I was actually trying for “sandstone bands” more than a gradation here. Thoughts?
Granted, with the silver-lined beads it looks like someone stuck mica and copper ore into the sandstone. *G* I’m considering doing another pair with some of the same lower colors but a 3-gradient of matte colors leaning toward red, possibly, to give a better sandstone effect.
Dratted overcast makes taking pics hard. Might have to take another pic when the clouds finally clear out.
Still, I think I do like this pair. Reminds me of hot, hot summer days with the cicadas buzzing!
Crossover Queen's Creative Chaos 
Yeah, the silver band in the middle kinda throws things a little. Still pretty, just, not sandstone. Maybe if the top band were a pale blue, it could be shimmers of a desert mirage, or maybe a shiny blue outline? If there were a matte sand or bone white, you could do a layer of loose sand on top of the sandstone.
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Noted. š
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While there’s some sandstone that’s more of a steady gradient like that, one thing I notice is that there’s more usually a small section of gradient with a sudden sharp edge where it turns to a significantly different color. The silver band by itself isn’t throwing this off (a quick google search does find some that look kinda like that), so much as the size of the band in relation to the other bands and to how much of the thing is visible in total.
It might work better if each layer were made a single thickness, instead of the double-thickness you have here (and normally have), so you can have the gradation of color, with the sharp divisions between gradation-sections, and have the pattern continue farther so it can be seen as a pattern? I notice the recognizable pictures of sandstone layers normally show a lot more layers, while cropped pictures only showing two or three layers are hard to recognize despite being labeled.
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Whil I like the colors, having silk finish next to the metallic is jarring. Iād maybe do silk next to matte next time? It would feel more like a stone texture too.
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Pretty . . .
And a lot like sandstone and other desert rocks.
The metallic bits don’t throw me off too bad . . . sometimes you do find interesting pieces of metal and/or jewel-type stones like mica in them there hills. Granted them there hills tend to be more the scrub that on the edges of the more rock-and-sand desert . . .
Through your idea about another pair sounds like it would work beautifully too.
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š
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The silver in the middle was jarring with sandstone in mind. I came back today and looked and thought of sandstone and water, like at Lake Powell. And that works.
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