I love the painting, The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli. And I am guessing that he's probably rolling his eyes in disbelief right now. But being the adventurous spirit that I am, I had to see what happened when I sat down and attempted a very simplified glass version in my characteristic style.
Well, as my friend said, "she's a little short waisted". Which of course made me burst out laughing. For one thing, my Venus needs longer legs. All I could think of was the Southern way of adding, "Bless her heart", when they are ready to say something unkind. For some reason, that makes it okay to say.
But the problems was, that I made her head first, instead of her body and started working my way down and ran out of room. So that was a big lesson learned. I think I was concentrating to make sure her hair and hands covered every body part, that I wasn't focused enough on the big picture. A little cleavage wouldn't have hurt anything.
And if you look at the background, I was pretty happy with that. I made the colors blend to give it a similar coloration to the original. I know that in the real, gorgeous painting, her skin is luminescent against it. Needless to say, I used pale ivory to try to achieve that.
All in all, I was happy with this first attempt. Sure she is not tall, elegant and gorgeous, but she is a fun characterization of the original, which definitely has always been my style. And I like being able to look at a bead and dissect it to see what I would do differently next time. I made four little sculptural seashells to go with her, so now I'm off to photograph them and upload this bead into my Etsy shop. You'll be able to find her there. Bless her heart.
She's very sweet - bless her little cotton socks ;o) (Even though she isn't wearing any).
ReplyDeleteShe's not short waisted - just ample bosomed....
Funny - I always thought that Bless her was so very British, having grown up with a Gandma & numerous great Aunts that used it (albeit not in the context of softening a blow.lol)
For some reason my Mum always said the one about the cotton socks, as a term of endearment for something sweet done by a child.
These days though the poms seem to have just shortened it to 'ohhh bless'. Go figure ;o)
Oh wow, I really love this bead, Marcy! It's one of my favorite paintings, too, and you did a great job putting her into bead form. And if you didn't point it out, I don't think I would have even noticed that the legs are a little short. :)
ReplyDeleteGreat bead Marcy. On the other hand, the shell is great!
ReplyDeleteJust stopping by to let you know you have been tagged! :) Feel free to play or not, whatever you wish.
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