The 16th Blogger/Non-Blogger Challenge is being Hosted By Gloria Allen of Gloria Allen Designs This time around our inspiration was -“7 Heaven Landscape” an Illustration Artist Ivan Laliashviliis. Its a surreal landscape that gives out an ethereal feeling as it was designed to be a backdrop for a fantasy game. It was the best inspiration I could ask for my Empyrean necklace.
When I looked at the image I was immediately drawn to the purple fog, the twinkling mushrooms and the floating pods but somehow couldnt connect then in any manner to make jewelry. So I decided to observe the illustration a little closer and made a note of all the textures used in it. During this time I was also experimenting with a new type of Paper technique which would give rise to uneven textures. So I decided to club both and create my design – Empyrean
Empyrean means the highest or the first part of heaven which seemed like the apt word to describe our inspiration picture. I chose the form of a fish, as fish or matsya is considered to be the starting point of evolution and the first avatar of Lord Vishnu (as per Hinduism). The shape I chose belongs to a mythical fish that floats through different realms and travel from heaven to earth and back to heaven.
I finally created a textured paper bib necklace where I have tried to bring out the juxtaposition of smooth cloud like textures, tree rings and color strokes along with micro bulb forms. There are crests and valleys in the piece as in the painting. The gold wire spirals on the fish are to denote the tree rings. I used pearl colors like purple, magenta, rust and gold on a black background. I tried to incorporate green but it stood out too much so I repainted it.
I have wire wrapped garnets colored beads in the chain to make it more ornamental and also look like the bulb flowers/mushrooms at the bottom of the illustration. I tried to go with hot pink beads like in the picture but it didnt look nice in reality so I changed the color and went with the garnet. The back has been decoupaged with a plaid paper and both front and the back have been sealed as the whole structure is made of cardboard.
So that was my entry for the challenge and it was a big experiment, adding and subtracting things and learning new techniques in the process. I am making a host of such necklaces to be available for sale soon. Hopefully I’ll get positive reviews.
Leave a Reply