April ABS Challenge Piece - The North Wind

Boreas by John William Waterhouse, 1903
Oil on canvas
68.8 x 94 cm

Mom and I were actually able to finish our piece for the April ABS Challenge before the deadline.  I think this is the first time in awhile.  The painting is a Pre-Raphaelite style painting oil on canvas.

Called Boreas after the north wind in Greek mythology, the work shows a young girl in a windswept landscape. In 1904 the Royal Academy notes described the subject as: "In wind-blown draperies of slate-colour and blue, a girl passes through a spring landscape accented by pink blossom and daffodils". (From the ABS Challenge blog post)

This is our piece for this month's challenge.  Mom and I are calling it The North Wind.

The pendant was designed by mom and then she sawed the pendant out of 20 gauge copper with a jewelers saw.  I then enameled the piece with transparent purples, transparent otter brown, and black powdered enamels.

The lampwork glass beads are made by us.  I used a base transparent purple with green frit on top.  I wanted to base the beads on the grass in the painting.  I used freshwater yellow pearls as accents for the daffodils.

The larger beads are Multicolor Fire Agate which I have been wanting use for a long time.  I fell in love with these beads when mom and I were at Von's and mom said buy them.  Love the colors and textures of these beads.  Since the girl is wearing a shawl I wanted to add texture to the piece so I used one of our watercolor silk ribbons.

So, that is our piece for the April ABS Challenge.

I am going to go post it out on our Facebook page, Flickr and the April ABS blog post.  Then it is back out in the garage to help mom assemble necklaces - last push to finish pieces before next week's show.  I also need to file and sand one more plate and get that enameled tomorrow.  So, busy weekend.  I hope you have a wonderful Saturday and Sunday!