Bragging!

Earrings in sterling silver and enamel

Is it ok to brag about your own work really? To blow your own trumpet and say how great your work is? Well, what I am really saying is that I made these earrings and I really like them, I don't think I could make them any better.

Actually I think it is a very useful skill to be able to critique your own work. So here goes... I love these earrings for their slightly unusual shape - not complex but not exactly straightforward either. I love the pattern - a classic Japanese chrysanthemum pattern, and the scale of the pattern is exactly right for the size of earring. I especially love this green enamel - Thompson's unleaded Grass Green, which by the way is the easiest, most forgiving colour to work with on sterling. I also think that the plain silver, slightly textured domes work well as a counterpoint to the coloured enamel.

So, I am not really bragging just sighing with relief that a piece of jewellery went right for a change. Believe me I have a box of rejects waiting to be de-enamelled and re-fashioned or simply thown in with the scrap. After all if you cannot critique your own work how will you ever realise what went wrong with it?

Brain Workout

I have been fascinated by the Japanese aesthetic sense and their arts and culture for a long time, I plan to go there when I have saved up the funds. So when a series of classes in learning Japanese language was offered locally I immediately signed up. What a brain workout! I love it and I am super keen to keep going now the original series of six classes is done. However it really takes a lot of work to start learning a whole new language from scratch, not mention a new alphabet or should I say syllabary. Well three new ones in fact, since Japanese uses three different types of script - Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji - which they seem to mix up at random in sentences. I have pretty much memorized all the Hiragana syllables - I love practising them in my skinny black drawing pen. Now I am starting on the Katakana syllables, I'm leaving Kanji for last as it is the most daunting!

I don't have anyone to practice my (very limited) conversation with, so to hell with it I am just speaking it all out loud to myself, to my husband's amusement! He has at least learned two words - the word for cake (keeki) and the word for cupcake (cupkeeki) - we both laugh at that one.

Meanwhile I have bought some new enamel colours - Japanese ones of course - gorgous pinks and pale blues, deep purple and dark red. I haven't completed any pieces in the new colours yet so here is one I finished a couple of weeks ago.