My name is Anna Perelman, I was born in Estonia, which is in the far north: wastelands overgrown with moss, huge firs, white and vast sand dunes at the water and cold Baltic Sea. Wind and emptiness! There is beauty of emptiness there when the sky is seen in full, whimsical trees dance in the wind, local people wear bright and colorful costumes and there are festivals of songs, and much more.
I lived with my mother, the most wonderful and good woman in the world, who, alas, could do a little with her hands. Yes, I remember, she knew how to sew on buttons. Once she started to knit a scarf, and had been knitting for a long time, and fall was over, and winter and spring, and she was still knitting! I think that is such a fighting spirit: if you began to do something - finish it and no matter what the cost is!
I usually spend summer with my grandmother, and it was there my passion for crafts started. My grandmother could do lots of them! Well, just everything! Particularly she liked to embroider, and several paintings worked by the finest embroidery floss still hang in our house. Every time I see them, I marvel at the talent and the patience of a woman who could find time for the family, for work and for crafts.
There is no doubt that I took some of it after my grandmother. I've embroidered since my six or seven - in short, from the first grade in the school. I cannot say anything, it turned out not bad, but this technique didn't cause much interest. I picked up a needle and thread from time to time just to make embroidery on pants or on a dress, or somewhere else.
I learned about beadwork not so long ago, about 3 years and some weeks ago as it is written on the first beaders' website where I registered. Well, let's say, 4 years ago, it doesn't matter. It all started quite ordinary. I had "my own" hairdresser who painted my hair. She was a truly professional master working at home and excellently doing her job.
Besides, in her free time she was weaving small things of beads like chains or earrings that were inexpensive, and sold them. I wasn't interested in beadwork, but guided by my constant desire to help anybody, I volunteered to find non-standard prototypes for her. She tried to protest weakly saying that she herself knows all, I answered proudly that if it got down to business, then be sure to finish (that's from my mom)!
I came home, turned on my computer typed in "beaded jewelry" to search over the Internet, opened the website of Guzel Bakeeva and realized that I was lost! I had never seen and didn't even guess that such things can be created from beads! Then I found the works of Sherry Serafini - the world-famous master, and then jewelry by Tanya Konstantinova and Olesya Bryutova, beautiful Russian beaders who became my friends.
There are many artists whose works truly inspired and are inspiring! I'm grateful to Irina Slobodyanik and Xenia Burzalova for their excellent detailed tutorials without which it is difficult to learn some techniques. Of course, I can try and name here all the artists who I admire, but the article will appear really very long!
Then, later, I took classes from Alla Vizir and Irina Rudneva. Alla makes frivolite with beads and doesn't accept beginners, therefore I had to learn the basics of the art of this embroidery - again with the help of the Internet, and lie a little, that I already had the experience of tatting. It was so interesting to learn, besides, frivolite is very beautiful!
No matter how interesting bead embroidery is, bead weaving has been and still is my favorite! It was love at first sight and I'm afraid that is for my whole life - I cannot quietly watch on beads lying somewhere. Ah, the beads! It "eats" a bunch of money and time and nerves! But how beautiful it is! Totally fabulous colors and shapes - like a piece of old luxury, which has survived in our time!
It's like a subtle scent of good perfume - you inhale and feel the wave of admiration rises within you. I feel the same effect when I look, for example, at the weightless thread of antique Venetian beads. And, of course, beads suggest ideas originating around us: flowers, leaves, insects, historic and fantastic characters and everything that imagination allows!
Here, for example, a hummingbird. For me, the impetus for the creation of a hummingbird in beads was... mold. Yes, the most common mold that suddenly "settled" in my house. As a woman who is extremely hostile to all "uninvited", I've read a pile of articles and found that the best way to deal with the mold is the essential oil of Monarda - ordinary ornamental plants.
