More Inspiration And a WIP

Well Monday has come and gone, and rather than look for new inspiration I started to panic a bit. I'm leaving for Miami in a week and I still have so many things I have to make before I go. Then I realized that Miami will probably provide lots of inspiration for future projects.

I haven't been to Miami since 1973 - yikes! But when I think of Miami, I think of turquoise water and white sandy beaches, art deco, neon colors, palm trees, and humid heat. So I started looking around at pix of Miami to add some fuel to my thoughts just in case I'm so busy at the ISGB Gathering that I don't get out to take any of my own pix.

Here's some deco goodness - and these colors just scream Miami to me. That pink-capped cylinder on the right might make a great focal bead, yes? I'm not sure if I have any glass in my stash that comes close to that Pepto Bismol pink, I'll have to take a look.

And this building on the right is a nice study for some dot techniques and twisted cane. There's that pink again... It looks as if this town is just loaded with turquoise and pink objects. Maybe I should make some turquoise and pink beads for the bead bazaar there - they could be a hit with the locals.

Now here's quite a sight. It took me a while to figure out what was going on in this picture. Talk about neon colors - if I were to go bowl a few strings in this place I'd have to keep my shades on! Yep, this is a place called Strike Miami - and when I checked out their site on the web, I found out that there's a Strike Cupertino. That's about 20 miles from my house here in California - who knew?! Look at those bowling balls - like huge bubble gum! And I saw some pictures of the pins - same colors as the balls, yowza!

Oh, I could have lots of fun playing with these caliente colors in the glass lab. And it would fit right in with the weather we're having right now. In fact, I was supposed to be teaching a bead making class tonight but we canceled it. It went up to 97 degrees F today and there's no air conditioning in the hot shop where I teach. There were also going to be 2 benches going in the glass blowing area, which would add lots of heat to the building. That was it, I just checked out. But back to Miami... Here's the last image I'll put out here - even the Port of Miami Bridge at night looks flashy.

Despite the fact that I've been gathering up all this inspiration for my creative endeavors, my execution is still back at the kelp and coral pix. But the vessel has been felted and now I'm in the process of embellishing it. The coral side is finished! Here's my latest WIP picture - obviously not a professional one. I'm going to have to get some other background material for my impromptu pictures - this stuff is too close to the color of the vessel. But you get the idea.

The kelp side of the vessel will also have fish beads on it. I'm in the process of doing bead embroidery on the kelp, then I'll add the fish and some 3D kelp, then I'll weave a beaded coral reef for the rim of the vessel. And if I can find them, I'll add a few more teeny fish that have been in my stash for years. I just hope that will all this "stuff" hanging off the sides of the vessel it will still stand up.

I'm off to do some beading now - have yourselves a happy and creative week!