Swirls - Theme of the month challenge at Art Elements!

Edit: I had some problems to login - so here is my blog post going online way too late and that even though it was mostly already finished a long time ago... so much for Karma ;)

This month's theme for the Art Elements theme challene was "swirls" and chosen by Marsha. Swirls.... so simple but in the beginning I was a little bit stunned. So I went for swirls and swirly lines in nature. 

I started playing a little bit in my sketch book. Really, really simple sketches but I wanted to play and experiment with swirls in the sense of pattern and movement.

I was really not into the plant "stuff" which is strange because that is normally something I love. But I do love the other two sketches. The pattern and lines are simple, playing with gradients either in size or colour. I think both elements will appear in paintings some day! 

Again I also played with polymer clay. I wrote an easy tutorial how to create swirls molds and stamps for this month's theme at Art Element (have a look here). 

I created several pendants using these molds and stamps and also made some examples what to create with them...

...like this knotted necklaces with czech, indonesian and other glass beads I had in hand as well as waxed linen cord. My stash is running dangerously low now on axed linen *sighs*. If you have any good suggestions for a source for me? I live in Germany and the shipping costs from a lot of countries went through the roof...

Earrings are the kind of jewelry that is essential for me! I rarely wear anything else. I work in the lab so I would have to take off most jewelry all the time and in the beginning I couldn't count the times I forgot my jewelry after work. Now I am simply not used to it anymore. Even my wedding ring took a long time to get used to ;) (and it is a lightly textured gold band, we got the wedding rings from my husband's grandparents)

Working on the projects I realized how much I love "swirls" without really thinking about swirls. For me they were rather the organic lines of movement you can find with tentacles, ammonites, ferns... but in the end, they are all swirls!

While I made the swirl molds I stumbled upon an older pieces I made years ago. This covered lid is still one of my favorite boxes I ever created. Can you find the little pieces of broken beetle wings I included?

I also went through my stash and had a look what I still had lying around unused and what other molds and stamps I had collected over time that somehow had swirls, curls, or spirals in them. 

I have a lot of older pieces that are somehow not fitting my taste (anymore) but I also don't want to get rid of. So I tried to use at least some of them...

I managed at least one pair of earrings...

...but then I was rather motivated to create new stuff! ;) And yes, there is my favorite colour scheme back again!

I so love these swirls!

....and colours!

Of course, I made a lot of earstuds with the molds and stamps too. This is my favorite way to test patterns and paints while creating little lovely earrings without using a lot of material. I only show you the ones I like, there are always some who won't make the cut.

I will also be at the alternative christmas market at the Werk II in Leipzig together with a friend again this year. So I will need a lot more earstuds! Also why you see them already mounted on cards.

Strange thing is, that I so love to make them and think they are lovely - but I rarely if ever wear earstuds. I always go for really long and/or big earrings. But I am thinking of getting some more earholes to combine some studs with long earrings. My little sister did this and it looks great.

I am sorry but I had to include more pictures of them! At least from my favorites....

Can you see the little lion head with the swirly tongue? The same image from one of the pendants I showed above. I took an impression from an old box my husband has and uses it to store some tools in.

I really prefer using white polymer clay and adding a contrasting colour with paint afterwards.

This is again I pattern I already showed above: The same one like in the white an turquoise earring charms.

This pattern came from an old fork!

For the mold I used here, I stamped with an clear polymer stamp into a sheet of clay. Now I get a nice raised image!

Again a pattern I used above (and don't remember where I got it from) and these earstuds are my absolute favorites of the whole batch!

Last but not least I played with some monoprinting using the image resist technique. I can't show you in progress pictures because I worked on this project late in the evening to relax from work and simply forgot :/

But I used the prints to finally make a first test version for a water colour sketch book!

I bought a lot of sketch books that should be useable for water colour in the past.... since my favorite brand went out of production (still hard for me). I don't require perfect water colour paper but it needs to be useable at least with some amount of water without crumbling and glued enough that the pigments are not soaked into the fibers instantly (gets blotchy then and I can't lift any paint off anymore).

I used not professional but rather craft water colour paper I got from a friend. The back of the pad I used for the book covers (this is why they are rather thick, but I like that!). 

This was made only with half of the pad and paper, so I could make a second one like this. I really, really wanted only to have a sketch book I could test to see whether this would be a better option than buying another commercial available book and be disappointed again.

There were also several brands I wanted to try.... but most of them had horrendous shipping costs to Germany. Also I don't want to pay too much for a sketch book. It is after all to be used without thought about "wasting" material. 

You can see the spiral pattern that I used for the resist technique. The paint is payne's grey from Schmincke. It works better for me than the various blacks I tried. I think it may depend on the pigment in the paint.

I even managed to get the pattern fitting to both sides!

The binding is a coptic stitch I made with thin nylon cord I have for beading. I also have book binding linen cord but I loved the contrast with the red colour (and the nylon stuff is also really, really durable). The coptic binding allows to open the book completely so it will lie flat on the table for painting.

  

It was really an inspiring theme, thank you Marsha! 

And please have a look what everybody made for the challenge!

Guest Artists:

Alison

Anita

Cat 

Caroline

Jill

Kathy

Karin

Kimberly 

Mischelle

Raven

Sarajo

Susan

Tammy 

Art Elements Team: 

Cathy

Caroline

Claire (you are here)

Jen

Jenny & Lesley 

Laney

Marsha

Susan