The missing colours in winter time..

Sounds a little bit dramatic, no? Still, winter time is the time in the year I dread most. I agree that autumn can have wonderful colours but with every fallen leaf the barren, cold and dark time comes close. There is a beauty in winter, in snow and ice crystals, in back tree skeletons and flocks of crows flying above you. A beauty that speaks to the goth inside me. 

But it is also a like that goth aesthetic an over dramatized beauty that only comes out in special moments and definitely not in daily life. There is nothing compared to the energy and easy of life I have in summer time with the long, long days, the warmth and the colours. Everything is bright and I am more social, get more done... my perfect moment is in summer time in Formentera, sitting in a cafe in the shadows in the middle of the day, drinking some coffee, listening to the sounds around me and the air has this special scent... the scent of summer... of dry heat and thyme and rosmarin... but also in Leipzig there is this special scent... there is something in the air and you know, it is going to be summer now. Every year there is this moment, where I get the scent and I feel like a weight is lifted off me... and I can't stop to smile.

The earrings maybe represent my desire for colour. I also do a lot of dark and rather rustic and ancient work but now I need the feeling of summer! Not sure if it is so good to go against the seasons with my work if I also hope that it finds a loving new owner but I can't help myself. I create to keep me sane... and show summer how much I love and already miss it! ;)

The stud earrings are made with polymer clay. Fimo soft this time because I still have some. These small earrings are the perfect use for it. Normally I prefer a firmer polymer clay. The base was just white polymer clay and then I painted them with acrylic paint and sanded the surface down.

"Bloom" - ATCs

The theme over at paper artsy was "Making marks". A perfect challenge for me since I just love to doodle, add pattern, little non-descriptive writings, rising texture... an so on. On the other hand, everything you make and add by hand is actually a mark. Every single one specific just for your own style, the way your hand moves... So an easy and difficult challenge at the same time ;)

I created 2 artist trading cards (ATC) although I have to admit that maybe the size is the only thing fitting with an ATC since I am tempted to keep them to myself ;) I called them "Bloom" in every sense and meaning of the word, literal as well as metaphorical. 

I used the same stencil for the flower part with a little bit of molding paste. The background was made with gelatine monoprints (I make my own plates). 

By the way, there are a lot of iridescent and metallic paints used so in some images some areas may look overly bright, just the light reflecting on the painted surface.

The I added some writing, marks, more colour, inks drippings, some new spray I got (the red enamel-like raised splatters) and more...

Thankfully ATCs have such a small size. Since even with this small size these two ATCs took a long time until I felt they were finished. Even now I am not absolutely certain but a deadline is also a good reason to find the stopping point.  

Love all the colours, marks and texture! The colourful pieces at the right upper corner of each card are by the way some "acrylic skin". Not done on purpose but I have a plastic folder under my painting area that I also use as a kind of palette and the acrylic paint went on it layer for layer... until I was able to peel it down! 

Now I will even keep my leftover dried acrylic paint on my working space ;)

Life book 2016 - Effects of colours and materials

Sadly my digital camera is not able to catch all the gorgeous and subtle details of the colours, paint, texture and background. I'll look at some services that scan paintings profesionally but they all seem to be expensive *sighs*

But I started to record (sometimes) the creation process. So here we go :)

Since I take the pictures in between under not perfect light conditions, the colours seem to change more than they actually do. 

"Ephemeral moments" - Where have all the flowers gone...? (Knotted bracelets)

I am just in love with these tiny wee czech glass beads! They are just 8 mm sized flowers, so beautiful with the shape and the colours!

I wanted to create simple, sweet but elegant bracelets that have these tiny wee flowers as central focal point. But also some bracelets that could easily be stacked to create a more bohemian or hippie style.

They are all lovely on their own and I can't tell you my colour favorite, I just can't! ^^

The bracelets are made with waxed linen cord with just easy double knots between the flower beads. The knots are close to the beads but not too close so the bracelet moves easily.

See how the colours of the waxed linen cord complements the colours of the flower beads? Don't laugh but I may have spend even more time just deciding which colour combination I want to use than to create them!

Even though I have the flowers in more colours, you can clearly see some of my favorite colour schemes seeing all the bracelets together! Blueish, turquise, teal, aqua, purple...

You can also find them in my shop here :)

All the roses... between research and art and not enough sleep!

Right now, in this very moment, I should prepare several presentations. I am doing this but my brain needs some rest in between. If I would really rest I would just fall asleep and not wake up i time again (who needs sleep? ;)) so doing something different is also a kind of rest. Actually my brain has to process and reset somehow so I finally get the story line I want to tell and preset finished in my head. 

I am sorting my slides for introduction, data and so on after I know what kind of story I want to tell. Research is really deep and detailed so it is easy to get mixed up. If you only have ten to fifteen minutes you can't tell about all the stuff you and your group is doing. You need to show one piece and represent it in a good story with a red line everyone can easily follow and enjoys (hopefully) to listen aaaaaaaaaaaaand understands it well enough to ask relevant questions, discuss more deeply and (I know most hate it but you should embrace it!) offer profound critics. If you lose your audience in between, you'll also lose all of this and in the end you'll lose the reason why there should have been a talk after all.

