Thursday, May 31, 2018

Shifting Tidepools


I legitimately dream of tide pools.  There is something about sea life that has always drawn me and inspired my work - the strange shapes, textures and mysteries the ocean holds.  I am not a beach lover unless its primarily beach combing and looking in tide pools for beautiful creatures.  This particular theme from Art Elements blog is right up my alley.

Honestly, at first I wanted to create my typical bead embroidery version of a tide pool and had some rather unique ideas for accomplishing this, however, I was not very fast on the uptake of ordering the supplies I would need for my initial idea so I decided to go another direction entirely.

I had recently been talking to other beaders who are a part of the Embroiderers Guild of America (EGA) in a nearby city.  There were a lot of interesting things going on in their chapter and I decided I was tired of not being a part of a LOCAL community of like-minded people.  After a little searching I came across a chapter in my tiny city and decided to give it a try.  I met with a number of ladies and while there were not other beaders attending, it was nice to find some people with interests that segwayed into my own.

And then I went down a long and VERY cool Pinterest black hole of embroidery...and it was FABULOUS!  Embroidery is no longer just your grandmother's hobby - it is being turned on it's head and modern embroiderers are doing things with needle and thread that are breaking barriers.  I decided I really wanted to explore this medium a bit and what better time than now?  So I snapped up some supplies and fiddled around with a few random flowers until I figured out what I wanted to do for this challenge.

Once I felt like understood some of the basic techniques I grabbed some colors to start on my tide pool piece.

 
I decided to do radiating long and short stitches to give a gradient look.  First, I chose a deep denimy blue.
Then I added a lighter color, making sure to "blend" by stitching in different lengths between the threads of denim blue.

I continued this process with sea greens until I reached close to the edge of the hoop and stopped...


I didn't really have a goal or end result in mind, which isn't my normal M.O...creating jewelry is nice in that I know the piece will ultimately become adornment.  This was more of an exploration into another medium and finding a way to incorporate it into my repertoire of skills.  I am finding that I like embroidery and want to learn more, especially considering some of the incredible artwork coming out of this arena:


Please join me in seeing all the cool artwork others made with this theme...


Guests:

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Adventures in writing class instructions

That time I accidently deleted an entire post...

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

My ↑s Creed

Photo cred: Niky Sayers
The Art Elements Bloggers have really got it goin' on (if you didn't already know) - I consistently find it hard to pass up the opportunity to work with such a wonderful cast of artisans and once again I have been given that opportunity!  February's Component of the Month is hosted by the incredible Niky Sayers!  Niky made these super cool runes from copper metal clay - the moment I saw them I was chomping at the bit to have one.

Confession: I know NOTHING about runes except that I immediately think of Lord of the Rings - because LOTR is like my favorite thing.  As soon as I knew I was picked, ideas of hobbit holes, secret doors and trees began to swim in front of me.  I briefly looked up what some of them meant and then waited for 'Brown Santa' (USPS) to arrive.


It arrived!  And it is even more awesome in person...except...Warrior.  Hmmm.  So I hadn't considered that all my LOTR thoughts wouldn't necessarily suite this piece.  Now what?  After some consideration, I realized getting "Warrior" was more apropos than any other rune, as my first name has a similar meaning.  I have always believed that there is something to names.  I have an aggressive, bold, I-don't-put-up-with-crap personality which matches my name therefore this rune is like a symbol for who I am.  Inspiration for my piece didn't have to come from ancient Viking beliefs or a favorite fantasy - it can come from the simplest of things - my name.

I began to think about what kind of warrior I would want to be known for and 2 things came to mind - advocate & defensive.  More in my past than recently, I have lobbied for more strict and defined laws against human trafficking, educated the public on the issue, written senators and even lobbied at the White House.  I want to be a warrior who advocates for the freedom of others.  I also have a tendency to "mother".  I may not BE a mother but, whether my friends and family like it or not, I often find myself mothering them or giving counsel.  I want to be a warrior who takes up arms in defense of others - not one that seeks battle.

