Tide pools - Theme challenge at Art Elements

It is time again for our monthly theme challenge at Art Elements. This month Lesley chose the theme "Tide pools". I don't know what I should say to this theme other than that I believe it is really, really difficult to not find any inspiration in that!

I started playing a little bit with water colour. Experimenting with the effects I get by combining heavily granulating single pigment paints with ones that are not granulating...

...trying out some plant shapes as well as my new diamont silver aqua bronze from Schmincke (yes, so totally worth the money!)...

...and then going for some sketches. I had a look at Instagram for inspiration pictures just to get started and get a feeling for what I like and not.

I was undecided. I am actually playing nearly daily a little bit with my water colours, but not in any direction fitting for the theme. I use this daily play time more as a kind of diary or in combination with some personal note, so I didn't want to force myself to paint for this challenge.

Then I had a long look at my table after seeing  some sneak peaks from other Art Elements team members. Sitting there, looking at pieces of my work, I realized that I am mostly drawn to colours, effects and surfaces that all fit perfectly in the theme "tide pools".

Like I was not really doing anything else! Bowls, spoons, pendants, beads...

I made a tutorial for these glorious crustiness over at Art Elements, have a look here :)

Therefor I wanted to show you some things I made that I thought would fit for this challenge and hoped that while doing this I would get an idea what exactly I want to create.

This years I am mostly working with mixed media, water colours... not so much beads, ceramics, or jewelery. I spend a long time sitting in front of the cupboard where all my bead boxes are (the ones not sitting on or under the table ;) ) and going through all of my beads and art elements for creating jewelery I have. Gosh, it was a little bit like christmas seeing the kind of treasures I haven't looked at for months now!

I made a huge bead soups with fitting colours because I had the idea to finally make some necklaces from all the pendants I have. Didn't work out because in the end I came back to one of my oldest love "Earrings"!

It was a little bit slow at the beginning because my hands had to get their work memory back but after I finished some earrings pairs, all had come back and I realized how much I missed the joy of creating jewelery.

The photos of the earrings were all taken after some heavy rainfall creating a somehow quite fitting background. ;)

I am never sure whether my earrings will find a person who loves them as much as I do, sees the beauty in the single elements included and the stories they tell... but I was often surprised who bought which earrings from me and (sadly) which ones are still in their box waiting for someone to be treasured.

Please have a look what everyone else made for this theme challenge! And just again a thank you to all the guest who participated in this challenge, I can't wait to see all your creations!

And PS: Lesley, thank you for the wonderful theme! :)

Guests:
Raven
Kelly 
Cat
Kathy 
Tammy 
Alyson
Elaine 
Mischelle 
Deborah  
Anita 
Jill
Shirlee
Sarajo 
Melissa 

AE Team Members:
Caroline
Cathy
Claire (you are here)
Jen  
Jenny  
Laney 
Lesley 
Marsha 
Niky
Sue
Lindsay

Find the hare - Component of the month at Art Elements

The component of the month (COM) at Art Elements (AE) was made by Niky Sayers this time. It was one of her gorgeous coin claps. I love her work for years, her creations really speak to me. Especially how she uses old coins and creates something new out of them.

I have to admit there was only one problem...

It was a struggle to take images! The silver of the coin shines so brightly that it reflects the light and makes it difficult to capture the hare image. This is actually not a problem in real life but moreover a problem of not having a professional camera on my side ;)

So you will have to believe me on this!

I used some green leather scraps. It was a rather accidental choice since I am cutting leather right now for some book binding (christmas is right around the corner) and loved the green scraps too much to throw them away (it may be a massive problem to be able to use nearly anything... it may accumulate the stuff one have....).

So I cut them to thinner stripes, knotted them several times and combined them with rustic beads. The blue ones are made by Grubbi ceramics and the round ones by me. Also I just went with it. There are also some other beads hidden, a single blue dyed seed and some glass ones.

The clasp will be one the side when this necklace is worn. So the weight of the (mostly) ceramic beads will further secure the hold and it adds a wonderful accent.

Thank you so much Niky! I may finally be ready to also use the other precious pieces made by you I have hoarded until now. :)

Please have a look what everyone else made. I can't wait to see it myself!

Guest Designers

Linda Landig

Kathy Lindemer

Divya N

Art Element Team

Claire Fabian

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Cathy Spivey Mendola

Susan Kennedy

Caroline Dewison

Lesley Watt

Diana Ptaszynski

Lindsay Starr

Laney Mead

Niky Sayers

A little sparkle in winter... (Dragon AE challenge)

The theme challenge for Art Elements this month was as easy as it was difficult for me: Dragons. Those who know me since childhood know of my love for fantasy, for fantastic creature in general and dragons especially. Over the years I created a lot of dragons. Strangely enough they were somehow missing the last few years... uhm... it could nearly be ten years? How did this happen? 

So, thank you Niky (who hosts and chose the theme challenge) for giving me my dragons back :)

And speaking of the years gone: I wish you all a happy new year! :)

To be honest, even while I am sculpting from time to time, I was a little bit out of training to create a dragon. Also (now a little bit rambling) my favorite polymer clay brand is not available anymore. Staedtler says it just rebranded Fimo classic to Fimo professional. Let me tell you, I compared them one to one (some of my last ones from the fimo classic with the new ones), and it is not true. Not at all! Fimo professional is softer after conditioning and I hate that.

