Sometimes doing a sample works out for me.....

I rarely do samples, but I am rarely trying to make something look detailed and exact. I am the type of artist that make some weavers cringe because rather than doing a sample, I draw up my piece, warp my loom, and enjoy whatever my fingers produce.

Yesterday I began my bicycle bracelet design, and graphing a bike out into the style bracelet that I design became far more difficult than I would have expected.

I had this idea that I would make a black background and use only one color for the bicycle...and the little bikes trekking across this bracelet would be neon. This way I could represent the importance of wearing bright colors when you bike so that cars can see you.

This is what my creation was looking like on paper:

But alas, paper and beads look quite different. You loose all of the sketch lines that made it actually look like a bike frame. I decided that this was one of those pieces that I had to do a sample for. Otherwise I'd have about 1600 beads put together (not quite the whole bracelet), and realize that it looked terrible.

Thankfully, I did my sample and it turned out looking like this:

These blue hexagons are failing to convince me that they are bike wheels. Especially in the blue!

I love to have detail, but I also did not want to make this a humongous cuff bracelet that you could tell whether or not this bike was a sweet streamline single speed or a beat up 18 speed mountain bike. Believe me, I considered this. I don't think it would be cost-effective in the end.

So I conceded and admitted that I have to make this bike with black wheels, some shine in the spokes and keep just the frame brightly colored.

My next problem is: what is my background color to be? Black is my back-up, it always looks good behind things. White, well, I don't really like white, and I like my bracelets to be functional. White gets messy looking, even with glass seed beads.

Here's what I came up with, and I am now VERY excited!

Now I know this is only the bottom, but the wheels looks like wheels, and I promise I will finish this little sample before I head into the full-blown bracelet. Besides, the sample is only about 395 beads....