Creating 'Athena' .. Battle of the Beadsmith 2014

Battle of the Beadsmith 2014 was not the smooth design ride that the inaugural BOTB12 was for me. I knew without hesitation what I needed to do for that contest. Arabesque Armour reached the Top 5 which was an incredible achievement owing to the level of talent within the group.  BOTB14, not so easy, not so easy at all.

My initial inspiration for the BOTB14 was an infinity knot as a focal, I had no clue other than that! I did know I wanted the clasp to be bead embroidered. I achieved the infinity knot that was in my minds eye .. but once I started arranging the jewels and adding embellishment to the knot .. it began to look less and less of a battle worthy design.  It got shelved.  Below are three of the many design shuffles.

New plan.... 

I knew what the colorway was going to be .. turquoise and peridot softened with creamy pearls.  Textually I had to include my new love Shibori silk ribbon. I wanted the design to be beadwoven with the inclusion of bead embroidery.  After many trials I was able to create a bezel using CRAW for all of my navette shapped stones. It was nice and tight and gave me a good surface for embellishment. I wanted to use rose gold as my metallic highlight.  I bought a few hundred rose gold bicones from my local bead store .. I added them to the design.  Then I noticed that the rose gold coating was breaking off in tiny flakes on the bicones, leaving ugly black flea bites in their place.  I knew the problem would only get worse and this would compromise my design.  5 hours later every single bicone was removed from my design. Will I use 4mm rose gold bicones again ..um no.

Whilst I was working on the main part of the neckpiece I was also working on the bead embroidered clasp. This is the only part of the design that I knew for certain from the beginning of the project.  The Shibori ribbon was supplied by (Lisa Kan) and the Arashi ribbon (Deborah Weaver).  I used Czech size 15 seed beads to outline my floral design. The clasp joins the neckpiece via snaps attached to the underside of the motif.  These attach with the other half of the snaps to the Shibori ribbon straps.

The bead embroidered clasp 'under construction'

After six weeks of expediting elements from the US, lots of worrying, lots of sketching of my thoughts, undoing and redoing parts of the design... it was finished.  I had booked my model and photograhphy session even before completing the design.  This gave me an absolute deadline and allowed the photographer time to edit the photos and allow for any reshoots. 

Deciding which colour Shibori to use for the necklace strap.  

Why call the piece Athena .. The Goddess Athena from ancient Greek mythology was the custodian of War (although she did not condone it, she was the Goddess of Inspiration and Weaving.  All symbols that in part define the Battle of the Beadsmith.

One of the many designs for the necklace strap that were not used.

These are a selection of photos from the Photo shoot, May 2014. Photography credits Frank Hurrell of Imago Photography.  Athena managed to move onto the next round, Round 2. I wish all Battler's much success.

The bead woven clasp

Gold Medal Winner - Presidents Award

The lovely Lauren Butler who is the Gold Medal First prize winner of the 2011 Swarovski Elements Fire Mountain Beads & Gems (FMG) Contest, enlightened me earlier this week that my design 'Lashed Lily' had in fact won the Gold Medal Prize Winner - Presidents Award for the 2011 Swarovski Elements Design Contest held annually by Fire Mountain Beads & Gems.

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It was a very nice surprise.  My Aussie beading buddy, Noel Wyres scored bronze with her design 'Bouquet' so collectively the Australian's did very well in this contest.

Comments taken from the Fire Mountain Beads & Gems website from the President of FMG "Stuart, a trained aeronautics engineer, gravitated toward the gorgeous geometrics and cleverly hidden side clasp in Melissa Ingram’s Lashed Lily necklace. Melissa used tubular peyote stitch to construct the necklace body, then assembled the cascading centerpiece with mathematical precision".

Lashed Lily is a right angle woven (unlike FMG who refer to the stitch as peyote) necklace strap (beads over armature), the magnetic clasp is hidden in the necklace strap. However the focal resembles a toggle clasp which was created using the Swarovski Square Ring Article 4439 and two Swarosvki 'Lily Focal's' Article 6904 that I simply 'lashed' together to form the toggle part of the clasp, albeit a faux toggle clasp. The design focal is embellished with Swarovski pearls and bicones. The colour way is largely green and purple with matt sterling plated Toho seed beads forming most of the beadwork.

Happy Beading

Mel

Bead Dreams 2012 - Bead Artistry Contest

Tequila Sunrise

So the results are out .. in fact they have been out for weeks ... but I have been overwhelemed with so much that blogging has not been a regular event.  I am happy to report that my entries 'Tequila Sunrise' and 'Melbournian' were not only finalists but place holders .. both of the them in fact! 

When you submit entries to Bead Dreams you pay the submission fee of $US30 and for that you may submit two pieces ... so I submitted Melbournian, just because!  Some of you may already know of this particular piece "Melbournian".  Melbournian will be published in the book Showcase 500 Beaded Jewelry (Lark Publishing) (August 2012) she was selected along with my cuff design Magic Carpet Ride.  Thus Melbournian is not only an internationally published piece but also awarded as she is a Bead Dream finalist and Bead Dream 3rd Place winner in the Crystal Jewelry Category. 

 

 

What you might not know is that Melbournian was my 'grief' piece created when we moved from Melbourne, Victoria to Brisbane, Queensland.  My intention was to submit Melbournian to Bead Dreams 2011 but I just became overwhelmed from the move and did not complete her in time.  To date she is my most successful piece of beadwork.

Melbournian

Tequila Sunrise is the piece that I created and submitted for no other reason than Bead Dream's itself.  The bead woven fan design neckpiece took 5 months to design and bead and has won 3rd place in the Seed Bead Category.

 

 

As a first time entrant to this contest I am giddy with delight that I managed to achieve such a feat, twice!!

