january art bead scene challenge...

I am squeaking in just under the wire here...
the Art Bead Scene challenge for January ends at midnight tonight.
(You can see all the entries here.)

This month's challenge was based on the painting La Pie [The Magpie] by Claude Monet. I was very drawn to the soft colors of the snowy landscape, and wanted to create beads from polymer clay that would echo that. There's a bit more brown in these than I had envisioned at first, but I liked them anyway...and I think they coordinate nicely with the colors in the copper.

This bracelet slowly evolved over the course of the month. I wasn't sure if I wanted a copper focal piece or not, and by chance I created this one and I was happy with it.

Then the matter of putting it all together had to be decided. I had already put the polymer clay beads onto the leather cording, so all I needed to do from there was link it all together.
But it felt a bit unbalanced, so I came up with the spiral charm and linen yarn/seed bead combo.
All in all I'm happy with how it evolved. I don't think it's at all what I started out thinking it would be, so it's a happy surprise for me!

I don't always enter the challenges...I'm not good with deadlines and time constrictions...but lately I'm finding that the challenge itself becomes a journey for me. The process itself leads me to create something that I never knew that I could!