Stand back

Sometimes those maxims from art classes are kept firmly front and center, and other times I discover them unexpectedly, misplaced in a corner of my mind. I just found one of those this morning.

Last night I was ready to rip out my latest bead embroidery necklace. The only thing that stopped me was the sheer amount of work involved in the ripping out; I was just too tired to begin. So I set it down on my desk and watched Star Trek instead. Am I ever glad I did! This morning, as I walked down the stairs, I glanced over at my desk.

To my great surprise, the beadwork that I thought was not working looked great! It just needed a little distance. Up close, right under my nose, with my hand on the needle, it seemed disjointed and not quite right. But from a distance, oh, from a distance, everything changed. And then I remembered, "Always analyze your art work from the distance and height at which it will be viewed. Don't judge anything from the the other end of the brush!"

Luckily, it doesn't need a lot of distance. A foot or so is fine. And I don't expect anyone to get any close than that to my chest.

Stop and smell the flowers

I got some new toys, and I couldn't resist playing with them. First stop: my garden.

My new toys? A ring light and some magnifying filters. So here's a picture of an iris and a rose from my garden. Although the background is very dark, it was taken in full sunlight. But that little ring light puts out so much light, it turned day into night; and captured the color and detail of the flowers with amazing clarity.

I am going to have a lot of fun with these new toys!

The price was right (well, close enough!)

I finally found a photo grey card at an (unreasonably) reasonable price. I mean, $5.99 for a piece of grey cardboard?!?!?!?! But it really looked good to me yesterday! Let me explain.

I've been wanting one for a long time. It is so hard to get the exposure right when photographing jewelry; especially on the light backgrounds that I prefer. I've been relying on Photoshop to make up the difference, but if I'm going to enter contests or send my work to be considered by magazines, that won't do. They want photos that have not been Photoshopped, and mine are just not up to that standard. I really, really needed that grey card.

But they're not easy to find, and when they are available, they're outrageously expensive. I've been to several camera shops; when I ask for a photo grey card, I've mostly been greeted by blank stares. When I did find clerks who knew what I was going on about, they usually laughed and said, "I haven't seen one of those for years!"

It seems that most people just use the auto features on their cameras. Erm, that's not working for me! I need to do it the old fashioned way. So I began looking online. I committed myself to just buy one, no matter the price. I told myself that it really doesn't matter how much it costs; I need this thing. In the long run, it will save me so much frustration and time; I will recoup the cost in weeks, if not days.

But the best price I could find was $12.99 with $6.99 shipping. I couldn't talk myself into spending that much; I just couldn't do it. I put it in my cart and took it out several times; but in the end, regardless of how much I wanted it, regardless of how many times I reminded myself that I needed it, I just couldn't do it.

I just couldn't spend $19.98 for a piece of grey cardboard.

Now I'm glad I couldn't. We just happened by Sam's Camera in Mount Kisco, and the lovely gentleman behind the counter not only knew what I was talking about, but he had them in stock, and agreed that they really were better than the camera's meter for getting the exposure right,

Now let's just hope this does the trick!

Bead Embroidery, day 5

Whew! Beading on leather is really tough on the fingers. My fingers haven't looked this bad since the last time I made a quilt. I do wish I could get the hang of using a thimble; I didn't learn to sew with one, and they just slow me down. But I suspect that learning how to use one would save a lot of wear and tear on my fingertips.

I'm not going to learn this time, though. I've just this minute finished the beading on leather part; I glued on the backing this afternoon, let it sit long enough to dry, and worked the edging this evening. It's sitting on my table, ready for me to start the fringe. Yesterday I found some beautiful strands of amber chips, in colors ranging from pure yellow to the darkest red-brown. I'll use them, and some turquoise chips, and pearls to make a long, lush fringe.

This is so not going to be a subtle necklace.

Bead Embroidery, day 2

This is just too much fun!

Yesterday, I glued the cabochons to the suede, and waited very impatiently for them to dry. That took longer than I'd have liked, and all I was able to do was circle the cabochons; the big cherry wood one in the center, and the four small turquoise circles underneath it. And yes, I most certainly did dream about it last night. (I also had a dream involving pirates, but that's really not relevant, so forget that I mentioned it.)

Today I hit the ground stitching. No waiting around for glue to dry; just me, my needle, plenty of thread, and beads spilling our of their boxes on every available surface. I always seem to pull out a lot more beads than I ever use. I like abundance! I started with the little turquoise cabs; I wanted to make them stand out a bit more, so I added two rows of beading around their bottoms, and bugle beads and pearls to give them some length.

By now, I've decided that it would be a real shame to cover up all this gorgeous suede with beads (the suede came from a stall at the Notting Hill market when we lived in London, and is much finer and softer than anything I've found here) so I took a deep breath and drew a circle about a half inch from the focal. A couple of rows of peyote later, a good bit of netting . . . and now it's time to step back and think about where to go next.