The Gossiping Goddess: THEA Elements

Showing posts with label THEA Elements. Show all posts

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.

I love blues and browns together and these beads coordinate perfectly with the focal.

Again it's a very simple style of necklace but I'm pretty happy with how it came out.

I can't wait to see what everyone else had created with their fossil pebbles I hope you'll join me on our little blog hop using the links below.

Guests

AJE team

Lindsay Starr

Lesley

Tuesday, 31 May 2016

AJE Component of the Month - May Reveal

So as May draws to close another AJE design challenge rolls around and this month it was the turn of Sue Kennedy to provide us with components to work with and she chose these cute little lampwork heart and star cabochons...

These are the selection Sue sent me - aren't they cute...?

Whilst I had originally thought to use all three of these together time escaped me and I didn't get to start the challenge until the very last minute so I decided to concentrate on one piece. The coral coloured star reminded me of the starfish I used to go searching for in rock pools and caves as a child so that was the one I chose to use in an ocean themed piece.

starfish

Using one of my hand made molds I made a polymer clay urchin focal and before baking impressed the star into the clay to make a setting for it. Once baked I painted it with acrylic paints and then sanded it back to expose some of the clay and glued Sue's cab into position.

I'm not usually once for using glue as a connection but I didn't want to obscure the detail of the star with a metal setting. In this context and with these materials it's very secure and I think it works.

I love layered or stacked pendants so I added one of my copper clay shells and a tiny coral and seed bead charm to add further depth and interest...

For the necklace I picked out some beads that reflected the colours of the focal and copper wire wrapped them - recycled glass, lampwork pumpkins and ocean jasper accented with mottled sandy seed beads.

A pretty copper chain with another tiny charm, an LOS (Liver of sulphur) bath for the metal/bead elements and a quick tumble and the design is finished. Now I want to head for the beach and get my toes into some sea and sand!

Many thanks to Sue for providing us with these lovely pieces to work with. Please go and visit the rest of the AJE team and our guests to see what they did with their components - links below.

Lesley

Guests

AJE Team Members

Niky Sayers

Saturday, 30 April 2016

AJE COM Reveal - April is for Amulets

Today is reveal day for the AJE Component of the Month challenge for April and the pieces we had to work with this month were these wonderful polymer clay Amulets created by Jenny Davies-Reazor. I was lucky enough to get the gorgeous green swirly one at the bottom left of this image.

When my amulet arrived the first thing that struck me was that the swirly textural design and the colour palette were reminiscent of the ocean so that was going to influence my theme. I also decided I wanted to add some sort of stopper to create a little vessel - maybe for hiding secrets or special treasures in. My initial thought was that I could do this with a little round bead but I couldn't find anything that would stay put but then, while rummaging around looking for inspiration I came across my Tracey Seder-Donoughe bead stash and this one leapt out at me. Not only was it a perfect colour match but its 'waisted' style made it a very secure fit - perfect.

I was also keen to add some sort of accent to the bottom of the amulet so I drilled an extra hole in the bottom and set about wiring it up along with the bead which I attached with a length of brass chain...so far so good.

Working with the ocean theme I added one of my own bronze shell charms to the bottom of the amulet and gave this a little accent bead that picks out the darker teal tone of the piece.

For me amulets tend to call for long necklaces and I decided to go with bronze chain but to give it some more depth and interest and to support the theme, I went for one of my favourite techniques and wove waxed linen threaded with tiny pearls through the chain.

At this point I felt I needed to add some embellishment for a bit more impact. I was thinking of this necklace as something a mermaid would wear to keep her treasures close so I added a cluster of dangles made up from bronze charms, pearls, Citrine, Ocean Jasper and Czech glass, all of which pick up the subtle tones of the amulet. I'm still thinking about what to put inside the amulet...

And that was it - job done and 'Mermaid's Treasure' was complete! It's not the easiest piece to photograph well and personally I think it looks much prettier in real life.

Many thanks to Jenny for supplying such a fun piece to work with - I got fully immersed in this challenge and thoroughly enjoyed the whole process. Please do now join our blog hop to see what the rest of the AJE team and our guests created.

Enjoy

Lesley

Guests:

Marsha of Marsha Neal Studio

Alison of Alison Adorns

Jess of The Copper Cat

Brooke from Artistic Endeavors

AJE Team:

Lesley

Caroline

Niky

Jennifer

Diana

Lindsay

Susan

Jenny

Wednesday, 30 December 2015

Clearing the Decks for a Creative New Year...

2015 has been a pretty good year for me...

The first half of the year saw me really finding my voice with my ceramic bead designs and having jewellery designs published in the wonderful Belle Armoire magazine. Then after a fabulous and creative summer break with good friends in the USA I've been trying my hand at some new things and have found several new passions - not least bead embroidery, felting and mixed media decorative art.

