new challenge

Now that it’s August, the Art Bead Scene blog is running a new challenge. This month’s inspiration painting is American artist, Frederick Winthrop Ramsdell’s Illustration for American Cresent Cycles, 1899. Here is the image, and my own color picking swatches, which again, are very similar to ABS’s choices (I could go with theirs, but I just like picking colors.)

I lust love the Art Nouveau style, and the warm yellow and rust color is so in my favorite color zone! I have a focal in mind already for this piece, but I haven’t started picking accent beads yet. Sometimes when you look at these challenge or inspiration pictures, it’s hard to decide to focus on.

Looking for some help, I ran the picture through Photoshop’s cut out filter, to try and isolate the pockets of color. When confronted by strong yellows and whites, I personally find it difficult sometimes to drag my eyes away from the bright color and see clearly how it relates spatially to the other colors. I thought that if I could isolate the limited colors in the poster, down to their basic shapes, perhaps I could use the color balance in Ramsdell’s poster as a guide for my challenge necklace.

Sounds, like a good idea, yes? And I love fooling with Photoshop anyway, so hey, bonus fun. Here is the picture broken down into shapes:

the result?

Okay, after blurring out the details, it looks like the areas of color are still fairly even. The ivory color represents the smallest bit, but it breaks up the strong areas of color, adding movement and preventing the balance from being too blocky. So, what could I do with this? There are so many ideas here.

• The ivory flowers blowing in the wind.

• The strong contrast of the black and yellow.

• Delicate florals offset with green leaves.

• A crescent moon along the horizon, with orange sunset colors.

I don’t know if this helped at all, but I’m off to pick beads and ponder. Are you participating in this month’s challenge? What part of this image most inspires you?