Two Acrobats with a Dog!

Yeah, I know, strange name for a blog post...for those of you not familiar with the Art Bead Scene Blog.

The ABS is, in their own words, "Art Bead Scene is an interactive blog with the goal of uniting bead artists of all materials and the jewelry designers who use art beads in their work."

They host a monthly design challenge, where they put up a painting as inspiration. The challenge is open to jewelry artists, fiber artists, collage artists, etc. Basically, anywhere that beads can be used. Entries have to be based on the inspiration provided, and MUST have at least ONE art bead used. An Art Bead is a bead, charm, button or finding made by an 'independant artist'.
Do follow that link up there and find out more about ABS. They do a lot more than the monthly challenges!


I have been wanting to enter these challenges for a long time. Every month, I would religiously look up what the inspiration is, what beads I can use, I even come up with ideas, but for one reason or another, end up not doing anything. Was able to get in this time! And early on too!

The inspiration painting for this month is Pablo Picaso's Two Acrobats and a Dog

The ABS folks explained a bit about the painting: "painted right in the middle of his Rose Period. This was the time when Picasso was slowly coming out of the severe depression that marked his Blue Period, and the colors Picasso used here signify that recovery"

I like this...end of the darkness and the beginning of a new rosy dawn is what it says to me. So I picked the lightest shade of blue...aqua, brass to signify the browns, and copper to signify the rose colors.

And then I looked at the painting again to see what else jumped out at me, and it was the diamond pattern on the older boy's clothes.

I had the perfect ingredients for the colors and the shapes I picked :-)

Diamond shaped, aqua beads, handmade copper charms by Kristi Bowman, and antique brass seed beads and came up with this darling pair of earrings.

And this one just because I like how the ambience is like the wee hours of dawn...like Picasso coming out of his depression...stepping into a rosy day!