These thoughts led me to a relatively obvious inspiration - armor.  Armor is fascinating both in structure, history and workmanship.  (Random aside: check out my AWESOME finger armor ring!)
With this as inspiration, I began working on the details of the centerpiece for a necklace that may only be suited (pun!) for wear at a Ren Faire but has a deeper meaning.  I began sketching out a shape...


You know how sometimes things come together super easily?  Well this was one of those moments.  A beader friend of mine, Madleen Demaras, had given me a number of vintage nailheads just the day before - in that mix were some metal embellishments with a coppery tone that were PERFECT for rivet heads.

I traced out my sketched shape on a piece of Lacy's and got to work arranging and securing these little beauties.

The next step was to bead the border.  I decided to bead the inner and outer border with black and fill in with my favorite silver 15s.  Once again, I chose 15s.  Sometimes I don't know why I do things - I just do.  Though there is a part of me that does get satisfaction beading on such a small scale because you do have more control with fluid lines.



With the border complete, it was time to attach the rune and begin filling in the center!  The back of the rune actually had some unevenness so before I attached it to the center of my shield/breastplate, I used scrap pieces of Lacy's Stiff Stuff to even it out for a flat surface.  I also used a black Sharpie to darken the edges of the scrap Lacy's so that it wouldn't show in-between the beadwork  especially since I decided not to bezel it.


After securing the rune I looked at the beads I had chosen to use to fill in the center and realized I didn't like them for this after all.  I searched for something more appropriate and landed on a coppery bronze 11 and began the process of filling in.


As you can see from the photos above, I worked in diagonal from a center line.  I knew I could bead each row all the way across, however, it isn't always easy keeping each row completely diagonal so I decided to work each half separately.  This allowed me to concentrate on one angle at a time catching weird bendy issues early.  Finally, after a couple days of intense beading, I finished.

Because the Lacy's was heavy with beadwork, it was very curly and bendy so I needed to reinforce the piece with something - I chose a piece of plastic with an exceptionally chill cow on it.  Before gluing down this vacationing bovine, I took a picture of the back of the piece.  For some reason I keep doing this - I have mentioned it before but the back of beadwork is fascinating - a historical account of every artistic decision.  I think its beautiful and something worth documenting.


With the plastic sandwiched securely between the beadwork and Ultrasuede, I worked on the edging of the piece.  All along I had this cool idea of mimicking the articulated shoulders of armor for part of the strap.  I had a few ideas of how to accomplish this but I needed to make 4-6 pieces of separate beadwork for this.  I drew out my template, traced it to Lacey's and was about to start the process of beading all these thingies when....
The thingies - a technical term.

 

****COMPLETE SHIFT OF THE THING****

 

Boy do I ever keep you on your toes lol!!!  About 1/2 way through completing the edging I was showing my graphic designer mother the piece and she had a BRILLIANT idea that completely shifted my thinking.  She suggested that instead of turning the piece into a necklace, it was much more suited as a kind of "patch" on a book or purse.  She held up the beadwork next to a army green canvas purse and I was IMMEDIATELY sold.  I knew it would be a strange necklace - which I don't really mind...but the piece is far more suited to a bag embellishment!  I have never done this sort of thing before so I knew it would be an adventure.  I began to disassemble part of the work I did on the backing so that I could attach the shield/breastplate to a bag. (BTW, this is the day prior to the blog post that I began this process...I also keep myself on my toes apparently.)
Starting disassembling process
I removed the edging, the Ultrasuede and the plastic I used to support the piece.  Thankfully this was a very easy process just carefully peeling off the layers.
The 3 stooges of disassembly. (One of which is a fading vacationing bovine.)
With the beadwork detached from the backing pieces, I took a Sharpie and blackened all the edges of the Lacy's.  The edge doesn't really show, however, since there would be no bead edging on the canvas bag, I didn't want to take a chance that the white would show through.  Then I used a ruler and the seams of the purse to find the middle and tacked down the beadwork.

