Art Bead Scene: May Challenge

The Art Bead Scene challenge for May is to create a piece inspired by the painting by artist Maurice Utrillo, and you have to incorporate an art bead into your work.  This challenge is open to jewelry-makers, fiber artists, collage artist, etc. The art bead can be created by you or someone else. The challenge is to inspire those who use art beads and to see all the different ways art beads can be incorporated into your handiwork!  Visit the Art Bead Scene blog for details on challenge participation.  Oh, almost forgot, there will be prizes!

Apparently, Utrillo liked to paint houses.  So my first thought was of courses, houses, followed by polymer clay.  They were too large for a bracelet, and just didn't fit with my design.  So here are my attempts at houses.

Then I came across one of my lampwork tubes by Ansuya Beads (Ebay).  This bead reminds me of an abstract painting, and it also has most of the inspiration colors.  I used mini cubes in blue, terra cotta, and olive green. Also used were copper rounded cubes, mother of pearl tubes, and copper beads.  The clasp, yes, copper again is from the Potomac Bead Company.  As you can tell, copper is one of my favorite metals to work with.  Here are the results.

And my last piece, a bracelet, made with a lampwork bead from Rabbit Hutch Beads.

This challenge was not an easy one for me, but I prevailed.  Thank you ABS for hosting these wonderful monthly challenges.  Don't forget to visit ABS's Flickr page to see more challenge entries.