Sherry Bellamy Class

I am grateful for all of the time that I have gotten to spend in class with Sherry Bellamy. Her no-nonsense approach to beadmaking and the innovative techniques that she has to share always leave me feeling inspired and I was lucky enough to get to take my second class with her the weekend before last.

My class beads are never as nice as I'd like them to be because I rush through them and don't really think my colour selections through as carefully as I ought to, however here are the focals I made in Sherry's class. I'm wincing at all the bubbles, in addition to all of my clumsy class-time surface decoration. This particular batch of Effetre Clear that we were using in the class is not very nice, but certainly good enough to practice with. I'll use up the rest of mine coring beads and find something else to encase with.

    

These beads were a tremendous amount of fun, measure approximately 1.75" in diameter and are about 1" thick. Ouch. I thought that I would go into the studio last weekend and make more lentils, but I think there are too many lentil things busy percolating in the back of my head. In spite of how excited I am after the class and how many ideas are spinning around, I don't feel like making encased lentils at all. But can I stop thinking about them? No, which probably means that something needs to ripen in there before more lentils will come out.

This happened to me in 2010 after I took a class with Melanie Moertel, too. I made two penguin beads in her class and became obsessed with the idea of painting with stringer, but had no idea what I wanted to paint. It took months for my belaboured brain to give birth to my mushroom design after that class. I wonder how long this pregnancy will take?

I like to look back at the progress I've made each time I re-attempt the same techniques. In case you are interested, here are pictures of my class beads from my last class with Sherry, which was in October 2009.