One more post for the day and that is a painting also completed this week. I have painted many bird paintings and decided to paint a new series of them this year. This is the first one, titled "Little Bird".

I have been working on my beaded bead pieces this week as well as a couple of new paintings. This is why winter is so good here in New England, you're really stuck inside and I enjoy the studio time. Here are a few images of the new beaded necklaces. They are very labor intensive but a enjoyable challenge to make.

This is a painting of Halibut Point I just completed this afternoon. We went for a fabulous walk out there this morning with our dog and it was really spectacular. I took some more photographs of these beautiful winter scenes so I can work on a few more in my nice warm studio. I typically enjoy painting in the greens of spring and summer, but I have decided to challenge the range to snow and ice and cold. Very different, but quite a good exercise. This week I'll be painting a scene toward the ocean from our second floor and another Halibut Point scene will be in the works. This painting is 8" X 10", oil on board. As I go along I will be offering both paintings and jewelry to purchase if anyone is loving something they see. A bit of a learning curve I need to figure out the how to part.

Last week a wonderful friend of mine told me over lunch that she has a special connection to Madame Pompadour, the infamous mistress of King Louis XV of France. I was fascinated and decided to do a little research on the internet to read about her life and see what she looked like. I discovered that the artist, Francois Boucher did many paintings of her and after finding a close up of one that I especially liked I decided to attempt a copy of it. It's an amazing experience to try painting as another did, especially from another era. I find it to be a great learning experience and a bit like time travel too. Here she is, click on the painting to see a larger view. Next I'll be working on some paintings of our local winter landscapes.

These are two photos of a pair of earrings and three rings I've recently completed. They are all made in argentium sterling silver.
Argentium is a new silver that is very resistant to tarnishing and has qualities that make it easier to work with. I've added 14kt gold bezels on some of the stones because I like the mixture of metals. Gold is so expensive right now that many jewelry artists are working in silver and adding details in gold to help keep their work affordable. Double click on an image to see it enlarged for better viewing.

It's the start of a new year, a new decade and that's exciting to me because it is a time full of possibilities. So today after two days of cleaning my messy studio I got to work on this necklace which was an idea that had been brewing during my cleanup process. It came from a necklace I had made a couple of years ago and never explored further until I discovered it yesterday in a box of stored jewelry. This one is way better than the first attempt and it shows me why it's a good to save old ideas, you never know what will inspire you.