Baubles and Beads

This is my necklace tree. Actually, it's a mug tree but I use it for my necklaces.

To be honest with you it's not really red - it's cream. I painted it cream originally and then put in the messy background and the tree looked a bit overwhelmed, so I changed the colour to red. That was a disaster so I frantically wetted the paint and blotted it out so now it's a rather horrendous looking mixture.

I think this is a good lesson for me to know when to stop fiddling.

I put in the date at the top with my new Lamy Joy calligraphy pen. It has three sizes of nibs - 11, 1.5 and 1.9 and this is the latter. I ordered a converter with it so I could use any ink in it rather than just cartridges and I filled it with Noodler's grey which is supposed to be one of their bleed-proof inks but isn't really.

I'm thinking of experimenting with lettering a bit. I've seen a few people doing this and it can be great fun. But first I'm going to have a go at putting a background onto paper using acrylic paint and a brayer (aka a lino roller). I watched an interesting YouTube video recently which showed techniques such as winding rubber bands or bubble wrap or anything with texture around the roller. It looked fun! And messy ...