I know, I am not usually one for cute beads. Cute is just not my thing but my Mom requested a pair of strawberry earrings for Mother's Day. My mom can have anything she wants, no matter how cute.
I made three pairs, these little sweeties are the extras. Yes, carrots are not strawberries. You make carrots by inadvertently picking up the striking orange glass rod instead of the striking red. Very silly.
The whole process started with a few colored pencil sketches in my bead book.
I am a 'sketchbook thumper' - preaching that sketchbooks are crucial and an all around good idea. If you don't have one by all means start keeping one. I work out ideas, write down formulas so I can recreate beads again if I need to, and generally organize my scatted thoughts before torching so that I am more productive when I finally get to flame.
Look at that, there are three different ways of attaching the little off mandrel leaves, to the top of the berry, in my sketches. What a lot of time that saved working it out in the book rather than at the torch.
This is a page 50 from my 4th book. I use a small square, spiral bound sketchbooks that are available at most art supply stores. It has archival quality paper and the spiral binding allows you to fold the book in half and have less flammable surface area if you need to have the book nearby when your at the torch.
The earrings are up in my Etsy Belvedere shop.
No comments:
Post a Comment