Motifs

I am really loving stylized nature motifs. I have never been one for realism (probably because I'm not very good at it! And also because I think sometimes the feeling and spirit of a thing is lost in the effort to reproduce it in a realistic manner). Some artistic traditions excel at this sort of stripping down of the object to its most meaningful parts. I recently have become enamored with Persian, Turkish, Islamic designs/motifs. Thanks to the glory of the interwebs and used books and I am now well supplied with research material:

Now I just have to figure out how to incorporate new ideas into my jewelry.