Summer Magic

This is another piece I entered into the Shuswap Lake Festival of the Arts which I titled Summer Magic.  I've made several kite bead necklaces before.  You can see them here.  This time however, I decided to have some real fun and play with this one by making them into an actual kite.

I had an original plan for the design but some of the ideas for the individual pieces changed as I worked on them.  I was planning on creating some skinner blend mica shift ones like in a necklace I made a year ago.  I liked how the texture came out on these however and so decided to leave them in this form and highlight the areas with some gold mica powders instead.  I textured and highlighted my tube beads in the same way and added them to the other half of the necklace for a different look rather than have the kite beads go all the way around.  The gold heishi beads and colored crystals add some sparkle and an overall finished look to the piece.

Making my pendant turned out to be the bigger challenge.  I wanted the piece to be wearable and not too heavy.  To get the shape I wanted, I hand-formed my kite shaped mold first.  I then pieced my colored clays to fit over the mold so after firing it would be hollow.  I then used some sculpey light as a filler which really made a difference in the overall weight of the pendant itself.  

I handformed the clasp myself out of gold filled wire and clay and again buried all of the double strands of flex wire and the connectors inside the beads so they don't show or detract from the whole design.