November Monthly Challenge

The Fairy Fellers' Master-Stroke by Richard Dadd


To celebrate the release of of Cynthia Thornton's new book Enchanted Adornments, Melanie of Earthenwood Studios choose this enchanted painting to inspire your adornments for the monthly challenge.


Dadd was an English painter of the Victorian era, noted for his depictions of fairies and other supernatural subjects, Orientalist scenes, and enigmatic genre scenes, rendered with obsessively minuscule detail. Most of the works for which he is best known were created while he was incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital.

The painting was commissioned by George Henry Hayden, who was head steward at Bethlem Royal Hospital at the time. He was impressed by Dadd's artistic efforts and asked for a of his own. Dadd worked on the painting for nine years - paying microscopic attention to detail, as well as a layering technique producing near-3D results - and it is generally regarded as his most important work. However, Dadd himself considered the painting to be unfinished (the background of the lower left corner is only sketched in), and as such added the suffix of "Quasi" to its title.

In order to give context to his work, Dadd subsequently wrote a strange poem by the name of Elimination of a Picture & its subject--called The Fellers' Master Stroke in which each of the characters appearing in the picture is given a name and purpose, including myriad references to old English folklore and Shakespeare - apparently trying to show that the painting's unique composition was not merely a product of random, wild inspiration.

Have fun with this mystical color palette. Pull out the fairy art beads, layout some contrasting colored charms and let's see what you can come up with for this challenge!

Your entry this month can be influenced by the colors, pattern or whatever you choose to focus on for your creation. Just remember to include at least one art bead in your design. 

The Prizes:

A winner will be randomly chosen from all the qualifying entries on December 1st.

Our sponsors this month are sponsors: Green Girl Studios, Earthenwood Studios, Bello Modo and beads by laura , please visit us tomorrow to see the prizes! 

Featured Designer of the Week:

From all the entries during the month, an editor is going to pick their favorite design to be featured every Monday here on the ABS. We want to give our participants more time in the spotlight! Our Featured Designer will be this Monday, so get those entries in soon.

How to enter the Monthly Challenge:

1. Create something using an art bead that fits within our monthly theme. This challenge is open to jewelry-makers, fiber artists, collage artist, etc. The art bead can be created by you or someone else. The challenge is to inspire those who use art beads and to see all the different ways art beads can be incorporated into your handiwork.

***Beads by themselves and beads simply strung on a chain or cord will not be accepted.***

2. Upload your photo to our flickr group. Detailed instructions can be found here and click here for a
tutorial for sending your picture to the group. If you can't upload to Flickr, send your entry and information to Heather.

Please add the tag or title
NOVABS to your photos. Include a short description, who created the art beads and a link to your blog, if you have one.

Deadline is November 30th. Photos are approved by our moderators, if a photo hasn't followed the guidelines it will not be approved. You may upload 2 photos a day.

What is an Art Bead?
An art bead is a bead, charm, button or finding made by an independent artist. Art beads are the vision and handiwork of an individual artist. You can read more about art beads here.

*** A bead that is handmade is not necessarily an art bead. Hill Tribe Silver, Kazuri ceramic beads or lampwork beads made in factories are examples of handmade beads that are not considered art beads.

p.s. If you have a blog, post your entry and a link to the ABS challenge to spread the beady goodness.