GETTING THERE

Well after the way I felt and was last week, I at least managed to get a bit of jewellery made over the weekend. I love making jewellery and adore the beads. I'm not satisfied with just stringing though and find that I really enjoy working with wire. It's hard on the hands. I keep telling myself that if I do it more often, then my fingers will toughen up. I want to get more adventuress with the wiring and saw the book Calder Jewelry on the blog, "the writing and art of Andrew Thornton". So I'm going to try and get the book and do some learning. Unfortunately, wire is not so easy to get here. I usually end up buying all the 20 gauge wire in the shop, when I do manage to find it.

Sunday saw me making earrings, earrings and more earrings. Not ground breaking designs or anything like that, just everyday earrings. I had to put them all together, because if I try and photograph them individually, then they come out either miles away or blurry. I have a Nikon Coolpix and haven't got to play with it much. I just want to take pics and have not spent any time going through the camera's features. I never read a manual.

I'd also decided on Sunday that I was going to fill two bezels I'd bought. I've been collecting pictures for ages. More than a year ago, Bevan bought me Pratley Kraftex Pratliglo, which is a high gloss polymer coating. I'm always nervous using stuff that says "wear gloves, work in well ventilated space, do this don't do that". But I decided that since I'd got all the things together, latex gloves, paper cups, wooden spatulas, syringes, a wad of paper and pictures that I'd better do something. I was going to work on Rich's workbench in the garage, but decided that the poor man already had me taking up more than my fair share of space in the house. I couldn't take over his workbench as well.

Once the children had left home, we each took one of their bedrooms for personal space. Rich took Joce's room for a study and I took over Bevan's room for a studio. We were out one Saturday, browsing through second hand and retro shops, when I saw this great old desk. Rich had agreed earlier, that if I found a desk, he would allow me some space in HIS study, as long as I didn't take over. When we got home with the desk, my desk was much larger than his and in order to get both desks in, Rich was relegated to the corner and I had the window space. Rich is very tidy and my desk usually looks like a bomb struck it.

I digress. I decided to work at the kitchen table. I did what the instructions said and here they are. Not a great pic. It was raining all day yesterday, AT LAST, we haven't had rain for ages and the 30 degree's C have been a killer. I photographed them on my desk, next to a journal I recently bought myself. I'm supposed to write everyday. The picture in the bezel on the left, is a portion of a copy of a work by Rogerio De Andrade. On the right, is a portion of a work by Simon Stone, which I altered slightly by adding a face from elsewhere in the work, that I wanted in the picture. Apparently the Pratliglo takes 36 hours to cure completely, so no working with them till Thursday to be on the safe side.

I then spent the whole of Sunday afternoon in the studio making this lariat. It was painstaking but I love the outcome. I don't know what the pendant is, maybe Agate or Feldspar or Onyx or ................ The other components are, shell squares, retangular dics and rice, black glass beads, Czech glass beads, Hematite discs, Mother of Pearl buttons, Feldspar nuggets and seed beads. I made the clasp using 1mm wire. This took me almost three hours, as it was made in sections, which then had to be joined together. I've called this piece Delilah.

 


Mondays still seem to be my days to chill. As I said, it was raining. So I parked myself in the sitting room, in front of the TV from about 11h00 and knitted and wired these tiny buttons. Originally for a bracelet, but now I'm not sure. I also have the cute gingham covered buttons, so who knows.