So what's in store for the coming year...? Well hopefully much more of the same. I really want to immerse myself in these new activities and see what comes of it but that doesn't mean I'll be giving up on bead or jewellery making. In fact I'm hoping for some cross-pollination that will allow me to come up with some original ideas for my own jewellery and bead designs.

For practicalities sake though this is going to involve some reorganisation and re-branding to make everything a bit more cohesive. To this end I am planning to spend the next few weeks creating a new standalone shop as a single outlet for my beads, jewellery and decorative art. It's early days yet but I'm very excited to get started on this new venture.

In the interim both my Etsy Shops (see links at the top of the blog) will remain open but there will be minimal listing of new pieces. Since I don't want to be transferring stock from one shop to another I've decided to end 2015 and start 2016 with a clearance sale in my bead shop and everything is now available with a whopping 40% discount - just used coupon code CLEAR40 and the discount will be applied at check out.

I'm also planning to have some jewellery destash events in January so keep an eye out here and on my Facebook page (or sign up for my newsletter using the link at the right of this page) for news of that...and there may be some beady goody bags up for grabs at some point - who knows.

So those are my plans for the early part of 2016...what about you - what exciting things do you have planned? Whatever they may be, big or small I hope your New Year celebrations are full of joy and that the coming year finds you healthy, happy and wise - and creative too of course!

Happy New Year my friends

Lesley

Sunday, 4 October 2015

Creative Rejuvenation...

Yes - don't faint...I'm actually writing a blog post for the first time in over 2 months! Considering my aim to post more this year I'm heading for a pretty epic fail by year end. It's always difficult over the summer months with preparation for and enjoyment of holidays which occupied me for most of August and early September. Then the minute I got back from a fantastic trip to the USA I went down with a particularly nasty virus that laid me low for two weeks and I'm really only just back to fighting fit.

I've also been doing some thinking about where I'm going with my work over this period as I've reached a bit of a hiatus and have had the feeling for some time that I need to pep things up a little... I still love making beads and jewellery but I do feel a little stale.

My summer vacation was spent with creative friends and we spent a lot of time playing with new techniques and trying activities I've done little or none of before.

My good friend Jenny Davies-Reazor taught me how to bead embroider cabochons and I've taken to this like a duck to water. These are the pieces I did while I was away...

Cabochon by Lisa Peters-Russ

And these are pieces I've done since I got home, this being the one thing I was able to do while I was feeling poorly and something which I find extremely relaxing - not to mention addictive.

Cabochon by Joan Miller Porcelain

Cabochons by Diana Ptazsynski, Sue kennedy and Caroline Dewison

Wooden tile by Marie-Noel Voyer

I was also lucky enough to have a needle-felting play date with the lovely Marsha Neal where she taught us to make these suer cute pumpkins.

Marsha also works at Serafina Fiber Art and needless to say I came home with a big stash of beautiful wools to play with at home.

The best thing about learning these two techniques is that I've been inspired to combine them to create some mixed media pieces which I'm really excited about. I used to do some traditional embroidery in a past life and like these idea of adding this into the mix too...

Embroidered cushion circa 1990

These pieces are mostly non-jewellery and I'm not sure where I'm going with them but I'm having fun exploring the possibilities...

Beaded and felted brooch made with a pendant by Tree Wings Studio

Ceramic cabochon by Jenny-Davies-Reazor

This is a work -in- progress depicting my interpretation of an autumn goddess and will be one of a series of seasonal goddesses...

Ceramic cabochon by Jenny Davies-Reazor

Another work-in-progress test piece waiting to be embellished with beads...

Polymer clay pendant by Roberta Warshaw

For the time being I'm happy playing around with these ideas to see where they take me but then of course I need to think about what I'm going to do with the. Both my Etsy shops need overhauling and probably moving to another platform altogether so there is a lot to do in the coming months. I'll still be working on beads and jewellery too but you might be seeing a lot more experimental work form me. I will also make a concerned effort to blog more frequently and keep you posted on developments.

Until then - enjoy the rest of your weekend and enjoy the glories of this beautiful autumn season.

Lesley

Monday, 13 July 2015

Preview - 13th July shop Update...

Well it's taken a little while but I've finally got the first batch of goodies from my shiny new and very large kiln finished and listed in my Etsy shop. It's been quite an adjustment from the little kiln I'm used to but everything seems to be coming out as I'd hoped and I'm very happy with the kiln. Here's a little preview of what's to come in tonight's (Monday 13th July 7pm BST) shop update...maybe something will tempt you...

Organic focal sets

Floral focal sets

Lunar hares...

Bead Sets

Charms and connectors

I'm off to The USA for a holiday next month so this will be the last big update I do until after that so the next one will probably be late September. I will also be closing my order book to commissions shortly so don't miss out if you see something you fancy.

Hope to see you later.

Lesley

Tuesday, 31 March 2015

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.