26.10.09 A Pink Golden Oak leaf earring with a Joann Baumann's Ndbele earring

Aposteriori, it's not a good combination, they don't fit together, you are more then welcome to tell me what do you think can fit to each one. I am a bit lazy to make another oak leaf earring, it took few hrs and I am not used to freeform peyote, so it was a bit scaring :-) but I may arrive to such a conclusion one day, that this would be the best choice?! Unless I decide to tranform into a brooch and than no more dilemmas ;-)

The instructions for the Golden Oak designed by Jean Campbell can be found in the last Beadwork Magazine, August/September 2009, pp 38-41. I used 11/0 seed beads instead of 15/0 and even then I had to use a 15 needle in some places.

The second earring is inspired based on the picture of one of Joann Baumann's 2002 Ndbele earrings, that appears in my Beadwork bible, "The art of Beadwork" by Valerie Hector, p.102.

25.10.09 Interconnected loops of the "Ring Around the Rosie", designed by Jill Wiseman

About a year ago, I saw somewhere on the net this gorgeous Jill Wiseman's earrings that I find so charming in their simplicity.
I saved the image in my "interesting folder" to bead one day...
It came up that I found myself in this folder again today and I could see those striking earrings there. I decided to try them out.
I asked Omer what color does he advise me to make them so that it can suit one of my wardrobe clothes. He suggested Lilac purple and I was convinced I should try something else than turquoise, though this turquoise was just hypnotizing...
Apparently my fingers or brain didn't resist the temptation and I ended up with almost the same earrings. A bit disappointing from my side...
I sew the loops one to another so that each earring will stand flat. This way, it looks to me nicer.

The earrings took me maximum 3 hrs in total and can be considered as a fun and relatively quick project [and quick=great! ;-)]

Thank you Wisewoman :-)

This Wax Vine or Hoya cornosa (בת שבע) has nothing to do with the earrings, but I am so excited that it flowers for the first time with us, that I really wanted to share it. I still want to have one day the Hoya with the round inflorescence, like a ball, nevertheless, it's great to have this Hoya flowering, because it's been years with nothing... If you like this plant, you may enjoy the following link and especially this one.

15-17.10.09 Merchav Yotzer מרחב יוצר 2009

Omer and I spent a wonderful weekend in Beit Oren, at the Merchav Yotzer 2009 (= Creative open space) workshops. On Thursday afternoon I attended Yaara Man workshop, drawing and painting Mandala on a ceramic square, with ceramic paint, while Omer went chasing for his Wasp and Coleoptera :-)
I enjoyed it very much, finding the middle of the axes, the center, drawing the lines with a ruler and a pair of compasses, first with pencil and then erasing all the extra lines. I also used some carob and oak leaves to help me design the pattern. When the ceramic square was baked in the special oven, we got completely different colours (much darker), so you can see below the "before" and after".

On Friday, we took both an environmental sculpture workshop with the talented artist Amir Baumfeld. We could choose if to work on wood, stone or making ceramic mosaics.
Getting inspiration from nature, some walking around, watching, finding objects of inspiration we then came back to write down our ideas, sketch it and sculpt it from clay.
Amir then instructed each one of us how to work on the medium we chose.

I chose to make a Praying Mantis on the Wood, together with two other girls that chose as subject a wild woman and an acorn with oak leaves. We worked on a piece of cypress, with sculpting tools and wood hammers to create a totem that remained unfinished the day after because of lack of time. Definition and engraving is a constant process while working on wood. For me the work was a bit aggressive and requires some force. At first, I didn't enjoy working the wood, but towards the end of the workshop, the day after, I could find more interest in it, though I don't plan to have it as a new hobby :-)
Why did I chose a Praying Mantis? The evening before, I went to bring some water from the car in the camping area and while walking back, there was something walking on my feet, that I discovered to be a big green praying Mantis. By the way, we were surrounded by jackals and wild pigs that we could hear very well and some of us even see.
On the same evening, Omer saw a big spider on its web and those two animals became our inspiration for our work.

So this is Omer's spider

and this is the engraving in stone that he chose to create:

then filled with cement and rests of ceramics from Imi Feller's work.

I really like the spider engraving in the stone and I can tell you it is a tough work!

On Friday afternoon, we saw a very interesting demonstration of a Raku burning process with Anat Evyatar.
In the evening we had a common meal together, accompanied with songs and interesting lectures. One was about how to increase and find your creativity with Ilan Niv. The second one was given by Amir Baumfeld about his creations and impressive Totems and wood furnitures, based on wood connectors only.

On Saturday afternoon was the crowning glory workshop for me. Yonit Crystal instructed us to make a small basket. Varda and her husband joined us in the afternoon and both attended the workshop with me. We had great fun and I realized a small dream I had quiet a while, weaving this basket.

