AJE March Hare Challenge Reveal.

Back at the end of February the AJE team announced that we were changing our usual monthly Component of the Month event up a bit by introducing 4 seasonal themed challenges. For the first of these Jenny chose Hares as her theme representing spring and if you missed her great post about these fascinating creatures you can find it here.

Today is reveal day and it's certainly been a hare raising month for me (sorry couldn't resist)! Hares are a popular icon for jewellery design and as soon as Jenny mentioned that she wanted them as her theme I started thinking about how I could develop something original. I don't often sketch ideas for beads but in this instance it seemed the best way to get the ideas out of my head and after much scribbling I came up with this idea. I'm not good at realistic representations so I wanted to keep the form fairly simple and use the different mediums I work in to add interest.

I made my first pieces up in a rustic stoneware clay using a layering technique. I cut the hare  and moon shapes out of a sheet of clay and then laid them onto another sheet of clay to create the background and then cut out the final shape. I wasn't sure about these at first as I thought they were a bit dark but they grew on me and in the end I fell in love with the rustic feel.

So I made some more up in a white porcelain stoneware clay and used some more colourful glazes.

While I was making the ceramic pieces I started thinking about how these hares would translate to metal clay...typical of me to be always thinking ahead o myself. The eight and cost of bronze clay meant that I need to do something a bit more economical so I decided to make pendants the shape of the hare and add loops that would allow for embellishment. I a spring flower texture mat for some of these and made them in both copper and bronze, the latter with Cubic zirconium set in for the eyes. I also make some moon connectors to go with the pendants.

Then I went on to make some up in silver which I love. The foot broke off the one in the middle so I have an idea to solder him onto some copper sheet with his own moon...when I get time.

I also played around with combining metal clay with sheet silver and adding a pretty gemstone and fine silver heart drop to the bottom.

While making this piece I also managed to tattoo a hare on my trousers when I sneezed and the hot hare leaped of the solder block! Fortunately I moved fast enough to avoid getting burnt but the studio floor didn't fare quite so well!

In the last couple of weeks I've been revisiting the ceramic hares and making some tweaks to the designs. The first batch where quite large so I wanted to make some more compact versions and these little fellows silhouetted against a full moon were the result. I love the way the bloom on the cream glaze looks like the moons surface.

You'd have thought I'd have had enough of hares by now but no...I had an idea to separate out the the elements and make some sets that would give give people more to play with in their designs. I made some clay hare figures and moon faces up similar to the forms I'd used for the metal pieces and also made some tiny stars. When I showed these as a work in progress on my Facebook page someone suggested a crescent moon might look nice too...and they were right. These were great fun because I could mix the sets up to combine different glazes and give different effects. I think these are definitely my favourite so far.

I was hoping to make some jewellery for this challenge with some of the hare beads I have in my stash but sadly I just haven't had the time but I will still try and get them done in the future as I think hares are here o stay. I did just manage to finish  this very simple necklace for myself though...

Speaking of which, if you are a member of the Facebook group Ceramic Art Bead Market you will know that we have a regular giveaway and from later today and for the next week this pendant will be up for grabs. You need to be a member of the group to enter but  the group is open to anyone with an interest in ceramic beads so if you haven't already do come and join us to meet some great artists with some beautiful beads.

So I hope you enjoyed meeting my little bunnies and will visit the rest of the AJE  team and our guests to see how this theme has inspired them.

AJE Team

Jenny

Caroline

Lesley

Linda

Niky

Melissa

Rebekah

Lindsay

Guests

Aural - Woodland Bay Native

Heather - Hidden Ridge Studio

Cindy Martin-Shaw

Karen Panthaki

Jackie Ryan

Karin Grosset Grange - Ginko et Coquelicot

Pamela Traub - Klassy Joolz

Paisley Lizard Designs

Karen at Ditsy Blue

Michelle McEnroe ( 4 pieces pinned on  the AJE Pinterest page)

Have fun!
Lesley

AJE December Component of the Month - Design Reveal

Welcome to the final AJE Component of the Month design reveal of 2012. The December component was gifted by the lovely Jenny Davies- Reazor - mixed media artist and font of all knowledge for all things mythical and folkloric - if that's a word. The pieces Jenny chose were these lovely ceramic pendant featuring a classical Labyrinth motif...

