Art Elements February Challenge Reveal - Artisan Jewelry Inspired by the American Kestrel

Welcome to the Art Elements February 2019 Themed Challenge Reveal!  The theme of this month's Challenge was Birds of Prey or Raptors.  Makers were encouraged to submit any kind of artistic endeavor representing these magnificent flying creatures. We created handmade jewelry for this challenge as we have been prepping for our spring shows.  We are headed to Kansas City next week for the 58th Annual Gem, Mineral, Jewelry and Bead Show and we have been working hard to bring our customers lots of new jewelry designs and handmade components.

We are usually inspired by song birds like cardinals, bluebirds and robins, so working with a birds of prey theme with this Challenge was a little out-of-the-box for us.  We have a new song bird pendant focal that we are introducing in our Spring 2019 painted pendant collection, so we incorporated the feather coloring of a bird of prey for one of pendants, an American Kestrel!  We were struck by the lovely colors of the Kestrel, this little falcon features a coat of slate blue, rust, cream and a striking speckled pattern throughout the feathers.  Catherine hand painted all of these elements into our songbird pendant, and then we paired our new focal with a hand knotted crystal bead necklace from Deborah.  Our little Kestrel dangles freely from a hand stamped O-Ring that says "Fearlessly Authentic" - a fitting and inspirational quote!

We also created this boho pair of earrings in the same American Kestrel theme to match with our necklace.  These feathers, inspired by the American Kestrel, have been hand painted in our studio by Catherine and then accented with lots of bling by Gianna.  They're super sparkly and lightweight!


While looking up feather inspiration for our hand painted components, we discovered some interesting tidbits about the American Kestrel.  Read below to learn more about these adorable little falcons!

• The American Kestrel is the smallest and most common falcon in the US.

• Kestrels can be tamed easily and trained quickly - because of this (and their small size), they are popular falconry birds for working in the city.

These American Kestrel jewelry designs and lots more of our new handmade jewelry will be available at our shows in Kansas City, Joplin and Tulsa this spring.  Visit our website for more info on our Dry Gulch shows.

This month's Art Element challenge was hosted by Cathy Spivey Mendola - thank you for an inspiring theme.  Be sure to read through and visit all of the Challenge makers links below for more Birds of Prey inspiration - we'll see you in a few weeks for our next Challenge reveal!



Guests:
Tammy
Beth
Cat
Anita
Kathy
Alysen
Linda
Rozantia
Catherine You Are Here!
Hope
Sarajo
Melissa
Sarah

Art Elements Team Members: 
Caroline
Cathy
Claire
Jen
Jenny
Karen
Laney
Lesley
Lindsay
Marsha
Niky
Sue

Art Elements July Theme Reveal - Funky Seed Pod Jewelry

Welcome to the Art Elements Theme July Challenge Reveal from Dry Gulch.  We missed the June challenge last time, but we made sure to join the July monthly challenge!  We have enjoyed working on our project for the reveal the past few weeks in between getting ready for our summer shows this August.  We would like to send a thank you to hostess Jennifer for putting this challenge together. Don’t forget to visit all of the participating reveals, listed in the links at the end of this blog.

A selection of our late summer garden seed pods & dried berries.  We often use them as photography props.

This month, the Art Element's Theme Challenge was Seed Pods, one of our favorite things!  We tend to a flower and vegetable garden every year, and we always love seeing the different seeds our plants provide.  From the sweet little seeds we plant in the spring, to the dried husks of seed pods throughout the hot summer and cool fall, we enjoy finding inspiration in their rustic and organic shapes.  We have 2 shows that we're preparing for in August, a bead show and vintage show, so we focused on creating a pair of earrings that we could bring along.

 

This pair of earrings showcases our lampwork headpins.  We lampwork in our studio once a week and love to create funky shapes that can be used as charms or in earrings.  We named this shape Dew Pod because they look like little seed pods that have been studded with dewdrops.  In this pair, Catherine melted glass in beautiful caramel raku colors and then added soft metallic gold dewdrops.  Once the headpins were ready, Deborah then paired them with our Ancient Alchemy bead cone caps, filigree brass caps and sparkly Swarovski crystals.  We really like the juxtaposition of the shiny pod lampwork paired with the rough caps!

This pair of earrings and lots more handmade jewelry will be available at our shows in Tulsa, OK and Joplin, MO. Visit our website for more info on our Dry Gulch shows.

We would like to send another big thank you to Art Elements and Jennifer for hosting this fun challenge.  Be sure to hop around all the links below to see all of the participant challenge creations in this month’s reveal!

Guest Artists:

Tammy 

Raven 

Alysen

Anita

Cat 

Kimberly 

Rozantia 

Sarajo 

Divya

Caroline

Catherine

Kathy

Jill
Norma

Art Elements Team: 

Claire

Caroline

Lesley

Niky

Laney

Susan

Marsha

Jenny

Cathy

Jen