This month's Creative Continuum of 7 Artists challenge is designing with a bead soup sent out by Sally Russick of The Studio Sublime. Her challenge was to pull contrasting colors together, and for me it is always a challenge.
You can see my first piece is not all that contrasting in its browns, tans, creams and Native flair. But I liked how the focal came together and blended with the zig zag chain that I didn't have the heart to pull it apart. I did make my own copper toggle with a bit of fringe that you can pull forward for a little extra. So there you go, my 'non-contrasting' piece.
I pushed myself on the second project, and I did a bit better. I pulled in deep cherry color crystals that I paired with celery green duo beads. Absolutely not something I would have ever put together on my own, but that is what the challenge is about! I decided on a focal flower center to a bracelet and went through my stash to create the band. Clearly this green is one of my favorite colors as I had plenty to play with to finish up the piece. It was a fun pattern to play with that I let come together organically, which is not perfect but then what flower doesn't have a bit of imperfection to it?
Now to see what the rest of the artists did with their beads from Sally: Alicia (our host), Christine, Emma, Monique, Sally and Therese.
Wrapping up my week of stones with one last Jasper. Yes, I have more, but I figure you guys have all seen enough of my stones for one week.
So we end the week with Dalmatian Jasper; a stone name for a dog. A noble cause. In my opinion, dogs are the best.
Ok, so on to the earrings. We've got one more jasper stone mined in Chihuahua, Mexico. It is fun and festive, at least I think so. I did 2 versions, one with polished onyx, one with matte. A little silver to give it some sparkle. Certainly worthy of a night out on the town.
I do have more jasper, but I thought I'd take a break today and show you a feldspar called Amazonite.
Of all the minerals out there, feldspar is the most common. In fact it is 60% of the earth's crust. But despite its abundance, there are only a few varieties considered to be of gemstone quality. The name feldspar is a German word, which loosely translates as a rock that contains ore. And 'spar' is a generic term used by geologist to refer to any non-metallic mineral with a glassy luster that breaks on distinct planes. (Johan Gottschalk Wallerius officially named it in 1747).
You can see the breaks in the stone that add so much character to the patterns in the stone. It was named after the South American river, which partially flows through Brazil. And it is believe that it was originally found there, but mineralogists have argued that there are no green deposits of feldspar that exist in Brazil's Amazon region. As a result the stones were later assumed to be nephrite jade. Actual Amazonite is found only in a few places around the world. For a long time it was thought they could only be found in Russia's Ilmen Mountains and Madagascar. That is until recently, as it has been found in Colorado, Virginia, Australia and yes, Brazil.
Today I'm showing you 2 versions of the stone. One that is mostly the pale green color of the stone with streaks of copper running through it. They are paired with the same color Amazonite rondelles and copper. The second pair has a more grainy color in it so I paired them with a darker color of Amazonite rondelles. I do really love how the copper brings out the patterns in this stone.
My friend Christine noticed in yesterday's post that there is a bit of a theme running through these stone earrings. The style of the earring is the same, but the stones have been switched up.
Today I'm showing you my favorite one so far .... a green jasper called Sonora Sunrise, mined in Mexico. It is a relatively new-to-the-show stone (the Gem show in Tucson that is). It has deposits of Chrysocolla and red Cuprite with perhaps some Tenorite in it. I am in love with the deep green in this jasper, with the tiniest wisps of red. I used rough cut garnet rondelles in this pair to pull out that red, and switched up the wire to include copper instead of silver. There are still more to show you! So, stop back by to see me again this week.
I see quite a few of you are as excited about jasper as I am. There really is such a range! This pair I'm showing today was a variety I had never heard of until last summer. I don't know about you guys, but just the name alone (Wild Horse Jasper) makes me think of horses running through the fields.
But when you look at the colors in the raw stone, not to mention the flow of its patterns, it brings images of cave paintings. At least to me. I know, I know, I've been told I have a crazy imagination. Of course I couldn't help but look it up (a quick google search got me lots of cave horses!) and found the perfect example from caves in Lascaux, France. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac in Southwestern France which is famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings.
And then while I was looking at the name origins I noticed it also seemed to be French, or Old French (jaspre) meaning spotted or speckled stone. Hmm, wondering what the French Connection is here? Regardless, really loving this new discovery for me. I paired my Wild Horse Jasper with matte onyx rondelles and used a Southwestern silver earwire. You knew it had to be Southwestern with all those wild horses didn't you?
Jasper has a wide and wild variety of patterns, and has been valued as far back as the ancient world. It's mentioned in writings in multiple languages: Arabic, Latin, Persian, Hebrew, Greek, Assyrian.
One of my favorite jaspers is the picture variety which will have banding formed by the flow and deposit of water and wind. The stones can have stunning patterns appearing to be scenes or images.
The stones I'm showing here are a soft lace jasper with white and grey bands called Laguna Lace which is known for it's tight banding. It is mined on several sites in the mountains of Chihuahua, Mexico. They paired perfectly with some hematite rondelles and a Southwestern, silver post earring.
While these stones are mined all over the world, the Mexican varieties are really most striking. A common type of lace jasper is Mexican Crazy Lace which is known by it's deep red and mustard colors. This week I'm showing a collection of earrings all made from various stones, most are jaspers, with one a feldspar. But that's all I'm telling you! You'll have to stop back by to see them all.
