Thursday, December 2, 2010

Margie and Me Color Challenge - Mosaic of Color, #129

I just finished my second challenge piece in as many weeks. Marcie Abney puts on a color challenge every few weeks based on color palettes from the color maven Margie Deeb. The latest palette is #129 from Margie's book The Beader's Color Palette, and is based on the gorgeous mosaics from Islamic architecture. 

The light blues in this palette match some peanut-shaped Japanese seed beads, which I've been tinkering with in beaded beads for a little while. While my Pagoda charms include these little peanut beads as accent beads, I wanted to make a beaded bead that featured these peanuts prominently. They're a bit tricky to design around, and I must have come up with a dozen prototypes, but after drawing some inspiration from Gwen's Mini Ionic Polyhedra I finally settled on a design that I'm satisfied with. They're solid and sturdy but lack a round core bead, so they're easy to string together. I incorporated five of these peanut beaded beads into this bracelet:
I really like how the colors of the peanut beads mix with matte AB cobalt and peach-colored seed beads. 
Thanks to Marcie for putting on this fun color challenge! Check out her challenge piece and the other participants' work on her blog

12 comments:

  1. I do so love those beaded beads. I may have to try out some peanut beads! Up until now, they've just kinda stumped me! Great job!

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  2. Simply gorgeous. The cobalt and peach are beautiful together. Your pattern for these is fantastic - I love the little peanuts! As a former middle school math teacher I have so much fun making beaded beads - I get to cut out my paper nets for the patterns to see how the sides will fit together.

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  3. Very beautiful piece! I love all the different pieces I've seen so far.

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  4. I love those beaded beads. You really captured the feel of the architecture! Beautiful!

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  5. Love it - that coblat blue is a favorite color of mine!

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  6. The beaded beads sure do go well with the faceted beads. I like how this turned out!

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  7. I agree with Nancy - you DID capture the feel of the architecture. And that makes me think, what is a beaded bead, but a lovely small piece of architecture!!! It's a fantastic piece!

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  8. Ohh I am yet to try those wee little peanut beads... you did an awesome job...those colours are sport on. Well done!

    Karyn
    Australia

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  9. Thanks everyone!

    Elisabeth - I love cobalt blue too. I usually go for a transparent blue AB finish to this color, but the challenge specifically called for a matte finish, which definitely matches the rest of the palette better.

    Amy - I totally agree! In my experience, designing a beaded bead is as much of an engineering challenge as an artistic challenge.

    Karyn - These little peanut beads are so fun to tinker with. Different to work with compared to round and drop seed beads, but still fun to experiment with.

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  10. Oh, what a great job you did with the challenge! Love how the beaded bead mimics the architecture. Beautiful work!
    Shirley

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  11. Brava! The versatility of beaded beads never ceases.

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  12. Thanks! Bright Circle - I totally agree. Every time I think that I couldn't possibly think up a new beaded bead to design, something new pops into my head!

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