finished jewellery pieces

29 Jul 2017

Summer wildlife and curly hearts

Everyone likes birds. What wild creature is more accessible to our eyes and ears, as close to us and everyone in the world, as universal as a bird?  
David Attenborough

We managed to get a lovely two week break in the English lake District in June and I’ve been spending the time since in catching up the backlog of orders and trying to get some of my pieces remade to replenish shop stock.

Consequently, I haven’t yet had time to work through my photographs from that fortnight, although I’m looking forward to doing so.  If truth be told, I haven’t worked on the last batch from September yet either, so may well publish a gallery featuring images from both, when I do get to it.  For the first few days we were away, we were in the middle of the really hot spell mid-June and our decisions of where to go and what to do were determined by finding shade and a bit of a breeze.

The local heron's favourite roost after breakfast to do some preening and let his meal settle.
The local heron’s favourite roost after breakfast to do some preening and let his meal settle.

One of the perils of staying in a static caravan, which is something we truly love for a variety of reasons, is that being a tin can with modest insulation, they much reflect the outside temperature and it can change much more rapidly than it does in a brick or stone house.  And whilst in the hot sun most of the day, it ends up like being inside a roasting tin, so we did spend as much time out and about as practical over those few very hot days.  But once the garden was in the shade of the caravan itself in an evening, the nearby river and trees made it absolutely delightful.

The first photographs I have worked on are some wildlife images, although it’s also true to say that they’re not stunning quality either.  We had several lovely evening visits by wildlife – from an unusual group of 5 red deer hinds, who only appeared at dusk on two evenings when it was absolutely torrential rain, a green woodpecker who roosted in a nearby dead tree – which is an absolute magnet for birds of all types and is the focus of much of our bird watching.

The Great Spotted Woodpecker youngster waited to be fed. He was actually perfectly capable of feeding himself, which he happily did when no one was watching.
The Great Spotted Woodpecker youngster waited to be fed. He was actually perfectly capable of feeding himself, which he happily did when no one was watching.

We were also visited regularly by a family of Great Spotted Woodpeckers.  Mum was very timid, but when Dad was on duty, he was more tolerant of my taking photos and junior didn’t seem to even notice us.

The red deer, shown in the gallery below was taken on a digicam which doesn’t have the image quality of my DSLR, but does have more than twice the focal length – which was necessary on this occasion.  It was actually significantly darker to the eye than it looks in the photo, which was taken just before 10pm on a truly miserable day and the shutter speed was only 1/8 second, through a window, although I did use a tripod and the self-timer to minimise camera movement.

The green woodpecker also came well after 9pm as that was obviously her bed time.  She would land on the dead tree, considerately calling loudly as she arrived, to alert us and then she’d spend at least 15 minutes very still on the trunk, just leaning back and looking around.  Once she was happy with the situation, she’d rapidly scurry around the trunk and pop into her bed chamber.  Some nights she wasn’t happy and she’d fly off, occasionally to return later, some nights preferring another roost.

One evening she took to her bed and I was washing up at a window immediately in-line with the tree and she started making a real din, screeching and calling from within her roost and on looking up I saw a tawny owl land on a side branch of the tree, looking directly at me.  The green woodpecker obviously knew he was there and vocalised her objection, at which the owl took off and she left her roost and we never saw her again after that – she must have decided that it was no longer the des res she had thought.

The only way I could capture any of her activity, due to the late hour and distance from me, was to use my superzoom digicam on video mode, which for some reason gave much better results than still shots, so the photos below of her are still frames from videos I shot.  If I can fathom out the best way to post some video here (the files are HD and rather large) I’ll add those too, as her rapid disappearance into her hole is well worth seeing.

Lake District Gallery:

I’ll add to this gallery as I work on suitable images – so for now, this is just a start with a few wildlife photographs.  More to follow.

Recent Work Gallery:

I’ve needed to replenish stock of some of my curly heart pieces and whilst on a roll with them, I’ve added a couple of new variants too, with a shiny bronze pair of earrings, a garnet wrapped pendant and a smaller version of my beaded pendant.  Truth be told, that was an error as I intended making my usual size of pendant and looked at the wrong line of sizes in my design book, so it may well be a one of a kind pendant.

23 May 2017

Reworking old designs and new materials

A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.
Gertrude Jekyll

Apologies for my lack of posts, but I haven’t really had much to say.  My work recently hasn’t really been that post-worthy and I’ve not had time or opportunity to take many photos.

But today was the first that felt like proper summer (we always have a nice spell in May, followed by a sudden drop in temperature in June and you wonder where it went) and I was able to work outside for some of the time and with the door open when inside.  I always enjoy those work days the most – the open door adds more light and it’s always going to be a good thing to hear birds singing whilst you work.  If you don’t mind passing traffic in between and the loudest birds being a very noisy brood of jackdaws nesting nearby, who are clearly perpetually hungry and don’t mind who knows it.

