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Thursday, December 26, 2013

Wishes for the New Year

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

6 comments:

  1. The bunny and hedgie are my faves... so cute!

    As 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!

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  2. Thanks Kathy! Totally over indulged, it's been great fun! Hope you've had a great time too!

    I'll keep an eye out for you Sarajo! Good luck and thanks for sharing your plans!

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  3. 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.
    Thanks for sharing! Have a Happy New Year!

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  4. Oh Caroline I do love all your sculptures and the sea dragon is one of my favorites!!!! Stay inspired!!!

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  5. Woohoo, 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.

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