I have to confess to being pretty ignorant on the subject of Labyrinths but fortunately Jenny gave us some insight in her original post which you can find here. Found in many cultures she explained how historically they were seen as a symbolic path to God and often served as a substitute to a religious pilgrimage. Labyrinths have only one clear path from the edge to the centre and out again and today they have become popular as a walking meditation that can help to inspire and help to centre oneself. Jenny felt that this was an appropriate symbol with New Year's being a time where we all feel resolved to start afresh and I couldn't agree more.

Edinburgh Labyrinth - United Kingdom

I'm not a religious person but I do find that if I am troubled or have decisions to make, walking will often help me to gain clarity. It's as if the physical process of walking somehow helps me to recognise issues and ideas and organise them so that I can see what I need to do to achieve my goal. So I decided that I would use this idea of a journey as the theme for my design.

This is the pendant I received from Jenny - a lovely weathered copper colour.

 
I'm very much into layered or tiered pendants at the moment and as I was given a set of letter punches for Christmas I thought this would be a good opportunity to try them out - this is the finished design I came up with...

I chose copper to work with the verdigris glaze and cut a little bar which I stamped with the legend 'follow your own path' because I sometimes need reminding to aim for the things I want rather than those others want for me. I hammered and oxidised the bar to give it some depth and age and then attached it to the pendant.

I found a bronze charm in my stash that featured a motif that almost looked like an old decaying labyrinth so I used a little verdigris and copper patina to pull the ensemble together and added it to the bottom of the pendant.

At this point I wanted to keep the design simple and uncluttered to capture the contemplative element of the labyrinth so I decided to hang the pendant from a simple copper chain. I made a spiral wire clasp to echo the motif and added a simple ceramic bead to give balance and that was it - job done.

I need a bit more practise at the stamping but I'm pretty pleased with my first attempt. This has opened up a new design style for me and I love it when that happens so thank you Jenny for providing me with the opportunity.

I'm off to see how my AJE team mates and our guests where inspired by Jenny's components and you can join me using the links below. Happy New Year and good fortune for 2013!

This months guests of honour:

Emma Todd

Lee Koopman

Jess Green

And participating AJE team members: 

Jen Cameron 

Kristi Bowman

Diana Ptaszynski

Kristen Stevens

Melissa Meman

Jo Tinley

Linda Landig

Sue Kennedy

Jenny Davies-Reazor, your hostess 

Enjoy!

Lesley

What's in a name...?

Do you name your jewellery or other creative designs?

Dragonheart

I do and have done since I started publishing pictures of them, but I've never consciously thought about why I do it. Certainly, before I became involved with art jewellery I'd never bought any named pieces. I think it's probably something I adopted from the the glass bead artists I buy my lampwork beads from because a lot of them name their beads. After all, it could get a bit dull to list your work as 'blue beads 32' or 'another set of green beads' and would seriously underplay these gorgeous goodies.

Mother Earth by Clare Scott

Hawaii 5 - 0 by Kaz Baildon

Then there's the process of how you go about naming pieces. The heart pendant at the top of this post was fairly easy...the glass blend used for the decoration was called Dragons Breathe and to me it had a medieval/fantasy feel so, Dragonheart seemed both obvious and appropriate.

Sometimes I've had a name for a piece before I've made it or even knew what it would look like. The name for the piece below came to me as soon as I'd made the Bronzclay focal using a section of sea urchin shell and was actually the inspiration for  the design of the piece as a whole. This is far more detailed and 'costume' oriented than my normal work and a real departure for me.

Neptune's Garden

And of course, there are times when I feel less inspired and on these occasions I usually end up giving a descriptive rather than imaginative name.

Pretty Bubbles

Earlier this week, the Guild of Jewellery Designers published an article entitled '40 Incentives to name your jewellery' by Marthe Le Van, which made interesting reading. Some of them are quite obvious...

• Titles convey that an item is one-of-a-kind
• Titles make your jewellery seem complete
• Titles can set a mood...establish a context...communicate a vision...

But, had I been asked, I don't think I would ever have come up with a list of 40 reasons even though, when you think about it, they all seem perfectly logical and sensible. The full article can be found here.

So, do you name your designs... do you think it's important... can you think of more than 40 reasons?! I love it when people leave me comments so I'd really like to hear what you think about this and how you go about naming your products.

By Nia Clements

Have a great weekend all.

Lesley