Experimenting with japanese print inspired style

First off, it has to be said..... no I did not do a class with Anastasia recently (or ever), but I suppose there is only so many looks you get with enamels on a base bead and some stringers thrown on!

Well, I have a burning need to make some beads lately, both for monetary reasons and for creative satisfaction.  I have been playing just a little with some enamels and these top two are the results of that playing.  I made them both on a base of devardi glass and used some thompson 104 enamels in two different tones just laid beside each other to give me a sort of interesting base.  It has to be said also that once the enamel is melted in, it felt like it gives a nice surface for some stringer work to me (now that was a pleasant surprise).  I have been working on a series of japanese print inspired beads and wanted something reminiscent of cherry blossom branch pattern.  They don't look japanese I am sure, but the effect was nonetheless quite nice and I was happy with the colour and form of these.  I really think that next time I need to use some of the gorgeous reichenbach porcelain white for the blossoms to give the really dense bright white and allow for really fine tiny dots too.... shall add that to my cart with Affordable for sure :-)

After these cherry blossom brances I tried something a little more strange again..... some bamboo stringer work..... I REALLY don't like how this came out, but I do admit that if I used a base of white and just kept the bamboo a little simpler and took a little more time to make the bamboo finer it still has some possibilities.

Now this third one I made whilst thinking more about Japanese prints and was a very quick and dirty job (please excuse the bad pic too).  I decided I wanted a cherry blossom effect which I was quite dissapointed with as it bled quite a bit (shouldn't have used that intense black now should I) and the blossom dots were clunky and I didn't take much time with the shaping, but hopefully you can see where I was headed.  I wanted it to look like a japanese print on a wall!  I also masked off a branch shape at the top and the centre feature area, then etched this fella.... Definitely needs to be sorted out but once again its a start.

This was one of those days when nothing turned out how I wanted it to turn out, and yet was not a complete dissapointment either.  I have loads of ideas for some new directions to try out now and that sort of inspiration is always welcome!