First Day of Necklace Season

It's time to start the holiday craziness with some new necklaces.

All have my lampwork beads and vintage chain.

Some have semi-precious stones and freshwater pearls.

One has a beautiful, old French half penny.

I love collecting all the old bits of chain.
Always digging at estate sales for broken pieces to tear apart.

Snippets

Details from four paintings I am working on.
All are 20"x20" oil on canvas.

Indian Corn

When I was a kid I wore Indian corn necklaces.

With a big needle, some dental floss and shucked colored kernels little me stabbed, and strung myself fall necklaces.

Using various corals, ocher, topaz, tomato soup, purple red and other colors of glass rods I torched lots of little seed beads.

I wired them together with 18 gauge jewelers bronze wire in a classic rosary chain.
Each little piece of wire wound into an 'S' with pointed round pliers.

The piece took a couple of hours to construct.
There is no clasp.
I made it just large enough to slip over my head just like my childhood necklace.

Chairwhore

Few things make me as happy as 'new' furniture.
A spectacular sunset outside my studio window isn't bad either.

How To Build A Frog

Day 1 and day 2.

Days 3 and 4.

Finished and framed.

A little painting of a big frog.
6"x6" oil on board

Silvery Crow

Deep, deep from my paint drawers came a tube of "Metallic German Silver" paint by Daniel Smith. Perfect for this spooky, goofy crow.

9"x10 1/2" oil on board in a vintage silver leaf frame

Crow's foot.

(sold)

The Crows Keep Coming

This little crow is finished.
5"x7" oil on board in a vintage frame (sold)

Red Sky Magnolia

This past week something very unusual happened, I reworked a painting.
Almost always a big, bad idea.

It just wasn't where it should have been and spending a few more day with it made a big difference.
This time it was the right choice.

'Red Sky Magnolia'
36"x36" oil on canvas

some details