Is it easy? I am getting better and better in it but still no. But it is not really a talent but rather an ability you can learn and train. In a good group you're helped on your way, in a bad one you have to figure out everything by yourself. This includes how to stand, how to interact with the audience, what not to do with your hands and hair (especially the women), even what to wear and getting the balance right between too shy and too arrogant (men and women quite often tend to fail in different extremes).

Oh and especially for women: Stop making yourself small and stop apologizing. There is always an experiment not done, data not perfect, and so on. Just be honest, discuss your data, show the strengths without hiding the weaknesses and don't undersell your work and yourself. Just don't. Please. Also as hard as it is: Don't expect motivation from someone else and also don't put your own self-esteem in dependency on the critics of your supervisor/boss/... Nobody will ever give you if you don'task. You're an adult after all. Also nobody will ever see the work you do. Most often women in the lab are super hard working but often don't get credit for it. Why? Because they don't tell it. I am not very far from the lab and even I don't see how much and what my students are really working. Yes, I see the data but no, this is in no way representing all the hours, days and weeks that went into. In the end you are grown up and have to stand up for yourself. Nobody else will and it is definitely also no-ones task than your own. 

Strangely enough... you could switch researcher to artist here quite easily, no?

It never should mean that you're blind to good and constructive critics, that you don't take other opinions into account, no... just that you're not depending on them and also reflect your own behaviour and how much you're creating your (let us be blunt) misery yourself (or enhancing it). Take care whom you give the power to judge over you, really, be careful. Also on which level: Your supervisor for your thesis should be the critic for your work but not for your self-wroth and esteem. Your close friends and family may give you personal critics and they are allowed to do so because they love you. But what a stranger says? Why should you? 

I started writing about the earrings, no? That was the original intention and then I drifted away. I am tired. Oh, I behave the same in real life: If I am really tired, I will start talking like a waterfall...! ;)

The roses were made with different kinds of polymer clay. Actually they all were the test flowers for the wedding jewelery I made some time ago. The last critics was: Too small. So I made bigger ones and had these tiny ones left. Since we have family over here, I had to try to reign in my chao a little bit and stumbled over the roses. I cut down the backs, glued on silver filed posts and there we go! Love them!

Also a new ceramic pair (I have more but no pictures... sorry!) and a new colours for my little dots of colour earrings!

Maybe I will even manage to get them into my shop in the next days with all the overload of work I have. In case you would like a pair of roses first, just write me (they are 15 euros per pair plus shipping).

"Mechanical Blooms" - Earrings

Sometimes it is good that I am quite impatient and show my work in fb in artist groups before I blog about it here. The reason why this is good, is quite simple: You get beautiful comments and descriptions!

One of these was from Meridy from "Two Trees Studio". She said (and I hope she don't mind :)): 

"Very cool--love the similarities (color) and the juxtapositions of differences!"

Gosh... honestly? My process is involving a lot of thoughts about colours, shapes and especially also movement. But it is not a pure rational process, it is rather the opposite: A highly instinctive process. This is also the reason why it takes me often a long time to figure out why I am distracted from certain properties of a finished piece. I would love to be able to describe my process so clearly like Meridy did! :)

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Can you see how they are slightly tipping to the front? They look good worn but it took me some time to accept this. Sometimes the small details are the ones that throw me off. As I said: Interesting to see how the own brain is working! ;)

The enameled pieces I got from a destash from Lori (you can find her here) and are from Sue beads. The chain elements are actually recovered / upcycled / recycled chains I found at the flea market. Last but not least, the glass flowers... aren't they also just gorgeous? They are recycled glass beads from africa. I couldn't resist buying them when I saw them at the Grassi fair at the Grassi Museum.

They are not too heavy but they are also not light weight. Difficult to describe but you'll feel their movement.

Edit: You can find them now here in my shop :)

On my worktable...

Just some impressions of ongoing projects, some may be finished soon...

 ...some may become (strangely ^^) UFOs. These light beads are bone beads recycled/upcycled from some old necklaces from Rumpel's mum!

I started knotting necklaces or also rather some pieces usable for necklaces or bracelets. I like to have a lot of ready to use pieces at hand. The flower beads are from the last Kit from Rebecca's Curiosity Club!

There is just pure beauty in matte etched beads.

Also some numi-sticks on their way to become earrings! This will be finished soon because only the ear wires are missing.

But... this is also somehow the longest step in the earring creation process because I don't like it too much ;)

"Lost pieces" - Earrings

Again I challenged myself to create more delicate earrings. The first pair may be not small but just delicate but I think they still count! ;)

They look old to me. Long lost or maybe carefully hidden a long time ago. 

The chain and the tiny flowers are from the old jewelery I got from Rumpels mother. She gave me a big bag with jewelery to take apart. Oh, how I love this! I can start sorting the single pieces later for hours and hours!

I used moonstone in both earring pairs with copper headpins. I still have some chain parts left but already started to use them for more delicate and small earrings.

You can get both earrings also in my etsy shop here and here. :)