Have we talked about bead finishes?

I walked into my studio today and the morning sun was pouring in from the East. (Because I still haven't put up curtains on that side of the room...) I had a small bead embroidered wall piece leaning against the back of my table, ready for hanging.


Click the image for a closeup

I confess I hadn't looked at it closely in a long time, but today the bead surface finishes really played across the whole (little) composition. Do you see how each different color above tends to come forward or recede? That's primarily due to the beads' surface finishes.

Click the image for a closeup

Can you see the differences in the bead surfaces, and how they reflect and absorb different amounts of light? Even the differences between the plain old opaque beads (the teal/turquoise blue above the green) and the opaque luster beads (the green beads) stand out differently because of their finishes.

This all made me realize that I don't talk about bead surface finishes much in the current incarnation of  my color theory class, now that I've migrated from lecture to hands-on workshop. So I thought I'd talk about it here over the next few days.

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