Designing the Elements: Air and Earth

I've made two more bead sets in my Elements series. In another post I described sets I'd made for "Water" and "Fire," and now I'm finishing up the series with "Air" and "Earth."

For the "Air" set I used dichroic glass, (CIM) Cirrus, Vetrofond Pale Ocean Blue and some (CIM) Halong Bay stringers waving across the top. The CIM glasses have a beautiful opalescent, misty look to them. They have a cloud-like appearance that develops when the glass is repeatedly heated and cooled, which seemed like the perfect choice for an "Air" set.

For the “Earth” set, it was hard to decide which colors to use. I make a lot of organic-style beads and so there are a lot of earthy color combinations I like already. Ivory, green and brown seemed like the most logical colors to use, but I ended up choosing, (of course), my favorite color lately, Terra!

It's a new experience for me to design a series of beads around a common theme. I usually make whatever beads I'm inspired to create in the moment and so I end up with quite an eclectic collection of designs. If I ever lack inspiration and ideas, designing beads in a series is a good way to move me through creative blocks.

At the Tucson show I picked up a sample pack of Japanese Kinari glass. My next challenge to myself is making beads with this very soft, very beautiful glass.