Speaking of Art Blog

When I’m feeling cabin fever this time of year and I don’t feel like starting a new painting, I turn to making beaded jewelry.  It’s fast, relatively easy, and not very expensive.  One thing I’ve noticed while creating my latest bracelets and necklaces is that all my art related knowledge of value, composition, color theory, and repeated patterning come into play.  Just as with successfully rendering a painting in pastel, I can’t simply thread different colored beads onto wire and hope to get stunning results.  I need to think through my game plan well before the beads go on the wire. For instance, I’m thinking about how some beads might point to and play second fiddle to a focal bead.  I’m varying the sizes, textures, and shapes of my beads to add interest and variety.  And I’m thinking about the overall mood I’m creating with the piece. Do I want something casual or fancy?  Do I want to use complementary colors to push the drama or use analogous colors for a more homey feeling?

With one recent necklace I found out that I needed to use the same color as in the focal bead in some smaller beads going up the sides of the necklace, in order to give the whole necklace a uniform look and feel.  That reminded me of something I learned about many years ago from an art teacher – the mother color.  It’s the color that you need to work into all areas of a painting to give the piece a sense of uniformity and harmony, of belonging together.

Many visual artists I know love to dabble in other forms of creative artistry, from playing a musical instrument  to working with fabric and sewing.  While our passion still lies with our visual art, our hobby also digs into the same right side of our brains, drawing from the same set of creative principles and techniques that work for us when we are at our easels.  But the real benefit comes when we can learn new insights from our hobbies and incorporate them back into our artwork.  As an art instructor once said to me, “It’s all good, Mary Ann, it’s all good.”  I wholeheartedly agree.  And it’s so much fun too.  It makes the doldrums of winter pass by that much more quickly.

Note: I sell my beaded creations in the gift shop at the Chesterton Art Center, 115 S. 4th St, Chesterton, IN.