Tequila Sunrise and Melbournian returned home to Australia this week, complete with their respective ribbons, a box full of Swarovski Elements, the Swarovski magazine 'Sound', a congratulatory note from Kalambach Publishing and the Judges Notes.  I plan to talk about the Judges notes in particular as a separate blog as they are of considerable interest.

 

 

I intend submitting an entry/ies to the 2013 Bead Dreams Bead Artisty Contest.  Ideas have already formulated in my mind, however they need to stay there awhile longer as I am currently preparing beadwork for a new beading book about worldwide beading connections of which I will be a featured beading artist. 

Happy Beading
Mel

Tequila Sunrise - A Beadwork Fan - Bead Dreams 2012

Tequila Sunrise - A Beadwork Fan Neckpiece

April last year I failed to complete my first ever Bead Dream beadwork entry due to many factors, primarily we had to move (ever so reluctantly) from Melbourne to Brisbane due to my husbands employment.  The submission date passed and I steadily toiled to complete 'Melbournian' which in fact was my 'grief' piece to settle my nerves at having to leave my beloved Melbourne.  All was not lost though as months later 'Melbournian' (along with one other design 'Magic Carpet Ride' Cuff) was selected for inclusion in the Showcase 500 Beaded Jewelry book that will be released August 7, 2012!!

Bead Dream 2012 I was absolutely determined to make the submission date so I began designing and planning my submission back in late August/September 2011.  It did not take me long to visulize a fan design and I began looking at lots and lots of images of fans through 'Images' on Google.

Looking at the images on Google I was able to understand the actual fan design and construction, the different styles and ways the fan was decorated or embellished.  I searched 'beaded fans' and surprisingly only two beadwork designers (well known and highly talented designers I might add!!) had designed some beadwork pieces that resembled the familiar and classic fan shape .. Smadar Grossman of Smaders Treasures and Marcia DeCoster of MADDesigns.

I wanted my piece to be large and of course that meant sculptural.  I had taught myself cubic right angle weave (CRAW) thanks to Heather Collins of Studio183 YouTube video demonstration (which I highly recommend).

The beadwork fan is largely cubic right angle weave, the curve of the fan was achieved by CRAW beadwork sections then joining them together. Embellishing the fan was just a natural progression of design 'play' and I purchased a lot of elements as I went along that I thought would work well with the design.  Consequently I have a huge box full of elements that did not work with this design .. I am sure they will work with another though.

Tequila Sunrise

More times than I like to remember I undid hours of beadwork and redid just to achieve a particular look or shape to the fan design.  About 200 yards of Fireline, Wildfire and Invisbraid beading threads are worked into this piece.  I have not used a single Delica in this design all the beadwork is either Toho or Miyuki seed beads in sizes ranging from size 15 up to size 6.  I have used Toho glass drops in Matt Gold which were really expensive and acquired from Laura McCabes website.  The colour way (color way for my American friends) is made up of many, many different bead colours and types.  I opted for the more expensive Duracoat seed beads as I definately did not want the colour rubbing off.  Some of the colours used included Dyed Smokey Light Rose Alabaster, Topaz Gold Lustre, Galvanized Champagne, Galvanised Dark Berry, various Bronz/Gold tones and Gold plated size 15 seed beads. 

I used a very rare and vintage Swarovski stone as my focal an Art. 4723 Topaz Cal which was a special edition, they are triangular.  I used Albion Stitch to bezel the stone then heavily embellished it with size 15 Toho seed beads and Swarovski Crystal pearls.

Art. 4723 unfoiled Topaz Cal Special (vintage)

I used vintage gold plate Maderia Topaz 2 hole montees which are sewn between the base of each of the blades of the fan design.  Swarovski Crystal 3mm bicones in 'Copper Crystal' adorn the blades along with vintage Swarovski Crystal 47ss Chatons in Maderia Topaz.  Each 47ss Chaton has been bezzeled using three beading stiches, each took about 40 minutes to bead.  It took me weeks to design a thread path method of beading a bezel for each of these small Chatons.

The collar is similar to that of my beadwork neckpiece 'Melbournian', although it is quite different in many ways.  I devised a way of being able to 'anchor' the pearl strand to the beadwork which makes it remarkably strong.  The collar is made up of various sized Swarovski pearls leading towards a structural piece which is tube armature, surrounded by right angle woven beads, then further embellished with netting stitch.  The toggle clasp has been constructed by using a Swarovski Cosmic Ring attached with a section of my 'winged bail' design.  The 'toggle' has been woven using embellished CRAW and the ends of the toggle have oval shaped Topaz Montees sewn into the void

Close up of the 'collar' and Toggle Clasp.

How did I visualize and bring Tequila Sunrise to life ... don't know .. just did.  I simply loved the idea of a beaded fan and felt immensly challenged as to how I could articulate the 'fan' design in my head into reality using only beads.  I hope you enjoy looking at 'Tequila Sunrise' as much as I did creating her.  She was a trial but also a joy and I miss that I can no longer work on her.  I will be investigating my beadwork fan designs further though .. I am in total love with the concept and embrace the challenge. The next one will not be quite as large though!

Tequila Sunrise as a name for this beadwork piece was born of the actual fan design and the colour way which lends itself to the classic cocktail 'Tequila Sunrise' as the Grenadine floats and diffuses through the Orange Juice.

I wish every entrant to this fantastic competition the very best of luck and may the best design in every category win!  Good luck!!

Happy Beading my friends.. Mel

PS ... So utterly intense was my ambition to complete this piece that I worked on it night and day solidly for about 6 weeks which equates to about 200+ hours of actual bead time. I wear prescription glasses and used my lit magnifyer every time I worked on the piece but despite this I am now awaiting my new prescription glasses .. so I in fact wore my eyes out!!