Evolution

I wanted to talk a little about the process by which I turn an idea into a finished piece.

I was thinking about joy. How pure joy makes a feeling that looks like a splotch of color, only on the inside of one's brain. And sometimes it's a splotch of butterflies on the inside of one's solar plexus. And naturally, that led me to thinking about Matisse and his paper cut-outs that for me at least, personify joy as splotch. Which caused me to start thinking in beads. And I made this pattern:
Which sorta worked, but was too heavy, somehow. The wonderful software package called BeadTool allows easy color changes, and I went through a billion (well, 40 anyway) iterations and finally settled on this:

And then I started to bead it. And the pattern was okay, but not exactly right. So I abandoned the pattern for an approximation. And here, then, is the finished bracelet, Joy Breaks Out:

It is my entry in this month's Etsy Beadweavers challenge, Anything Goes.