My absolute favorit polymer clay for creating small details is sculpey super firm. The only drawback is that it comes only in grey. But even though I work a lot with paints and other material to change the surface, I always consider the bacground colour and play with it. I don't like it when my polymer clay is completely painted. 

I ordered some new brands and will see how they will work out. I already tested a lot and after all, there are only a limited number of brands with high quality polymer clay. 

Back to the topic. I had some of these open bezel pendants left. Normally the silver colour (not real silver) is too bright for my taste but for this project it was okay. I filled it with white polymer clay and stamped it with archival ink (stampin' up) and some letter background. Nope, not a lot of it to be seen anymore but trust me, it would be visible if it was missing. The small details are always creating the whole impression. 

There was also another problem as you may see: Winter time! My favorite photo background was covered with snow! In case you wonder, it is the table on our balcony with beautiful weathered wood. On one part stood a plant pot and saved a spot! I would like to claim this was planned... but it was rather a forgotten pot. 

 But it was cold! We have right now -9°C (about 15,8 Fahrenheit). I miss summer...

There were a lot of tiny pattern on the skin to create the impression of scales. You don't see it anymore since I used some embossing powder for the surface effects.

The structures were antiqued using acrylic paint and acrylic ink (one of the materials I just discovered last year, there was this stuff all my life?) and golden highlights set afterwards again with acrylic paint.

 And believe me, the little dragon glows in the sun!

The plan was to create a pendant but he is rather big and bulky for a necklace or what do you think?

So, and I hope you are now curious to see what the other have created. Just have a look!

Guests

Shai Williams

Kathy Lindemer

Anita Rao

Kelly Rodgers

AJE Team

Susan

Jenny

Cathy 

Jen

Niky

Diana

Laney 

Caroline

Claire (you are here right now)

My wedding jewelery... (over at AE)

I promised to show you the jewelery I made for myself. I used mostly art beads and a red colour palette with some added colour to create more interest (believe me, it looks more true to one colour if you break it up with another one). You can see more of it over at Art Elements (just have a look here).  

PS: Yes, Rumpel (aka Hans) is 29 cm taller than me! A full head.... ;)

"Ancient dreams" - Component of the month at Art Elements

The start with a new piece is often the most challenging as well as the most enoyable part. My main problem actually is always "the middle". When you found your inspiration, chose and gathered all materials, have made the work halfway through, see already the end with only some minor last steps open to decide... and then I stop. Honestly, I don't now why. There are soooo many UFOs in my stash, pieces that I know I'll love as soon as they are finished.

*sighs*

But that is maybe just how my brain operates. At some time-point most projects come to an end (either way).

This is why I love and enjoy challenges. They push me and give me a tight schedule to fit in. Even more with a component you get from a fellow bead artist.... huh... the social pressure added works even better! (Not a joke, this works really for me and I like to trick myself with this behaviour ;) )

The component of the month (COM) of Art Elements (AE) came not from a member of the AE team but were gifted to AE team members as well as to AE readers by Kristi Ann from Artisan Clay. You can find more of her work here.

Back to how my brain is working... I got the gorgeous pendant from Kristi (thank you again!). As gorgeous as it is, it was way out of my comfort zone. I love circle shapes and crackled glass / glaze surfaces (you would never have guessed, mh?). But this was too big and a little bit too heavy for me (remember, not being objective here, just relative to what I normally work with).

Puh... and then I started with a necklace design where I liked all the pieces but there was not this perfect start with all elements fitting perfectly together. Time was closing and I finished it and just had to wait until I would be able to catch some rare daylight to take pictures. You need daylight to give such a stunning pendant with crackle glass credit, trust me in this.

So sitting late at the evening at the living room which is a absolute state of chaos with my "stuff" my eyes fell on one of my wrapped bracelets. I wanted to label it for our Pop-Up store in Leipzig (Malwatanderes) but it was sitting close to the necklace. Mh... the colours went nice together so I tested how the would look combined. Loved it. So I took the necklace apart, decided to make a kind of decorative art element (or ornament? tribal totem?). It was the right way. The right way since I started to love this pieces, consisting just of two "circles" at this moment, already.

The rest was easy, also close by was one of my ceramic bird skulls I made. I am in the process to test the effect of different glazes and no, originally I thought this light blue/yellow glaze is not my favorite. How wrong I was. Without the light blue accents it would not have fit to the pendant. Now it was the perfect addition. Yes, perfect! For me at least... especially with the piece of bone (that was also part of my table chaos, don't ask).

You can also find some more of my ceramic clay beads, a single czech glass bead and a lampwork bead from Kimberly Rogers (above the bird skull, such a perfect accent colour to bringt the bone, pendant and skull together).

Here you go... just loving it now! Last minute, but hey, perfect timing, no?!

So, please have a look at the other participants!

PS: Seeing the pictures now, it could be also a piece inspired by / for Prince, or not? *sighs* 2016...

PPS: I had to take the pictures at work, since it is dark when I leave home... and already dark when I come back home. So they are not my usual quality (and not my preferred background style). It was long enough winter time, I am ready for summer again! ;)


Guest Designers:
Sarajo Wentling
Lola Surwillo
Beti Horvath
Kate Kemp

Art Elements Team
Susan Kennedy
Lesley Watt
Claire Fabian (you are here right now :) )
Jenny Davies-Reazor
Jen Cameron