New designs and color studies in glass.

I left my last post giving you a sneak peek of something I was working on:

I’m not quite sure what to do with them but that’s where you jewelry designers come in.  I love the beads so much that I just know there has to be some type of awesome design waiting for them.  I will be unveiling them officially at Bead & Button.

So, let me walk you through how these came about.  If you follow me here or at my own bead blog you will recognize some of the elements.

1.  Bright colors. Well documented is the struggle I’ve had with bright colors.  I think I’m arriving.

2.  Shape. I’ve always loved shape.  Shape never lets me down when I’m distracted by color or design

3.  Edges. In order to be different from others at one point I concentrated on decorating edges.  I fell in love with the framing effect of playing with edge designs.

4.  Texture. Texture is another way that I’ve tried to set myself apart.  While there are so many cool, slick, shiny designs out there, texture is something that I didn’t see very often.  What better way to stand out?

5.  Depth. The greatest thing about glass (I think) is the depth you can get from layering colors; another passion of mine.  When you have transparent glass over opaque you have the opportunity to gaze deeper within.  When you layer transparents you get new colors and added richness.  When you encase stringers and lay them next to each other in lines or dots you get movement.

So, those are the elements of design that I’ve focused on over the years.  Pulling them all together, here are the first beads I came up with in this style:

I liked them although I immediately saw a couple areas that needed work.

1.  The color was nice but could be better.

2.  The two out of four decorated sides doesn’t work…if you have more than one in a piece you can’t guarantee they’ll all lay the same. That is ok but not if four out of five lay one way.  It made my brain dizzy.

So, next I these ideas:

Yeah.  Not so ho ton any level.  But it was worth a try and they’ll make up something fun somewhere down the line.  Whether they go into the ten buck sale or to Beads of Courage.

Finally, I stuck with the original design and decorated all four sides the same.  I also came up with some spools I like too:

Of course, in my normal fashion, I had to do color studies and try them in all different combinations and sizes.  But I’ve gone on long enough here.

Lori Greenberg blogs about beads and the business of beads from her studio in Cave Creek, Arizona. You can see more of her beads at her web site: www.lorigreenberg.com