>Two Beaded Lunettes
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As I am working on my beaded St. Mark's Square (Venice, Italy) painting, I am also doing some research about the architecture of the building. Today, I learned that the mosaic sections in the upper register of the Basilica are called 'lunettes'. A lunette (derived from the French word "lune" meaning "moon") is a half-moon or crescent-shaped space, usually over a door or window. Lunettes may contain another window, a sculpture, or a mural. In this case, they contain a 24K gold beaded mosaic! :)
Semi-beaded Basilica di San Marco (Venice, Italy). 10" x 5.5" (24cm x 14cm).
While I have been using several different shades of gray for this piece, I have used mainly only matte transparent gray seed beads for the majority of the Basilica. The lower register of the building (on the left-hand side) looks considerably darker than the upper register only because I used different colour thread! I used black thread for the lower, and white thread for the upper! That's a pretty simple trick, but it is effective! I will bead the last lunette in the same manner. I am very happy with how this is looking so far, but I still have a lot more beadwork to do!
Just a bit of other news. You will notice that I have redesigned my blog. I used Blogger's new Template Designer. This new feature is easy & fun to use! It's a pretty big change compared to the plain white background I used to have. My favourite part of this new template is that now, you can check your reaction to my post below - funny, interesting, or cool! How do you think it looks? If anything, I might change my header just a bit, but other than that I think I like it!
Also, I am proud to announce that I have finally reached 50 sales in my Etsy shop! If you haven't checked recently, last week I listed my psychedelic blue beaded bus, The End. I will be adding more items soon. Thanks for looking, and have a great weekend! :)