"The "color" of the ocean is determined by the interactions of incident
light with substances or particles present in the water. White light
from the sun is made up of a combination of colors, which are broken
apart by water droplets in a ‘rainbow’ spectrum. Large quantities of
water, even in a swimming pool, would appear blue as well. When light
hits the water surface, the different colors are absorbed, transmitted,
scattered, or reflected in differing intensities by water molecules and
other so-called optically-active constituents in suspension in the upper
layer of the ocean."
Oops, hey, stop it, Wikipedia ... yes, there is more, head over there if you want to read more.
Now it's my turn for ocean moments
- my first time flying over the Atlantic
- my first time looking out and see the sun sparkle on the Pacific
- getting my feet wet on a Californian beach
- taking in the colors, the scent, and the light
And I'm not even that big a fan of the ocean, I am more of the lake type. It's funny, the ocean gives me a mixed feeling of "I love those beautiful colors, this is great" and "whoa, that's so huge, this is overwhelming, can you imagine what is down there".
The colors in the following items from the Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge are beautiful, soothing, a breeze of fresh ocean air. I hope they will overwhelm you. In a good way.
1 Jewelry Art by Dawn
2 Violetmoon's Corner
3 RioRita
4 MC Stoneworks
5 Cat's Wire
WIPs. We all have them. They lurk in drawers and in boxes and in our mind telling you to finish them or at least make your mind up about ripping them apart.
Sometimes it's not even about being stuck, but about patience or being bored with a piece. Heck, sometimes it is just a missing clasp!
A few years ago when I went on a stash busting mission from time to time, I created my "Pebbles in the Stream" necklaces. I mixed up leftover beads that went well together and added them to a wire knit base.
For this one I didn't use leftovers, though. I got all of those beads together in a mix and found it unnecessary to add more. The new JAC challenge being about ... oh, wait, I don't want to give anything away yet.
Do you want to know why this stayed a WIP for a while? The neckwire. That did take a while to weave through the stitches. Told you, sometimes it is just the little things.
This "Little Pebbles" necklace made it into my DaWanda shop now if you want to know more details.
Isn't it sweet how things sometimes come together even if you have not expected it at all?
This time it was the color blue that pulled it all together.
First of all I found this dyed blue agate slice in my stash. The other day I had made a brooch with a purple agate slice in a wire knit setting. The irregular shape of the agates is easier to set in wire knitting, so that's what I decided on again here.
From there my muse took things into her own hands. I remembered the blue pearls in my drawer and as I like to do, I strung my wire with a whole bunch of them. As you can tell, though, I didn't need that many after all. My plan had been to crochet an extra edge onto the bezel and to fill it with pearls, but the shape of the slice seemed to call for a freeform edge.
That's when I began to see the ocean theme. I don't know what you see in this pendant, but to me it became part of a coral reef and I knew I wanted to have something else on there. I wracked my brain to remember if I might have hidden a fish or maybe a crab charm somewhere, and I was almost ready to go and look for charms to order - which wouldn't have gone together that well with the goal of using my stash - when I remembered my fishes by Melissa Vess.
Among all of her beautiful beads of which I have not enough by far, Melissa's fishes have always been my favorites. I always felt her love of the ocean and diving made them even more special.
Unfortunately Melissa isn't a lampworker anymore which makes me think even more about how I use her beads in my work.
And there it was, a blue fish which matched the blue of the agate perfectly as if it was made to swim through this underwater world. Bingo!
This one of a kind pendant is available in my DaWanda shop now.