The next step was to see how many needles I could sacrifice in the attempt to sew through the thick layers while still avoiding stitching through the lining.  If I was amazing I would have pulled stitches at the inside seam of the purse so that I could easily stitch the piece down before reattaching the lining...however, I hate fabric sewing AND am not particularly skilled at it so I decided to do the least hard way (for me) and stitch it down without ripping stitches and reattaching lining.  I also realized that the needles I used were NOT made for this, however, I am out of time and the only needles I have accessible are beading needles.  Lookie at all the fun shapes I made!
Tour de Force
It took some doing to properly attach the patch but now I have a snazzy new custom Warrior bag!  I might get around to doing some more detail work on it someday, but until then I will carry this with pride!
 

Want to see what others made with their runes?  Um...yes, of course you do!  Click below to see what others created!


Guests:

Kelly Rodgers -↑s live here

Art Element Members:









Tuesday, January 30, 2018

The Stash Has Been Used & Weirdness Insued

Today is the reveal for Art Elements' Use Your Stash Challenge hosted by my good friend, Lindsay Starr!  Today is also the day I am late to the party - I have had a crazy week and didn't get to write my lovely little blog post until the day of.  Not my normal style but it is what it is!

For this challenge I rummaged through my stash and pulled a ceramic piece I have had sitting in my box for years - I almost didn't want to make anything with it because I love it so much:  A trilobite by Diana Ptaszynski!  I knew I wanted to finally use the trilo and I had recently added a cool ring from Joan Miller to my stash, so I threw them into my project box. That day I had a bead-in at my local bead shop, Cindy's Crafts so I knew I would have plenty of time to work out my design.

I began by snipping off the wire loop connectors from the trilo and bezeling it like a cab.


At this point I really didn't know what I wanted this to end up looking like.  Often I get stuck on the shape of the piece.  It tends to work out better if you have a overall shape in mind when you are working but this time I had to do a little Pinteresting for shape inspiration.

I didn't find exactly what I was looking in my search on Pinterest, however, after a while a general shape and layout came to mind...I immediately sketched it and despite my poor skills with a pen, I was able to capture the shape and some of the design elements I wanted to include.



As is typical with the way I work, I let the beads do what they wanted, adding design elements as they came to me.  Sometimes this process gets me trapped in my own thoughts but if I consciously 'let go' I usually find that the end result is more pleasing than it would have been if I forced myself through the process.


The more I worked on this piece the more I loved it.  Sometimes you run into an 'ugly duckling' phase and then struggle to complete a piece because you aren't "feeling it".  This one never reached that point for me.  Somehow everything just flowed as I worked.




But...sometimes in art things kinda happen without you realizing it.  Sometimes you unintentionally create within your creation.  This apparently happened to me...and I am still not sure how I feel about it...


In a relatively short amount of time I had created a piece I truly loved without buying a single bead - all from my stash...and upon sharing the end result with others, found out that everyone thought it was a bird.  *laugh*  I just wanted to have a trilo and ammonite hanging out in a pool of beads...but weirdly - oh so weirdly I had created a trilo hanging out in the belly of a bird!  Do you see it???


I used a metal clay brass ring by Gail DeLuca and a metal clay brass toggle clasp by One Sweet Bead to finish it all off.  Intention or not, I love this piece, bird and all.  And because my graphic designer mother said, "It's an awesome bird, own it!"  I am officially calling this piece, "Oops, bird!"  *laugh*



Don't forget to check out what these other amazing artists did with their stash!
Guests:
Kelly Rodgers
Sarajo Wentling
Samantha Wescott
Kathy Lindemer
Patty Miller
Linda Landig
Renetha Stanziano
Samantha Wescott

Art Elements:
Jenny Davies-Reazor
Jen Cameron
Claire Fabian
Sue Kennedy
Niky Sayers
Lindsay Starr