Monday, August 26, 2013

July/August Projects

Besides going to Summer movies, reading books and collecting seeds from my "mutant" marigolds, I'm doing the occasional jewelry project. 

These two bracelets are made with copper wire in silver and bright copper finishes. The beads used are pyrite, hematite, goldstone, copper and glass.


This is a Mixed Media necklace or sun catcher made with assorted glass and handmade beads and a replica skeleton key pendant also embellished with beads and wire.


This is another heavier bracelet made with copper wire, pyrite, copper, and black stone beads.
 
This bracelet started out as a chain making experiment. I used the same chain making shape you see in the simple chain below but added small beads to each link before I closed the loop. All the beads are glass and the wire is silver finished copper.

A simple handmade chain link bracelet. Charms could easily be added to these links to make a more elaborate bracelet.


 
This was just a quick little "I'm bored" project using up some odd colored marble beads.

That's all the jewelry I've made so far this summer.  I have ideas and plans for other wire and bead projects, not just bracelets. They are all written down, some of them sketched, and I'm sure to get to many of them eventually.

I've barely done any drawing this year so I took a break from whatever else I was doing and sketched a little imaginary butterfly. I love drawing butterflies and I've casually studied the variety of the wing patterns and markings in my Butterfly encyclopedias. The wing shape and marking pattern in the drawing below are from a real species but the color is made up. I only need to sketch half a butterfly because then I go to Photoshop and play with that to create the digital pictures you see below.





That's all the crafts I've done this Summer. I feel like Fall is already here but most of my flowers are still blooming. Maybe next time I write the story of my "mutant" marigolds.