Yes, practice does indeed improve one's work—and so sometimes does better tools—in this case, this recent subseries of pink florals on mint green check (yes, that's the brand name, and yes, the Jan Burrows puts a check mark in his logo): I finally managed to get and purchase some paper so as to have somewhat less textured backgrounds than the fabric provided with the light cube. Not only is it less distracting, the camera focuses better with it.

Crisp floral series, coral cane subseries

So far I've made one bead with a really spectacular coral petal, and I've been attempting to replicate that cane ever since (with time-outs for silver pink or opal yellow cored canes. It has to have that tongue pink in it, I know it. And EDP stringer, with gold ruby casing...anyway, in pursuit of this chimera, I've been making a lot of pretty pink flowers, so it's not like I'm suffering (too badly).

Same setup, but taken from a slightly different angle of view. The distortions my lens makes at macro distances are clearly visible in the closest bead, not that it doesn't actually have that wing sort of shooting out of the front corner—but not that bad!

Beads, oct08; photos, file 30oct08.

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.