An Oriental Frame of Mind

There is something about oriental style that has always appealed to me, even when I was a child.  I've been meaning to try my hand at some cylinder bead for quite a while, and finally sat down to do just that.

This is the first bead I made.  I impressed texture into the clay, then formed the tube. After an initial baking, I applied a dark mix of acrylics to enhance the design, and baked the piece again to set the acrylic.  The end caps are made from circles of clay and wired to the tube core to ensure strength.  The metal chain tassel seemed just the right touch.

Then I decided to use black and translucent clay decorated with gold metal leaf, alcohol inks, and permanent black archival ink.  The red and green cylinder beads were my first results.  I do like the metal tassels.




I still had some of the decorated sheet left, so made another gold and red cylinder bead, and then decided to make a large pendant.

 I really like this piece. The colors are deeper in person that the photo indicates.  I'm going to have to play some more with these shapes and decoration techniques.  I've only just "scratched the surface."