Happy New Year!

Here’s to a creative and magical year of successes – creative and personal! 

To start this year off we at the Art Jewelry Elements team have the reveal for the December themed challenge. The theme was the sun, the return of the light as celebrated in cultures the world over on the Winter Solstice. (You can feast your eyes here at Lesley’s original post.) My piece grew with the beading – and will be a wall piece for sure: 

It started when I was playing around… and found a face that fit in this textured circle. These arent my usual colors, but it was sunny; the swirls as rays… SO I went for it. I liked the darker area in the glaze that inspired the moon/sky section at the bottom. 

So far so good – peyote bezel on the face. 

Cooky sent me some bead she was destashing! The colors were perfect! Definitely colors I did not have in my stash… My original plan was to bead spirals out and around – drawing out the spirals in the ceramic donut. This is what I did… but now I’m not so sure. It feels to me like two pieces. I wish I had left the ceramic sun face as is – a brick stitch edge and done. I love the way the spirals turned out, but no longer love them with the ceramic piece. 

 I also wish I had gone for a little more contrast in the spirals themselves, a little more “pop”; and to unify the spirals with the glaze palette of bright yellow. I really do love the copper triangles that frame the clay piece though – that may be my favorite element. 

As the year ended, I re-started my art journal practice – for the millionth time! I have decided this year to focus on a page a week. AND I am working on loose paper. I love that this gives me time to set aside a wet page and start a foundation collage for a future page. Here is my sun themed offering. The word “solstice” is derived from the Saxon word for wheel… 

 

Drawn on collaged encyclopedia paper – crayon, marker, alcohol ink, image tranfer, you name it! 

Here’s to a BRIGHT year ahead! 

Please click back to the main page at Art Jewelry Elements to continue your hop!