A Challenge Completed

The art group I am in, Portland Art Collective , is having bi-monthly challenges this year.  For November, we were to grab a magazine, one with lots of pictures, close our eyes and flip through the pages stopping at a random page.  The page you landed on was the one you were to use for inspiration for a piece of art.  Ok...that's easy.  While in the basement organizing a few things, I saw a pile of National Geographics and decided to grab four and use them for my inspirations. 

Four, you say?  Yep, why make just one necklace when you can make four and have four times the beady fun.  I flipped through them, arbitrarily stopping to open the pages and see what I had picked.
Have you ever really noticed how much blue there is in the NatGeo pictures?  For my picks, there is a LOT of blue.  A challenge indeed.

I spent some time looking at them, trying to figure out how I wanted to use the pictures, finally coming up with idea of color and texture.  Then it was off to the bead room to see what I could find for the newly forming ideas for my necklaces.  I had most of the beads in inventory, but I did have to buy a few things, (oh my...having to buy beads, what a sacrifice...not!) 

Here are the inspiration pages, in the order they were picked, and the necklaces inspired by them -

November 1996

Pages 20-21
The picture was taken by Discovery of forest fires burning in Borneo as it flew overhead in September 1991.  You can barely make out the shoreline, the sea and land seem to blend together.  I chose Sodalite nuggets, glass pearls and three beautiful porcelain pendants to represent the sea, land and smoke.  Pretty blues and white for this three-in-one necklace.

July 1996

Pages 68-69
A kayaker making his way through the glacial ice off Greenland.  Sea and ice, ice and sea.  Where does all the ice come from?  Little, tiny snowflakes that fell many thousands of years ago.  Small glass crystal snowflakes, in blue and clear, dangle from a silver plated chain.

June 1996

Page 67
Climber Miguel Zdrate rescues an "Ice Maiden" mummy from a mountain top in Peru.  This picture fascinated and sadden me thinking of those poor, young girls who were sacrificed to the gods.  This necklace uses Labradorite clips and a teardrop pendant mixed with Mother-of-Pearl chips and small Coral beads.

September 1996

Pages 14-15
The Callanish Standing Stones on the Isle of Lewis during the summer solstice.  Someone had a lovely bird-headed cape draped over one of the stones.  When I first saw these stones, they reminded me of Tiger-eye.  I was able to find a five piece set of rough chunks and mixed them with light blue crystals and Mother-of-Pearl beads. 

I'm happy with the way the pictures and necklaces came together and hope you like them too. Now, didn't I tell there was a lot of blue in these pictures?  ;)