Happy Holidays!

Painting Gone Haywire

So, a few months ago, a friend of mine, LaRita Jacobs, convinced me to go to a painting class she's been attending for a while.  I thought it would be fun, while never imaging it would lead to anything.  But, I packed up all my craft paints, my rather horrible brushes, and tagged along.  That's where I met the phenomenally awesome Susan Kubes, who has become a good friend and one of my artistic mentors.

So, after my first 3 hour painting lesson, I had completed a dolphin (I posted about her here.) I was just so plum tickled with myself! I had painted a thing that looked like what it was!  How cool was that!!!!!  Since then, I've gone to painting classes almost every week, and have been getting awesome tips on blending, etc.  Susan is a remarkably patient teacher, and really let's her students progress at their own pace.  It's been wonderful!

But here's the haywire bit.  While I imagine some people begin with smallish projects and progress to larger, I've gone smaller.  Like, 1 inch or so...  Since I also make jewelry, I wanted to see if I could paint a scene on a small focal piece.  Lo and behold, I can!!!  Who knew!!  (And really, tiny palm trees are easier....) But now it's just going insane... I'm painting round beads now, too...

I honestly never knew I had any sort of aptitude for painting.  I mean, I never even considered that I could draw!  Me? Yeah, I was crafty.  I wasn't an artist.  And now, I'm actually starting to think of myself as an artist!  I actually get a little teary saying that! (I'm even considering better quality paint and brushes!)

Here's some new focals waiting for beadwork:

Okay, so not so much waiting for beadwork, as totally done...  oops... I love this bracelet... 

I'm going for a whole beach series... and wait till you see what I'm gonna do with the pink!  HA! It's gonna rock!!!!!!

Ladybug garden!  That bead is less than an inch tall....

So there it is.  Painting gone haywire...

Thanks for reading!

New Stuffs...

Happy 4th of July!!

Well, it took a good minute, what with all the, you know, real work and stuff, but I finally got a few new pieces up on my Artfire page.  You can see them here. I'm in the middle of a rather major revision of my artfire page, and I'm aiming to spend the rest of my summer learning some new techniques, posting some new work, and trying to make a real go of my jewelry business.  Which, if I really want this to be my life's primary work, I really need to get to work on!

So, the latest work... well, I have several more pairs of earrings, since earrings are something of a staple for me (I'm looking into making clip-on earrings, too, since I have several family members without pierced ears, so let me know if you'd be interested.) But I also posted a bracelet I'm quite proud of. The stitch is called the African Helix stitch, and I found a  video tutorial for it on YouTube. With this stitch, it's relatively easy to master the basics, (you work with five beads at a time, so there's not too much room for damage) but I'm discovering new and different problems every time I make another piece. For example, this stitch is worked on a wooden dowel or pencil. I thought it would be a good idea to score the pencil with inch marks, so I'd know how long the bracelet was. Great idea, yeah?  Yeah, I thought so, too... until I had to destroy the pencil to get the bracelet base off...  oops!  So far I've made 2 bracelets, and I have an idea for earrings.

[caption id="attachment_19" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="This is the African Helix Stitch bracelet, done in a base of matte black, with transparent lilac accent beads."][/caption]

I've also made an awesome little bracelet for a good friend of mine who's moving back to Arizona next week.  She's had a rough few months, but is getting back on her feet, and she collects bracelets, so I figured it'd be perfect (it was! She loves it!)  My goal was to make her a "Beach Bracelet."  She's lived here in Florida for 5 or 6 years, and doesn't really want to move back to Arizona, but at the moment, there's really no other option. So I wanted her to take a wee piece of Florida with her.   Here it is:

[caption id="attachment_18" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Deb's Beach Bracelet"][/caption]

I found some wonderful shell beads at Michaels, so that was obviously going to be the focal, since this is a "Beach" bracelet, and Florida definitely has shell-y beaches (unfortunately, we also have other icky stuff on our beaches now, too... boo....) And, of course, any "beach" bracelet must have it's water and sand!  I used a spiral rope stitch (probably my true favorite, and the first I ever learned) that I modified a bit to include a bit more framing around the turquoise beads. This is just such a fun and bright little bracelet!

So that's my new news!  More fun and changes to come!

R.Wilson