Today, I'm celebrating
Boxing day with my family, we have everyone over for a big buffet for
a nice relaxing day with some films for the kids and a few drinks for
the grown ups. I hope your seasonal celebrations are in full swing,
and you're enjoying the holidays!
As we reach the end of
the year, here at AJE we're reflecting on our favourite techniques
from the last 12 months.
This year, I've found a
great new obsession... Sculpting with porcelain. It all started off
with my hare beads, I discovered I loved modelling small forms in
clay.
After finding I could
shape clay in the way I wanted, this turned to making cabochons for
beading and small art beads.
I love sea creatures,
and my absolute favourite are Weedy Sea Dragons. For a more realistic
finish, I've used china paints to colour him. These are fired on to
the mature porcelain for permanent colour.
I'm hugely inspired by
nature, and love anything cute. This bead was inspired by a picture
you've probably seen shared on facebook of a sweet baby hedgehog.
And this bee on a
flower was inspired by the bees in my garden going about their work
all summer long.
I asked on my facebook
page which animals people would like to see and one of the requests
was an elephant.
And the very talented
Leigh of JewllrLeigh turned it into this...
And Lesley from here at
AJE suggested a pangolin
I've also discovered I
love sculpting faces and hope to explore more of this type of design
in the New Year.
Next year, I'm hoping
to continue with the small sculptures, but I also want to go bigger
using some of the skills I've learned to create some larger pieces
using ceramics and mixed media. I also plan to create more jewellery
as that has taken a bit of a back seat this year. There just aren't
enough hours in the day to do everything I'd like! But I have a stash
of silver, lots of copper and enough beads to sink a small boat, so I
will be putting them to good use to create some new designs. I feel
like this year has been a year of learning, I've flitted from one
thing to another, finding out what I can and can't do and hopefully
they will all come together next year in some great new work!
What are your plans for
next year? I hope you'll share your creative hopes and dreams... will
you be learning new techniques or expanding on the ones you have?
We'd love to hear what you'll be doing!
Enjoy the rest of the
Holidays!
Caroline
Happy Boxing Day! Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteThe bunny and hedgie are my faves... so cute!
ReplyDeleteAs for my hopes for next year, I got Cindy Wimmer's book "The Missing Link" for Christmas (as well as a fabulous new stash of art beads!) and I hope to improve my wire working skills.
Also on my list is submitting some things for publication... that's the first step but having something get published would be amazing!
Happy holidays to all!
Thanks Kathy! Totally over indulged, it's been great fun! Hope you've had a great time too!
ReplyDeleteI'll keep an eye out for you Sarajo! Good luck and thanks for sharing your plans!
Such fabulous pieces! I can't wait to see more. For the new year I plan on adding a new line of jewelry that represents my faith. I'm thinking of calling it the Living With Grace Collection'. Also I need to think about sending pieces for magazines.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing! Have a Happy New Year!
Oh Caroline I do love all your sculptures and the sea dragon is one of my favorites!!!! Stay inspired!!!
ReplyDeleteWoohoo, I was just meandering through and saw this which fair cheered me up after my recent accident, glad you liked what I did. My mother in law is elephant daft but not a great fan of jewellery and I had loads of ideas for this but left it to the last minute before her birthday and couldn't find material the colours and type I liked so a picture was the next best thing.
ReplyDelete