Spring Jungle Necklace

My latest inspiration was this canvas on wood pendant from Artbeads.com. I’m crazy about the intense yellow-green and black design, which reminds me of a tropical island on a foggy morning. Or perhaps it’s a jungle during a midday thunderstorm. But it could also be an underwater garden.


The Inspiration:

I’m not sure what artist Charlie Clingman had in mind when he created his original painting, but the “Springling Yellow” pendant makes me think of both vegetation and water. It has a very West coast kind of vibe to it.

The Beads:

I considered using a contrasting palette for the beadwork, but in the end I decided to keep things low-key and compliment the pendant’s colors instead. I selected gunmetal, copper lined green, lemon yellow and brown AB mix seed beads for this project.

I puzzled and pondered for a long time about how to use the pendant. I didn’t want to overpower it with heavy beadweaving or too much color. While looking through my bead stash, I spotted some black gemstone chips and was inspired to use them in the necklace base.

The Beadwork:

I drew from the tropical island theme to create a vine to suspend “Springling Yellow” from. After stringing the chips with gunmetal seed beads and the pendant, I added the green, yellow and brown beads with randomly spaced and sized leaves, branches and picot flowers.

I am still pondering the idea of adding more fringe and thickening the necklace chain, but as beaders know, sometimes it’s best not to fiddle and fuss too much over our work. We risk going too far when we try to fix what isn’t broken.