, tobacco barns, barns in various stages of implosion, and more likely than not, kudzu covered... I look at them and wonder about the lives that have subsisted both in and around them. Oh the stories these vessels must hold...joy, sadness, triumph, grief...hopes for the next generation, lives lived with both grace and grit...meals shared, unanswered prayers and unconditional love...

So what does a girl do when her own life-size Walden is currently out of reach? She makes her own- in miniature! I found a really good online tutorial by Isis Mishly and created these little rustic vessels. Did you know that Thoreau spent about $28 total to build his cabin? Well, I spent more than that, but then again, a set of forty-eight soft pastels hardly qualifies for simple creating!

 This little cabin reminds me of a house I might find in the hollows of South West Virginia. 

 My favorite red barn, complete with kudzu crackle vine, and rusting tin roof

This is an old tobacco barn made of weathered Locust wood

Abandoned hunting cabin, I imagine being surrounded by old hardwoods

Until Next Time....Discover Your Walden!