From Wednesday 9th November 2016 I will no longer be posting on this platform but you can find me at www.lesleywatt.com.
Wednesday, 9 November 2016
Sunday, 30 October 2016
Art Elements - October COM Reveal - Sugar Skulls
This months Component of the month comes to you courtesy of Jennifer Stout-Cameron who provided the Art Elements team and our guests with these super funky sugar skull beads. I love these beads and wanted to do something fun in keeping with their quirkiness but, the bright colours are not usually something I would work with so it took some thinking. Much of said thinking revolved around flowers and dangles but I didn't have quite the right colours and then an idea struck me while rummaging around in my jewellery box.
I just happened to pick up an old Macrame bracelet that's knotted in such a way as to create a flower design so I decided to try and adapt it to work with my sugar skull. It's a very old and very simple technique and as I began working the first thing that hit me was how much the bead patterns resembled the eyes on the sugar skill...don't you just love happy accidents...?
The bracelet is strung on Irish waxed linen and uses simple glass beads with size 6 Czech picasso beads to form the petals. I wasn't sure what to use for the clasp but another fortuitous find amongst my stash wad a cute lampwork shank button by Julie Fountain...the colours work well with Jen's bead and the heart motif is a classic for the day of the dead theme.
I wasn't sure at first but it's definitely growing on me and it's really comfortable to wear because the skull has a flat back so sits very nicely. All in all I'm pretty pleased.
Many thanks to Jen for giving us such great components to work with - I'm really excited to see what everyone else has made so please join me on out blog hop using the links below:
Guest Designers
Art Elements Team
Lesley
Friday, 30 September 2016
Beads Of Courage Art Charm Exchange and Charity Auction...
Welcome ti the 2016 Art Charm Exchange and Auction organised by the talented and indefatigable Jennifer Cameron in support of 'Beads of Courage' a charity providing innovative, arts-in-medicine supportive care programs for children coping with serious illness, their families and the health care providers who care for them.
'The Program is a resilience-based intervention designed to support and strengthen children and families coping with serious illness. Through the program children tell their story using colorful beads as meaningful symbols of courage that commemorate milestones they have achieved along their unique treatment path'.
The premise of the exchange is that each participant makes 11 charms based on a given theme and sends them to Jen, who then sends each of us a collection of 10 charms. The 11th charm goes up for auction for BOC (details of auction dates and times will be available later).
The theme this year is fairy tales and I decided to create some ginger bread houses form the story of Hansel and Gretel. These are made from terracotta clay decorated with underglaze - Ileft the charms unglazed to give the soft effect of icing.
"After days of wandering, they follow a beautiful white bird to a clearing in the woods, where they discover a large cottage built of gingerbread and cakes...'
And in return for my efforts I got a whole host of loveliness made from all sorts of material and inspired by many different fairy tales....
You can find out more about the inspiration behind these charms and the others in the auction by visiting the makers blogs below. All participants will have a charm up for auction so look out for updates on the date and time for the auction here and on my facebook page.
Thank you
Lesley
Lesley
Thursday, 29 September 2016
AJE Tree Theme Challenge Reveal...
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This month's AJE monthly design challenge is hosted by Caroline Dewison and is all about trees. The image above is of a historic avenue of beech trees at Kingston Lacy in Dorset and is one of my favourite places. Originally 365 trees were planted (one for each day of the year) and they cover a two mile stretch of road which is pure joy to drive at any time of year. Some of the old trees are now beginning to show signs of distress so the National Trust are planting new trees to the side of these beauties so that they failing trees can eventually be replaced
This is hugely inspiring theme and I had a whole host of ideas that I wanted to try in a number of mediums but September turned out to be a very busy month. A great month with vacations and visitors but somewhat short on creative time so my offerings are fewer that hoped. The ideas are still there for future reference though so that's good.
In the end I decided to go down the bead embroidery route and use the iconic 'green man' as my take on the tree theme. I chose one of my own face cabochons and matched it with some Czech glass leaf beads. After securing the cab with a beaded bezel and stitching on the leaves I added accents with drop beads and bugle beads to give the feeling of layers of leaves.
To give the pendant a sense of movement and depth I added some branch fringing at the bottom.
This is a long necklace and I used a double length of distressed leather to provide a contrast representative of the bark of the tree.
I have a bit of a thing about Czech glass leaves and love working with this sort of a design as there are so many variations and I'm happy how his one turned out.
I also managed to do a quick remake that was a good fit for Caroline's theme. While giving my studio a thorough clean I came across this multi-string beaded bracelet but it had no focal element. I've no idea where the original went but I have plenty of tree related components so I knew I could find something to finish it off. The gorgeous etched copper oak leaf is by Julie Nordine and has been in my stash for many years since I was partnered with Julie in a Bead Soup challenge.
I think it works really well with the beaded section and the lampwork beads by Glass Bead Art.