Whilst pottering outside I checked on some of my summer panting from last weekend and it always amazes me just how quickly new plants grow at this time of year, some are already visibly bigger within a week and it’s nice to see some colour.

A double flowered Marguerite daisy with florets in a range of pinks and whites. Aren't they gorgeous.
A double flowered Marguerite daisy with florets in a range of pinks and whites. Aren’t they gorgeous.

A new flowering plant to me this summer is a double flowering Marguerite daisy – I got two, a bright pink one and a white one.  Daisies do already have tiny florets at their centre, but these are significantly larger than I’ve seen before and are more than one colour too.

I’m delighted with them and hope that the slugs and snails will decide that they don’t taste very nice.  I’m always a tad reluctant to introduce anything new, as sometimes they don’t last more than a day or two, if they find them especially yummy.  I do always have a range of daisy-like flowers as they are very much a favourite and good at attracting hover flies, which I also love to see in the garden.

Recent work:

My work recently has been more about re-working designs and making things to order.  I’ve not had as much time to work on brand new ideas as I’d like ideally.  I do however have a pile of half finished pieces and new ones awaiting the attention of my camera, so I hope more new things will appear shortly.

I’ve enjoyed working in polymer clay recently – it has felt like an age since I gave it some time.  Two new pieces are shown in the gallery below.  The copper raindrops necklace was one of my earliest designs and I recently updated the design a little, in that I went larger and heavier with it, so make it a bit more substantial.  I do find it disproportionately time-consuming to make for some reason (and this leads to the dilemma of pricing that’s both fair to the customer and myself), so I’m also looking at a more simplified version too.

The one brand new material and technique that I have tried is a faux laser cut wood for earrings and pendants.  I used the Silhouette cutter to cut several layers of each design in a faux wood paper that I already had and I laminated them together carefully, by which time they become quite robust and rigid and I’ve then waxed the surface to improve their wearability.  They do come out very light indeed, allowing the wearer the comfort to wear larger earrings than they might usually dare.

Gallery:

 

13 Mar 2017

Spring is finally visiting

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.    Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

I am delighted to see that spring has finally come knocking at my front door.  She hasn’t however just crept along timidly, hoping not to cause too much fuss, she’s banged repeatedly on the knocker and is wearing her brightest finery.  I even saw my first lambs yesterday, so that was a treat too.

It’s one of my very favourite times of year, when the usually scrubby patch of grass [read that as more moss than grass] outside our front door is solid with spring flowers.  I’m pretty sure that they’re usually more spread out, in that the snowdrops are usually past their best by the time the crocuses emerge and they then overlap with the daffodils.  But at the moment, they’re all in full bloom.  There are even daisies amongst them already.

In fact, I thought the snowdrops had taken a battering in recent storms and were certainly finishing blooming, but a whole raft of new flowers have emerged this week, so it seems that it was only the first flush that were done.  There are some, thankfully still in bud, yet to enjoy.

What could be more cheerful after a long winter than seeing this vibrant splash of colour and a bee busy at work.
What could be more cheerful after a long winter than seeing this vibrant splash of colour and a bee busy at work.

I must start keeping a record of what blooms when, as I’m sure it must vary quite a bit year on year, depending on how severe the winter weather was.  I’m also pretty certain that winters are nowhere near as severe as they used to be – I know that we get a fraction of the snow we have had in past years.

I’m not sure this is entirely good for nature, I think some species need a good hard frost as part of their cycle and I feel this may be why for the last few years, my smaller daffs, often flower just above the soil, without ever growing proper stalks and developing the height that they should.  It feels like they haven’t been allowed to sleep and then woken properly.

We had a lovely day earlier this week, when the wind finally dropped enough to try and take some photos – delicate flowers like snowdrops quiver significantly even in the slightest breeze.  I caught it just on the right day – the warm sun caused the crocuses to open wide and they were pristine and new and I was delighted to see several industrious bumble bees.  I wasted more time than was decent to try to capture one particular character who was very keen on the snowdrops, but he was a large chap and heavily laden with yellow pollen caught in his furry back (you can see him in the banner image at the top) and every time he landed on a snowdrop, his weight caused the flower to drop violently earthwards and dump him onto the grass.  He valiantly kept trying though.  The crocus shape was more suitable for him and I did manage to catch him visiting them.

Recent work and gallery:

Pink bronze earrings, initially inspired by a couple of my favourite jewellery designers; Archibald Knox and Georg Jensen. I started with an idea and before I knew it, it had taken on my own style anyway.
Pink bronze earrings, initially inspired by a couple of my favourite jewellery designers; Archibald Knox and Georg Jensen. I started with an idea and before I knew it, it had taken on my own style anyway.