I asked the permission to finish my basket at home, though many people found the basket as it as beautiful. I still haven't decided what to do about it, but now I am sure I want to keep learning about basket weaving which was tremendously fun to me. By the way, the baskets we wove are done with the base of palm fronds and reeds.

We ended this creative and interesting weekend in nature with a big smile and good feelings, interesting new people we met, new initial skills and new ideas for the future...

26.9.09 Deco Lotus Earrings designed by Gwen Fisher

The instructions for these beautiful earrings can be found in the current Beadwork issue, Volume 12, number 6, October/November 2009, pp.52-53.
When colours have been already chosen, an earring took about 30 mn only!
This was a fun and fairly quick project with a very nice result, to my opinion.
Thank you Gwen for sharing this beautiful design with the Beadwork magazine readers'!

25.9.09 RAW Waves of Symmmetry designed by Cindy Caraway

Instructions can be found in Bead & Button Magazine, Issue 93, October 2009, pp. 42-44.
It took about 6 hrs to accomplish.

Check Cindy's original bracelet!

10-11.9.09 L'atelier de la Quintefeuille, un p'tit message a Véronique Erramuzpe et La Bouclaine

I gathered in this post a small summary on the artists and Art stuff we crossed during our honey moon trip to Spain and the French Pay-Basque during this September.

Let's start with Monique-Marie Levent which is an incredibly talented and creative artist located in Bayonne that I discovered in my visit this time. Monique-Marie has a very interesting story, being a gallery curator years ago in Paris till she decided to create by herself and have her own studio to sell her art creations.
She told me she learnt a lot from the work with autodidact French artists and now she creates in many different mediums. As part of her multidisciplinarity, she paints, knits, crochet, beads, embroiders, sculpts with various materials: wire, plastic, ceramic, polymer clay and so on. I had a very special visit in her studio and felt absolutely overwhelmed. I strongly recommend you to visit her and her shop, if you stop by in Bayonne:

L' atelier de la Quintefeuille - Monique-Marie Levent
Tel: +33 5 59591489, 9 Rue Port de Castets, 64100 Bayonne, France

My last and 1st meeting with Véronique Erramuzpe was about 3 years ago (12th of July 2006), during the Medieval fair in Bayonne. Seeing her genius furnitures gave me a strong push to learn to make cardboard furnitures. That was about the beginning of my "Art/Craft" life, after a long period of "Scientific" life :-)
Unfortunately, I missed Veronique, she was resting in the "siesta" hours, so I've just left her a small message. Omer took a picture of me at that time and it became our blessing to all my friends and family for the new Hebrew year to come (תש"ע).

Véronique Erramuzpe
Tel: +33 5 59 46 18 79, 13 Rue Luc, 64100 Bayonne, France

Now:
3 years ago at the same place:So Happy new year to you too and Shana Tova!

Finally, we spent a wonderful afternoon looking for the Angora goat farm in Barcus, in the middle of no-where. That was fantastic! We met a charming couple that were so so kind to show us the way till we could see the sign to "Barcus 9km".They drove in front of us for about 10-15 mn to show us the way on the beautiful narrow villages' roads and this scene just reminds me Naomi Shemer's famous song:

"אנשים טובים באמצע הדרך, אנשים טובים מאוד..."
Good people in the middle of the way, very good people...

if you want to listen, just listen - don't watch this (the song is the original one, the performance - totally unclear).

We saw butterflies on the way and beautiful landscapes, till we finally found this great farm in which we went to with my parents and sisters 17 years ago on the 30th of July 1992 (I know that thanks to my diary as a kid), as I said before, in the middle of nowhere. Mom bought then a beautiful sweater that she is still wearing and Mazal bought some skeins. Few months ago - I was looking at this sweater that mom has and was wondering. I noticed some holes in the sleeves edges and I told myself "I wish I knew how to correct these holes one day...and I wish I knew knitting" I am not there yet, but I feel I am on the way and that's a great feeling too.

Marie Perraud welcomed us very nicely from the back yard. She showed us the cute goats, imported from Quebec and then opened for us the little shop. I was almost tempted to buy a beautiful deep purple scarf, but I finally preferred to buy some skeins. They are so soft! She also has an online shop, in case you might be interested.

La Bouclaine
Marie PERRAUD - Maison. Agas - Barcus - France Tél. : 05 59 28 92 06
Chèvres Angora à BARCUS au PAYS BASQUE, dans les PYRENEES ATLANTIQUES.

Leaving Barcus, a nice old man was playing to his dog with two flutes at the same time. Curious, we stopped to try to catch a picture, but instead we got a warm invitation from a kind Basque man to have a refreshment on our way back to Spain and the Pyrenees.
That's it for today. I hope you can enjoy Omer's picture as much as I can when I see them and recall the places we have been at and the kind people we met.

2.9.09 Amigurumi Tea Cup Pincushion

Amigurumi Tea Cup Pincushion Lion Brand free pattern.
I used size 2mm Hook and cotton thread (50 gr/125 m).