August ABS Piece and Erin's Bead Soup Goodies

Summer Wheelin'

This month's challenge piece is called Illustration for American Cresent Cycles, 1899 by
Frederick Winthrop Ramsdell.

The minute the painting was posted I forwarded it on to mom.  Mom then forwarded me some ideas for the pendant and I sent her back the idea I liked and we actually agreed on the pendant first time around.  Usually we go back and forth but this time it was an easy sell for both of us.

Mom then sawed out the pendant from 20 gauge copper sheet, and you can see the process here.  I then used powdered enamels and enameled the pendant in a kiln.  The colors I used were transparent (wax/flax/soft) yellow, white and black for the dress, transparent (chestnut/otter) brown for the hair and transparent (elan/oil) gray for the tires though the tires look brown instead of gray, oh well.

Mom did saw out lilies and I did enamel them white but when we added the lilies to the necklace I really didn't like how it looked.  I couldn't figure out how I wanted the lilies to lay in the necklace so I asked mom to take them out.  I guess we will have to use the lilies in something else.

The necklace is accented with our lampwork glass beads.  I used a base of white and praline frit on top of the white and Tiger Eye Czech beads. 

The pendant is attached to the necklace with copper chain because when we first put the necklace together mom accidentally cracked the pendant from the way it was falling.  I fixed the pendant and mom came up with the idea of using chain instead.  Once of the glass beads I made was one of my "Dew Drop" beads and both mom and I wanted to incorporate it into the necklace.  We were first thinking of having the bead fall from her hand, but we didn't like that idea.  So, instead we added it to the clasp in the back of the necklace.

So, this is our August ABS challenge piece - "Summer Wheelin".  We had a lot of fun with this piece and I am really happy with the way it turned out.  Yes, I am about to wrench out my shoulder blade patting myself on the back :)

On other good news, Erin received her Bead Soup goodies and you can read about it here.  Erin wrote a fabulous post and she took some gorgeous photos of what we sent her.  So, to learn more you should really head on over and check out what she wrote.  She is going to give mom and I a huge head!