About Me

Lindsay M Starr is a beadwork and mixed media artist currently based in Nashville, TN. She spent her early childhood in Alaska, and her school age and college years in Oregon. Lindsay has a great appreciation for history, science, and nature and is consistently inspired by insects, sea life, color, and the significance of beads and beadwork throughout human history. She spends her days beading, walking at the zoo, and practicing yoga. Lindsay loves to share her knowledge and passion for beads and beadwork to hobbyists of all skill levels.

Sunday, August 30, 2015

Art Jewelry Elements Component of the Month - August 2015

This month over at the Art Jewelry Elements blog, we got to play with one of Suburban Girl Diana's rustic stoneware coin pendants.  You all know how much I love Diana's work!
As soon as I saw this picture, I thought Gee, those look familiar...don't I have one in my stash somewhere?
Sure enough, when I went digging, I was able to find this coin pendant, from a previous swap with Diana.  I had a lot of fun pulling bits and pieces out of the stash to go with it...and came up with this:
Finding that sage-y green in my stash was a little bit difficult, but I wound up with some Czech glass, some powder glass from Ghana, and a large Coke bottle green donut.  Black and white speckled powder glass and an antler bead (made by me!) helped to tie in the rustic coin.
As I was shifting things around on my tray, I stacked the two donuts on top of each other.  I purposely kept the beadwork minimal over the stoneware coin, to show it off.
I wanted to use the black and white powder glass as a way to tie in the speckles in the stoneware, but by themselves it looked a little disjointed - more speckles were needed.  So I alternated cream and spruce colored seed beads on the fringe loops with the speckled powder glass.  I like how it ties everything together.
To keep the two donuts together, I started with a right angle weave ladder at the top, and a sling of beads around the bottom.  The fringe is attached to the lower edge of the sling.
Here you can see the back side of the donut assembly.  I used transparent gray pearl twin beads to make the back of the sling nice and sturdy.
A band of peyote around the center of the antler bead connects the donut assembly to a warped square bail.  I love using warped squares as bails!
Here you can see the full necklace  Sage Czech glass rounds in 4, 6, and 8mm frame a few more powder glass beads, pulling the fringe beads up into the necklace strap.  I finished off the rear of the strap with opaque pearl turquoise seed beads, and one of my favorite sterling J-hook clasps.
Here's your beauty shot!  I just love how everything perfectly contrasts and frames Diana's rustic stoneware coin!  Now, I'm off to see what everyone else created this month...I hope you check them all out too!

Guests

AJE Team

9 comments:

  1. Soooooooooo freaking awesome! I don't even know where to start. The whole thing is just really cool!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow!!! This is amazing, I love it!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow.. I really love your piece. All colors and beads are really working together nicely. And you did a superb job on the pendant...excellent bead work!

    ReplyDelete
  4. What a stunning work of art! I love how you stacked the disk and doughnut and all those tiny seed beads, such lovely colours! This piece need to be in a mag or some sort of art show! Just amazing!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Whoa. Thats good fringe! you need the weight of the fringe to equal the pendant. Thats cool. The glass disc really showcases Diana's coin well. Love the antler with the rustic stoneware. How did you make the antler? You growing horns? LOL

    ReplyDelete
  6. Such a lovely soft weathered palette and great textures Lindsay - a beautiful design.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Wow, that is completely and utterly beautiful. I am always in awe of people who work with seed beads, and you have certainly worked magic with them. I love the design, I love the colors--I just love the whole thing. Amazing work! :)

    ReplyDelete