Art work from old masters works magic for me

We all get those moments don’t we? We’ve got every bead of every colour, every tool for every job, and a few hours spare to create the next mind-blowing work of art; yet…your brain has different ideas! It’s packed its bags, and is off to Magaluf without a kiss goodbye, or even a hint to tell us when it’ll be back home!

At these times I find that looking at art from old masters works magic for me. I am a huge art-of-any-genre fan, but the most appealing and inspirational for me are the Pre-Raphaelite painters. Hunt, Millais, Rosetti and Co. produced amazing images, full of beauty –and their paintings never fail to enthral me. I think it’s the colours they used that really tick my boxes, and it’s those colours I use to kick-start a new project when inspiration has left me.

Today is one of those days!

My Mum recently gave me a card with Sir Frederic Leighton’s ‘Flaming June’ on it – I’ve always loved this image, and I covet that dress (one day I will have one just like it!) alas, orange isn’t a colour I’m naturally attracted to, so I rarely include those colours in my work. BUT…this is inspiration day, and I thought I’d step outside my comfort zone to see where I went with the colour scheme, and more importantly, see if I really do have any creativity whatsoever left in me!

Sometimes, when we’re looking at a painting, we look at the whole and not the detail. The focal point is flaming June herself with her beautiful orange dress. But, by not taking in the whole picture, we miss the beautiful hues of blue in the sea, and burnt caramels in the flowers behind her and of the materials draped over the floor. For this reason I thought I’d take advantage of Big Huge Lab’s Colour Palette generator. You can upload any picture you like to the generator, and it will create a whole swatch of colours for you to play with! Our June generated this for me:

So, armed with my palette, the card from my Mum, and my trusty bead collection – I went into the studio and got to work. I came up with this.

What do you think? I wasn’t sure the bright blue worked, but, the more I looked at the image with the touch of blue in the flowers, the more I thought those beads should stay in the design.

What do you do to inspire yourself? I’d really love to see your take on pre-Raphaelite inspired jewellery (or a Picasso, Kandinsky or even a Cezanne!) You can send pictures of your arty creations here

My Flaming June necklace is now up in my Folksy shop, ready to find a new home.