Now that the beaded edge is finished around the wizard, I turned my attention to the smoke coming out of the cauldron at his feet. I had intended to use wired Flair to create this effect and pulled out cards of orange, black, lilac and grey Flair trying to decide which color looked best. As I laid the various colors on the canvas, it struck me just how small a space the smoke needs to occupy. The base of the smoke should be less than 1/4 an inch and the top where it twisted and turned and vanished into nothingness (i.e., should be plunged to the back of the canvas) was another 1/4 inch. That's really half an inch only and I just didn't think that Flair with wire inside was going to look its best in such a small space.I really liked how the crystal Sundance beads looked so I used them instead, starting at the cauldron and laying a line of 4 beads across the surface of whatever potion the wizard has in his cauldron. The next two lines were three beads each, then I moved up a bit and did a row of two beads, then just two single beads scattered to show the smoke (and perhaps bubbles?) were rising and disappearing into thin air.
I used a ply of red silk to attach the beads, and you can see a little of it in the photo above. However, in person you don't see the red. It does not show through the crystal beads' middle. They must be lined with silver instead of actually being clear. They look clear when you use them but the couching thread along the edge was more of the grey silk from the background. I didn't realize the silk didn't show when I attached beads to the edges of the piece because the silk was so close to the clear bead color.
Although this is not what I'd planned to do, I am happy with the look. I'll just remember that you need at least 2-3 inches to use wired Flair to get a good effect the next time I'm tempted to use it.
Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
