It’s about 3 & 3/4″ round, and it’s about my daughter. It uses her colors (which are SO opposite from mine!) and the words describe some of the traits I enjoy and admire most about her: compassionate, brave, curious, silly, resilient, insightful & wise.
It incorporates Czech glass flowers and firepolish, 2mm Swarovski crystals, and seed beads ranging from size 15/o to size 18/o. The colors look washed out in the pic — it’s much louder & brighter IRL.
I’ve been assembling my 2007 BJP pages, and thinking more on what I’d like to try with my 2008 journal. My primary goal with last year’s journal was simply to get back into beading regularly. Beyond that, my “rules” were pretty flexible … try to work outside of my comfort zone in terms of color & technique, explore negative space (I always want to fill the page!) and give myself room to play. I opted not to look at other artists work along the way, so that I could reintegrate beadwork into my life without too much outside influence.
This year I think I’d like a bit more continuity from page to page, so I’ve chosen a reoccuring image/theme. No funky shapes this time (last year’s pages were round) but I’ll work a bit larger at 5″ x 7″. The “empty spaces” idea was challenging for me last year, so I think I’ll keep working on that one.
These are my ideas right now, but they’re flexible. I’m not going to start my new journal till I’ve made more headway in finishing the first one … but I think once I start the first page, it will set the groundwork/tone for the year to come.
I had big plans to catch up on my photography this week, but I guess the universe had plans of its own. On a good day, it can be tricky to for me get decent pics. Natural light seems to work best for shooting my beads & handwork — but my condo sits on a heavily wooded lot. Great for nice cool summers, not so great for sunny photo spots :o/
Unfortunately for me (or at least, for my photos) it’s been rainy and overcast all week. I made valiant attempts to get some pics taken anyway, but it just wasn’t in the cards. The rain kept dumping, and the phone wouldn’t stop. The cats absconded with my DIY light box , and no matter how hard I cranked the gamma, there was just no hiding the fact that they were lousy shots.
I got intensely cranky before it finally dawned on me that the best thing would be to just let it go. I gave myself permission to stop worrying about all the zillions of beads & cabs I need pictures of. The new masks, crowns, cuffs and hairclips … they’ll keep 😉
Instead, I put finishing touches on the masks I need to send to NOLA — and played with some new designs I’m hoping they’ll like. I worked on my pages for the Bead Journal Project, and doodled & sketched new book/journal ideas which was fun and productive.
My books are rustic looking, which is the polite way of saying that they’re a bit crooked and bent
my 2002 journal ~ buffalo hide w/beaded fabric inset:
my daughter’s beaded/long stitched book
These new sketches are for more polished/precisely crafted books, but they should still retain that … special wobble that says hand crafted.
I’m so glad I started keeping a sketch book again, so that I can hold on to ideas that inspire me. I’m excited to try them out, but summer & early fall should be very busy for me. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to explore them again this winter.
