Commissioned Beaded Skull: The Preacher

This non-typical commissioned beaded skull art piece is named The Preacher. This deer came to me already named because of his large brow tines resembling praying hands. He is the last of a trio of whitetail bucks I have had the honor of reviving into beaded art, including The Boss and Stormy Knight.

The Clay Process

The Preacher had a few missing parts including a tooth and a large “bump” between his antlers which is not unusual with large deer. The tooth took a little time to reconstruct but all in all it was a pretty straight forward clay process.

The Beaded Art Design for The Preacher

Because this was the third skull in this commissioned trio, I wanted to bring in elements from The Boss and Stormy Knight yet still make The Preacher unique. So, I used The Boss’s dark chocolate paired with Stormy Knight’s deep reds. The focal points of the first two pieces incorporated large fan beads in different colors. As gold was also used in both of The Preacher’s companions, I wanted to make that central in this design. However, I could not find fan beads in color that suited this scheme so I switched it up creating the focal point with golden Swarovski Crystal teardrops framed in by round smokey quartz. I incorporated some of the same lines and shapes as with the first two pieces and from there let The Preacher do The Preacher’s thing with Riverstone and plenty of Swarovski bicone and flatback crystals. His “prayer hands” antlers definitely made things challenging at times but he was well forth it in the end.

It was a pleasure creating these three skull art pieces and hope I have an opportunity to coordinate pieces like this again in the future.