We had a lot of interest in this challenge so I hope you'll join us on the blog hop to see how everyone else has been inspired by our wonderful woodlands - just click on the links below to join in. Many thanks to Caroline for hosting this months challenge and to you for for stopping by.
Lesley
Lesley
AJE Team
Guests
Tuesday, 30 August 2016
AJE Art Headpins Design Challenge Reveal
So today is the reveal day for the latest AJE design challenge and this month it's all about headpins. I have a good collection of these little pretties and it seems I'm not the only one who is enamoured - just take a look at the participants list below
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| My art headpin collection |
Art headpins always work really well with earrings and that's where I decide to start to get myself warmed up. With these first designs I wanted to try and use as much of the headpin as I could in a visible way. For the orange pair on the left I used some of Jen Cameron's headpins to combine the coil with integral ear wires. The green headpins are by Sue Kennedy and again feature coils this time with an added loop.
Then I came across these copper and brass cones from Hands of the Hills and thought they might be a cute combination...Again the headpins on the left are by Sue Kennedy and those on the right by Jen Cameron.
For this next piece I made up a focal with a beautiful ceramic bell flower by Marsha Neal which perfectly matched the headpin by Sue Kennedy. I used a coil of wire around the headpin to keep it proud of the trumpet. I then added a hammered and patinated copper hoop to give the it more depth.
To complete it I picked some lovely heavy weight copper chain and embellished it with seed beads in co-ordinating colours. This softens the chain and gives it a lovely sense of movement.
This is a longer length necklace and has a lovely feminine feel.
That was going to be it but while researching for a post to promote the challenge I came across these headpins by Anneli Beads and had to buy them.
I love these little tribal heads and went back to the coiled to design to make another pair of earrings that are most definitely keepers.
And finally, I was making a few ceramic beads last week and threw in a few pairs of headpins just for good measure. I've not had a chance to do anything with these yet but quite like how they turned out - especially with the running glaze.
So if you enjoyed my designs then settle back because as there are a lot more on show today - just click on the links below to see what everyone else has made. And if you're inspired to get creative yourself you'll find some headpin inspiration here.
Lesley
Lesley
Guests:
AJE Team Members:
Saturday, 30 July 2016
AJE Component of the Month Reveal - Fossilised pebbles
Today I am very pleased to be hosting the AJE Component of the Month reveal which features my fossilised pebble pendants.
Needless to say I did my usual trick of forgetting to take a photo of my own pieces so I've had to crop them out of the bigger image. Since I had a couple of spares I decided to have a go at two designs and fortunately the two were sat next to each other.
I started with the stone coloured pebble and my original intention was to do something long and earthy using beaded macrame in some way. However, when I was rummaging for beads I came across a strand of ocean jasper nuggets which just seemed to match the pendant perfectly so I shifted focus to work with those.
I loved how the striations in the jasper matched the colour of the pendant whilst the soft green/blue hues added just enough colour to give depth and interest. I used graduated ebony rounds at the back of the necklace to pick up the dark brown of the fossil and interspersed them with brass spacer beads. A single offset copper spiral bead echoes the ammonite shape.
This is a very simple and traditional design that has a very natural, serene feel to it which I really like.
The longer, narrower shape of the blue pendant got me thinking of talismans or amulets and I wanted to try and do some sort of layered or stacked rustic design. I attached some waxed linen and started playing around with various beads until I realised that I had unintentionally created a goddess form. Well who am I to argue with the signs? If she wants to be a goddess then a fossil goddess she shall be! The blue polymer clay bead is by Staci Smith and the ceramic bar is by Marsha Neal.
I decided this one was definitely going to be a long necklace and pulled together a selection of small beads that would complement the stacked pendant: Sodalite, ebony, brass, shell and seed beads all combined randomly to give a lovely textured effect with an aged feel.
Again it's a very simple style of necklace but I'm pretty happy with how it came out.
Guests
Lesley
Thursday, 30 June 2016
AJE Theme Challenge Reveal - Summer
This months AJE design challenge is inspired by the theme of summer - something that is sadly lacking here in the UK as I sit here in a fleece at the end of June! However, my garden is still managing to live up to expectations and that's where I've chosen to draw my inspiration from. I love that time in the garden when most of the hard work is done and you can sit back and enjoy the abundance of your labours...for a couple of months At least.
I decided to go with a beading project this month and since I was short on time I just went with the flow and let the beads take me where they would. I started with one of my own cabochons with a floral motif and created a bead bezel in matching colours. From there I added Czech glass flower and leaf beads and I was thinking at this point it might turn into a brooch. But as the shape developed I started to think more in terms of a pendant so I added some loops to the edging.
This was all feeling a bit heavy and solid so i added some fringing along the bottom edge to give some sense of movement and airiness...much better I think.
Lesley
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