Saturday, September 1, 2012

Red Lotus Brooch


Red Lotus Brooch

Now that I am looking back at the pieces I have been making this past few months and writing about them in detail, I am amazed to see that I have chosen one artists work more than any other to do beading around and that artist is Natalie Shau.
When I choose the image for my focal piece I don’t pay any attention to whose work I am necessarily choosing, I go by the gut feeling of maybe the image can inspire my beading,
 The works of Natalie Shau I have done beading around have all been different from each other but I am guessing that the underlying feeling of the pieces is something I am inherently drawn to and that’s why I have probably done 6-7 pieces around her paintings.
Red Lotus Brooch

The image in this brooch comes from an album art she has done for “the cradle of filth”. I couldn’t find a title for this painting anywhere but the woman in the painting looks very medusa like even though the hair is not made of snakes, but I guess that’s what it reminds me of.
For the beading part of this piece I wanted to go with something grand, something that resembled royal crown jewels to be more specific. The image is so disturbing that putting it in a classy jewel setting was odd enough for me to be interesting.
Red Lotus Brooch

I looked at a lot of crown jewels and simplified some of the patterns that were used in them and came up with some designs.  I was settled on a design that most resembled a lotus flower shape and  I drew it on my backing and started to fill it out. I used mostly the lazy stitch to cover the piece (because of the small spaces and the odd angles I had to fill out) except for where I was sewing definite bead lines where I used the trusty two-bead backstitch.
Red Lotus Brooch

Once the edges were cleaned up, in order to make the design more reminiscent of crown jewel-like designs I used some crystals and fringe beads to act as accent drops from the points I had created in the shape to complete the look.
Red Lotus Brooch


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