Monarda was immediately planted in the garden and unpretentious flower with a pleasant smell attracted some unreal amount of hummingbirds and butterflies! Hummingbirds were everywhere, from morning till night! I had no choice. My first hummingbird was made of beads 15/0 - it came good, but seemed to me too big (photo 1). The next option was from antique beads 20/0. Number of colors of these beads, unfortunately, was limited, and I had to work with what I had - blue and light blue beads.
The infinite modifications of bodies, tails (photo 2) and the wings, until finally... That's it! It happened. There are two hummingbirds, blue and light blue (photo 3 and 4). Now flowers for them... I considered simply an infinite number of different variants (photo 5, 6, 7). To be honest, after almost every job I have a couple of almost completed necklaces.
After the trying to all possible and available in my home artificial flowers an orchid seemed to me most suitable (photo 8, 9, 10, 11). And, of course, occasionally I had to invite to my house my friends suspecting nothing, try on them finished birds with flowers and then treat them to coffee and liqueur (photo 12)! In general, it was a long, laborious process and fun (photo 13 and 14).
Jewelry by Rene Lalique gave me the idea for my last work. Here is the inexhaustible source of inspiration - birds, leaves, flowers, butterflies, and fairies! Bright accents, captivating lines, in general, great! Bravo to the artist! In this particular case, I was just charmed by carved feathers on the brooch with peacock - bright and unusual (photo 1).
Thus, we begin! First, let's draw a sketch. I'm not a painter, so that is, probably, one of the most difficult moments for me (photo 2). Now feather. It turned out almost immediately, from the third or fourth attempt (photo 3). Cabochons are very small, but I have worked with such when I made a dragonfly, they are 6 by 8 mm, opals, and a little bigger ones - moonstones.
I should note that I'm the extremely unorganized person - to my great regret. I create patterns during my work, but I'm pretty lazy to draw them and sketches, so sometimes I need to remember how an element was woven dissolving it. The well-known trial and error method! But I'm not lazy to make one extra element "for memory", so that to restore the pattern is quite possible, though time-consuming. As I said, I'm not afraid of work!
I'll write everything from now on! Honestly! So, now the feathers and wings (photo 4 and 5), the tail (photo 6) - we are close to completion (photo 7). Let's try one feather (photo 8), several (photo 9), assembly (photo 10). The last step is adjustment (photo 11) - and the bird is ready (photo 12)!
One of my favorite elements is a butterfly. The piece of jewelry turned out quite unusual and not as intended (photo 1). I had a pattern and a sketch, but butterflies "didn't want" a given version, all my attempts to persuade them to "obey" suffered a complete failure, and so there was a very unusual jewelry in the end.
My future plans? A lot of them! This spring I watched the birth of a dragonfly! It looked like as it was carved from marble, first white-gray, motionless and lifeless (photo 2). And suddenly - a moment - and it sparkles in the sun, there is a rainbow of colors, the birth of life! Another moment - and it flew away! I have not decided yet what my dragonfly will be made of; I have time to think about what moment made the strongest impression on me.
I've also got two beautiful crows living in my garden for a year; they are great lovers of butter cookies. For nearly a year, I've been buying these cookies for them, and if I forget to put a treat, they begin to walk back and forward on the garden table, angrily cawing. Two adorable capricious gourmets!
They prefer only one type of cookie - they love Russian-made "creamy cow" butter cookies! Cookies should be of high quality! The specific idea of how to feature my friends has not come yet, not shaped, but I want to do a piece of jewelry very much, so I'm thinking over different options, collect photos, read (photo 3).
My favorite weaving technique is peyote stitch. In any case, it is the basis of all my jewelry. I also use herringbone and brick stitch, nowhere without them. Each piece requires some highlights and sometimes they come to my mind literally "on the go" and I apply the trial and error method, all together it may take a month. Endless rework and changing the pattern until the desired effect is achieved. But what joy you experience when work is finished and you really like it!
In conclusion. Friends, be careful! Beading is a very catching thing!
My gallery on MyLovelyBeads.com
About author:
| Anna Perelman, Saratoga, California, USA | |
| Email: | annaperelman@yahoo.com |
| Facebook: | facebook.com/anna.perelman.121 |
