Sunday, September 14, 2008

Honu in Beads

Each of my pieces will be backed with a piece of dark purple felt. It will act as a frame so that the pieces will stand out from the collage and also give me a more substantial surface to work with. I also found that the stitching gives it a quilted look which I like.

Since I started planning this project I started looking for beads that I thought could work. Mostly this had included looking for leaf and flower beads I knew that I was going to include a honu and when I saw these mother of pearl shell beads I knew they would be perfect for the shell of the honu. I bought them in both a green and a beige. They were the first thing I added to this piece. Sort of like a puzzle I had to figure out what pieces would fit where to stay on the shell of the turtle. I filled in the rest of the shell with 15/0 beads so that the shell read as a whole better.

The next thing I added was the gold 15/0 beads as ripples in the water. I used the gold ripples of paint as a guide. I added a crystal sequin for the eye of the turtle. At this point it was time to follow my instinct. I considered adding more beads to the turtle but felt that I would lose the painting and overwhelm the piece. Instead I chose to add stitching to accentuate the scale like surfaces. I quickly found that satin stitch with cotton embroidery floss was perfect for the look I was after. I added variegated rayon thread to edge all of the scales. The last step was more ripples with more variegated rayon thread. I really love my block.

Turtles are connected to the feminine and are a symbol of the primal mother. They are a symbol of heaven and earth and help you unite the two in your life. They remind you that Mother Earth provides you with all of your needs and to take time for yourself.

They are keepers of the doors to the Faerie Realm. They help you awaken the senses on a physical and spiritual level and tell you when to go with the flow. They help you connect with your most primal essence letting you know when you need to go within your shell and only come out when your ideas are ready to expressed.

For my Sacred Tree piece part of what they are symbolizing for me is mothers. All mothers from my mother and mother-in-law to all of the other woman who have adopted me into their lives and given me support and love as I have lived in different areas. Also the motherhood of birthing new ideas and letting that creativity out into the world.

My Web Gallery- Includes photos of both of my BJP pages
Artistic Kreations and Passions- my website

8 comments:

abeadlady said...

Love what you did with this piece. You can almost see the movement as she swims.

KV said...

Oh, my -- this is simply exquisite!


Kathy V in NM

pam T said...

Wow... very, very nice!

pam T (WI)

Angela said...

Thanks everyone, my husband Wayne thinks this might be my best block so far (including last year). He might be biased since he took the photo that the painting was based on. ~Angie

Timaree said...

You are doing super as usual! My sister is painting part of her house a green names sea turtle green. She didn't know the name when she picked it but said it was meant to be. Now after reading your definition of the sea turtle, I understand.

You put so much into your pieces. You don't make pages - you make books! Very nice books.

Timaree said...

Can I ask, how did you get the feedblitz without ads? I was looking at it but it sounded like the free version at least, comes with them which I don't want on my blog.

Angela said...

Freebird-
Not sure how I got it without ads didn't know any even the free ones had ads. Mine is free and I just went to Feedblitz and followed their directions for allowing for subscribers. Maybe they have changed their way of doing things. If you want the code let me know and I will e-mail it to you.

~Angie

Timaree said...

Thanks Angela. I had to open an account with them to check it out so I'll just try it out and see what happens. Hope it works like yours does.