My husband was working away for a few days recently and I consequently had a really exceptional time getting lots of work done. I was really in the zone and had few interruptions, so made significant inroads into my ‘to do’ list. It was a most enjoyable and satisfying time.

So I now have a pile of finished pieces and some fired metal clay components to make into something and I’m just getting them all added to the web site and for sale.

Having sold several polymer clay pieces recently, I decided that I hadn’t played with polymer clay for a while, so a session was long overdue and I already had some ideas tucked away that I wanted to try.

I decided to start simple initially, to get my eye back in and also used some old baked pieces to try carving designs into. I’d done some rudimentary carving on metal clay and to make texture plates, but carving into polymer clay is most enjoyable. It’s just the right texture and density to carve easily and smoothly, but hard enough that it doesn’t slip away from you too fast, as some of the softer texture plate materials can do.

I do however need some better carving tools, what I’m working with is decent enough to let me try it, but not fine enough to turn tight curves, so my designs are somewhat limited.

The blue green earrings in the gallery were made with a mix of clays to give rise to a semi-translucent clay with fibrous inclusions. I thought they had the look of carved jade and having looked at carved jade netsuke I saw that a lot were teamed with red beads, so I thought that this would be a nice way to finish these earrings, so have paired them with Brecciated jasper beads; a combination I’m certainly going to use again.

10 Jan 2017

Leaves and hedgehogs; given as gifts

Firstly, may I take this opportunity to wish my readers a Happy New Year and I hope that 2017 will be a good year for us all.

For obvious reasons, I couldn’t show all of the pieces I’d been working on in December, as many were intended to be given as gifts, but I can now share them with you.  Some have yet to be given, due to family illness over the festive period, but I think the secret will be safe enough here for now.

Having found some embed-able and fire-able brooch pin backs for metal clay, I got in the mood to make various brooch pins for family and friends, especially for those that are less likely to wear conventional jewellery.  Most people can find a spot on a bag or jacket for a pin, even if they don’t wear earrings etc.

Hedgehog pin in dry metal clay before firing.
Hedgehog pin in dry metal clay before firing.

My [adult] son has a pet African pygmy hedgehog called Mr Bruce Quillis, so the hedgehog pin was for him.  I spent an inordinate amount of time – and was greatly amused by it – trying to capture the individual look of his gorgeous spiky little chum and feel that I got pretty close to his proportions and cheeky personality.

I started by tracing a side-on pose of a African pygmy hedgehog, to get the basic shape, then tweaked the sketch to embrace his specific features.  Bruce has especially long and robust forehead quills, which he can lower rapidly, putting your fingers in mortal danger, at the approach of anything he considers dangerous or unknown – even if you’re handing him his favourite treat of a dried mealworm.  He lowers them as a precaution, then raises them again when he realises your intent.  So they certainly needed to be featured.  He also has larger than average ears, which sit lower than other hedgie’s and are rather square in shape.  His snout is a little longer (the African Pygmy Hedgehogs have longer snouts than domestic wild hedgies anyway) than others in his breed and he has incredibly bright and attentive eyes, which stand rather proud.

Using a fine v-shaped engraving tool to create a texture mat worked really well to emulate the fine, sharp quills.
Using a fine v-shaped engraving tool to create a texture mat worked really well to emulate the fine, sharp quills.

I then needed to contemplate how to actually reproduce him in metal clay.  I needed to make him look like a hedgehog, but without his metal quills being as dangerous as the real thing. The finished pin needed to be wearable on a garment without presenting snag hazards or sharp points.  So I transferred the sketch (mirroring it of course) and used a fine engraving tool and engraved his quills into a rubber carving mat, along with some other positional details.  I used this to impress a slab of metal clay, which once dried, I further engraved for fur and details and appliqued his facial features to give it some dimension.  Filing the edges to an irregular shape around the quills gave rise to a safe, wearable impression of his quills.  He has rather delicate legs and tiny toes, so these needed to be simplified so that they weren’t too fragile.  I don’t mind telling you that I held my breath as I took him out of the kiln, hoping that once shrunk during firing, it still looked like Bruce.  I also don’t mind admitting to the kiln-side happy dance I did when he peeked out of the carbon at me and I recognised that gorgeous cheeky face!

The round pin in the gallery below features various appliqued details on a plain round base, including tiny sculpted teardrop shaped wells that were filled with flame coloured UV resins for a splash of colour. The round pin and hedgehog were in Aussie Metal Clay Antarctic Moonlight and the various leaf pins are in Prometheus Sunny Bronze.

Recent Work Gallery: