Beadworker's Guild Challenge 2020: Fantasy

I wrote a very long article about my entry in the Beadworkers Guild 2020 Challenge before the pandemic breakout and when post-poning its publication, a Google "glitch" erased it. Argh! It was a long article with so many details and information and photos and corrections and updates, that it destroyed my writer's mojo for a while...

Fortunately, the very long wait for the judging to take place gave me enough time to write up something detailed again. I am crazy happy with my submission and was sitting on hot coals during months - most of you understand how hard it is to not be able to show what we are making with our beloved tiny little beads.

This year's Beadworker's Guild Challenge theme was

Fantasy

Neuschwanstein Castle, in Germany built for King
Ludwig II who loved legends and fairytales.
Walt Disney based its Magic Kingdom on it,
as well as Games of Thrones their Eyrie castle.
I love this castle.

Fortunately, I talked with our BWG newsletter editor Karen Gibson-Brown, because I couldn't help but thinking of fairy tales, in particular Disney.

My Tinkerbell. Entirely
made with "petals"

Disney's work is protected. Of course as long as one doesn't sell tutorials or multiple drawings of the Ice Queen made by the kids, there is no problem with a kid drawing Ice Queens (or Cinderellas). Or a beader beading Tinkerbell.

Karen clarified that it actually was quite a vast subject. After searching for more information about it, I came to find it analogous to "Mental Screen". Fantasy is what we can see in our head thanks to our imagination.

I find it fascinating how a fantasy creature can become so "real". It seems to me that with another pair of shoes or dress, or hair color, my Tink wouldn't be the "real" Tink anymore. Some things enter our mental screen and cannot be unseen anymore.

There are many myths and tales, but of course, for this challenge I had to come up with something "me", and make my submission worth the "previous winners" category. (You can read the article about my previous win with Nefertum's Wesekh here.)

I have too many flasks
of E.O. to fit in this box.

Early in 2019 I had ordered a 32-slot wooden box (for essential oils) for my husband's collection of tiny aquarium test bottles. Once inside, it was impossible to read the labels... The question "what to do with it now" got an unexpected answer from my muse, Eddie: "Put your chess play in it when you finish it"...

Huh ??? my chess play?! Naaah.... I counted the slots,  was stunned, but.... a project initiated in 2013 and quickly abandoned because time and motivation were never there at the same time?

Decisive move by Ron Weasley in Harry Potter and
the Philosopher's Stone. I love the Harry Potter Saga and I like chess.
Did you know that the modest yet determined and
brave pawn can become what ever it wants?

Eddie insisted: « Let's do this! Beading for the BWG challenge has to be challenging and you’ve always wanted to make it! Plus - oh la laaa - it is perfect for the Fantasy theme. » I had to agree. To play chess, one certainly needs to have serious mental screen "skills"; strategy asks for imagination. And each battle is a fantasy battle. I couldn't get it out of my head anymore. So I gave in, started it all over  and...

Tadam!

Friendly family picture

All on the "board" for a fantasy fight.

Inspiration and Techniques

Before I explain the making of this wonderful yet crazy project, I would like to credit Debra Schwartz (aka Datz Katz Designs) for her influence. She had made a pair of earrings called "Spinnerz" (published in Contemporary Geometric Beadwork vol. II) and during one of our messenger chats, she fantasized about all the other things she could make with her wings built on a CRAW core.

Photo of the Spinnerz in CGB vol. 2

When she mentioned a chess play, my muse immediately got hyperactive. Lots of ideas popped up. She showed me some sketches but I already envisioned the pieces my way, with shaped Czech beads to spice them up. We imagined making both half of a play with the wings based on the CRAW core for the core architecture. We both realized pretty quickly that we had way too many other things asking for attention. 6 years later, I asked Debra for her permission to make and enter my chess play in the BWG challenge and she kindly agreed. And even if it is different from what she envisioned, I absolutely want to credit and thank her for the inspiration and for letting me use her Spinnerz as the base for my chess play.

I think that it's good that I waited so long before really taking up the chess project. As a much better beader than in 2013, I enjoyed the actual beading and designing process much more, even if I encountered numerous difficulties not mentioned in this article! There are even things that I would not have been able to make back then, in particular little Olaf.

Although the pieces are based on an MRAW start with RAW and PRAW cores, it is a really cool geometric peyote exercise. I used petals (a 2-increase shape of my own find) for the gowns and the fish, and triangles - some equilateral, some elongated - and a variety of pear shapes for wings (as in my Tiny Tulip  and Diane Fitzgerald's Radiance pendant.

I used a square base for the pawns, a pentagon base for the towers, knights and bishops, and a hexagon base for the queens and the kings.

One discarded pawn displaying
typical medieval retaining walls

My first pieces were the bishop and the pawn. The latter remained on my designing board during months. I made many, many versions of the pawn before finding the right head for it. Interestingly, all versions had something "medieval" about them.

Only after finding what I would do for the king's head, I knew what to do for the pawns, and that was adding a crystal chaton in a gold-plated setting. I also added crystal chatons to the queen's gown and as eyes of two knights.


I gave the bishops and kings a cape, which can either float or be wrapped around their body. I like to shape them to give each piece a different look.

I imagine kings and counselors standing on a hill,  looking
far in the distance, with their capes floating in the wind.

While making the kings, I couldn't resist thinking
of the Argonath in the Lord of the Rings.
I love the Lord of the Rings saga.

Materials

Delicas 11° in two different opaque light cream, matte 24Kt gold-plated and matte and shiny black;
Miyuki opaque size 15° black and egg shell;
Miyuki opaque bugle beads size 3, black and ivory luster;
Toho Starlight in sizes 15° and 11° and 8°;
Cube beads for the base of each piece;
Pearls ranging from 2mm to 10mm are present on and/or in most pieces;
KO black and KO gold thread - the gold conferes an antique ivory look to the "whites";
Glass cabs and felted pads.

I also used Gumdrop beads for the bishops' mitres, Tile beads as drawbridges for the towers, Superduo beads as drawstrings on the ladies' gowns, Spike beads for the knights' unicorns and large Magatama beads for the serpent's scales. Most of the cream beads are called champagne in catalogues.

A large pearl at the top of the towers mimices the dome of an old astronomy observatory. It shows better in the video.

Same shape, different fold

The most special aspect of the play is that the black pieces can be seen through, not the whites. They are rigourously the same, with exactly the same number of beads, but their wings are joined the opposite way. This shows best in the pawns. 

 As a result, they are very similar, yet all different.

The black pieces have rigorously the same bead count as their white counterpart, but the wings are joined differently. 

 

 

For the gowns of the queens, I pushed the white petals half inside out and left the black fully concave.

The 4 knights are unicorns, with heads based on my Tiny Tulip design, shaped and embellished differently, resulting in small (serpent), medium (bird), large (fish) and extra-large (bat) heads.

The bat and the bird can spread their wings and the serpent can move its head and adopt quite a variety of postures. They fit well in the box (but they seem to be willing to jump out of it at any time).
The fish can only move its tail and fins a little bit. Or rather, I can move them...

Ever since I saw the Harry Potter chess battle, my mental screen sees things 😃. 

I've always wanted to make a "fins over head" fish as, for example, in Bernini's fountain (The Triton Fountain in Rome, below left) and some Asian koi sculptures. When my fish Olaf (below right) started sleeping in this  position, it became a must.

The bird is inspired by my zebra finches, in particular Figaro, the fastest flyer of the flock, very hard to catch. It doesn't show in the photo below, but he is very chatty too.

Figaro, Fluff de Puff, and Fiora

The Board

I dare to think that the "board" is ubercool, for it matches any home decor, thanks to the "whites" being the color of the furniture, here a recycled mango wood table.

 
The squares are all made with a full octogon Diamond Weave stitch with thread cover beads, resulting in a traditional clover motif. I wanted something reminding of ancient floor tiles. The ivory border is made with the same stitch. It has a lot in common with the Chinese coin motif stitch. 

I made lots of different squares before I chose the above tile. When I realized that it would become a fractal eg. mini boards forming one large board, I knew that it was the right one.

 A lot of thread was used...

Beyond Beading

The bottom of each finished piece is filled with a glass cabochon, to which a self-adhesive felted pad was added.

Husbest sanded the box for me (I am really bad with wood - if there is one splinter, I will "find" it...), but I smeared it twice with natural antiquaire's wax, which smells amazing, to protect the wood, and give it a nice, natural color. I dislike varnish, because it turns yellow over time, which doesn't happen with real wax.

A bronze closure and embellishments were then added to the box, including 4 legs which look like animal feet. I tried a variety of legs, and made photos before choosing the preferred ones. Here again, to not screw the whole thing up, the help of the husbest was a must, and much appreciated.

Finally, I hand-sew a little poach for the board to which I added 2 cord ends inspired by the pawn heads.

And before sending it all to the UK, I had fun playing with it...

... and I made a video to show everything better. A dear friend edited it for me and added some music composed by him, for free and I hereby thank him VERY much for his time and generosity!

 I hope that you will find it inspiring.

 

Thank you very much for reading this far, watching and commenting!!

Cath