I started today’s art by making floating candles. Then I tried making a couple of beeswax candles in small teacups, plus adding beeswax to the handmade wicks I had started a couple of days ago. Then tiring of that, I decided to try to make a bowl, lined with beeswax and with tiny seed beads embedded in it. These photos are definitely those of a work in progress.
to explain, I took a paper mâché bowl I had made, and poured tablespoons full of melted beeswax into it, until it was lined with a layer or two of wax. Having no idea how to achieve the effect I want, I then simply tossed some black “iris-finish” seed beads in and pressed them into the wax. Good enough, so I proceeded to try to achieve a circle of them, then surrounded these with size 11 gold beads. As I did this I understood two things, one was that in order to press the beads into the wax, I needed to warm it with a hairdryer, and also to use a small piece of plastic between me and the beeswax, because otherwise too often the beads came off onto my fingers. The other thing I realized was that if I wanted beads aligned rather than just pressed into the wax scattershot, I had to thread them onto beading thread, align them on the wax, warm it, Press the beads in and then remove the thread. This made the outer red ring of aligned beads much easier than dropping them one by one with a pair of tweezers. As I am not much of a planner, I dunno how the bowl is going to look when I am done, but I expect to keep learning as I go!
Art Every Day 365 