Art Spirals

I've had an idea floating in my head for awhile using funky resin beads from a vintage 60s necklace. The beads are in colors I'm not used to using: reds, yellows, oranges, but I'm loving them now. So I was originally going to bead the whole thing, but then thought...make a landscape collage from fabrics and then embellish to the hilt! So for Father's Day, my dh took the kids ice skating -- wonderful thing to do when it's 105 degrees here (yuch) -- and I had some me/art time for the first time in weeks. it felt wonderful. So I auditioned various fabrics using the black and white photo trick to see if the values would work. here's some of my process and the finished result:

The black and white and color versions of the same fabrics. Values are too close together and the sky is too bright.

Covered the sky with a gauze hanky, it muted it, but the flower design of the hanky gets in the way and there isn't a blank gauze area big enough.

So when things started working right, I forgot to take pics along the way. Here's the finished product (at least pre beading), fused down with a lovely piece of handdyed fabric from Anne Marie (Thanks!) as the lake.

I think the values work: dark in front, medium, light and lightest in back near the horizon. and I used white netting over the sky to tone it down.

And now on to the FUN part -- BEADING! and it's a good "carry in the car" project for the next couple of weeks of mini vacations.