Saturday, February 11, 2012

Inspiration Fired

I've shown you the painted bique beads and here are the photos I used as inspiration for this particular set. The clay was insised with a tool. Black underlgaze was rubbed into the cracks and colorful overglaze painted on the geometrics. It's not a color scheme for the faint of heart. But, worn under a crisp white shirt or on top of white T-Shirt you are bound to have an impact.

African Wedding Ceremony Refinery


Kenyan - Masai




I have a few books - like Africa Adorned. This book is new and looks like a great reference piece.


This is the beginning of a collection of colorful beads based on the incredible beaded pieces above. It's kind of glare ridden photograph but you will be able to see what the glazed beads looked like after they were fired.



I hope you enjoyed this clay week. It was a short one. There are so many types of clay now just in ceramics. And that doesn't even cover polymers, resins, metal clays, and so on. I wish I could have showed you more kinds but it's wise to go with what you know. After I'm done with this series I'm thinking of going a little more primative and neutral.

5 comments:

Deb said...

Just catching up on my favourite bloggers....& one of the first things I see is that fabulous book!!

I absolutely adore tribal *anything* - but especially the beads (along with the drums, ceremonies, body decoration...aren't the Masai just fabulous??...& well, pretty much everything.


Your beads are spectacular Sharon!!

Sharon Driscoll said...

I'm with you Deb! I love tribal work. It's just spectacular and I totally agree - the whole package.

Lori Anderson said...

Those are gorgeous and I love the inspiration.

Unknown said...

I love these! There's so much I could do with them - from pendants to mobiles to pulls! Terrific work.

Maybeads said...

Love those colors!