Teal Drift

"Teal Drift" is my entry in the June Art Bead Scene monthly challenge.

We were challenged to create a piece inspired by Ophelia by Odilon Redon.

Odilon Redon was born in Bordeaux, Aquitaine, to a prosperous family. The young Bertrand-Jean Redon acquired the nickname "Odilon" from his mother, Odile. Redon started drawing as a child, and at the age of ten he was awarded a drawing prize at school. Aged fifteen, he began the formal study of drawing, but on the insistence of his father he changed to architecture. His failure to pass the entrance exams at Paris’ École des Beaux-Arts ended any plans for a career as an architect, although he briefly studied painting there under Jean-Léon Gérôme in 1864.

Back home in his native Bordeaux, he took up sculpture, and Rodolphe Bresdin instructed him in etching and lithography. His artistic career was interrupted in 1870 when he joined the army to serve in the Franco-Prussian War.

In the 1890s, pastel and oils became his favored media, and he produced no more noirs after 1900. In 1899, he exhibited with the Nabis at Durand-Ruel's. In 1903 he was awarded the Legion of Honor. His popularity increased when a catalogue of etchings and lithographs was published by André Mellerio in 1913 and that same year, he was given the largest single representation at the New York Armory Show.

The colors in are very saturated and rich - just my style!

I choose a lampwork boro focal bead from Etsy artist, uvanomos. It had the color profile I was looking for and a sense of "drifting" water in the pattern.

The clasp is beaten metal disc anchored with an antique show button.

I used deep blue beads with a matte finish for the base, accented with teal beads; I like the contrast and depth created by surrounding the shiny focal with the matte beads. There are just a few scattered glossy accent beads in the ruffle that pick up the minor colors of the focal bead.


Available for purchase here.