Silver Clay Pendants and WOYWW 10th Anniversary

I haven't done much arty crafty stuff lately as I've been making the most of the lovely weather we've been having and working in the garden.  But I have taken a break to mess about with some silver clay.  After doing a wonderful workshop  recentlty I just had to have a go at home, so after a small investment in colours and a larger investment in a UV light box this is my first attempt.  

I had some left over bits of silver clay and had to use them quickly, so I made this second pendant and had a go at setting a stone, which I'd also never done before.  The design emerged from ideas about pollen and seeds, possibly because I've been getting hay fever, but I'm thinking it looks a little bit more like coral!

I'm linking up with WOYWW this week for their 10th Anniversary - what an amazing achievement, I've loved being part of it and look forward to many more weekly meet ups in blog land.

A Happy Anniversary to all you lovely deskers out there and a HUGE thank you to Julia who has kept it all running so smoothly and for so long. 

WOYWW #211 and ICAD

  I would like to say a big thank you to Tamara at To Bee Studio who was so kind and complimentary when mentioning me on her blog last week.   Tamara's work is beautifully delicate and has a wonderful vintage feel to it - I would definitely recommend a visit to her blog!

On my desk at the moment are this weeks index cards for ICAD over at Daisy Yellow.  The challenge is to decorate an index card every day for the 6 weeks of the challenge - or in my case 'nearly' every day, as I only managed 6 and not 7 this week! 

I used left over scraps of gelli prints for the backgrounds and added machine stitching, vintage lace, glass beads and scraps.  I thought the flower head (bottom left) looked rather like a pin cushion so I added some tiny little brass pins that I found in my lace-making equipment.   I must also point out that the lace butterfly cut out of a strip of lace was an idea I took directly from the wonderfully talented Terri at art-life-rust, as last week she cut a butterfly out of her strip of lace!  Hope you don't mind Terri - yours was so much bigger and better!

Why not hop over to WOYWW and have a snoop at other people's work desks - it's great fun! 

WOYWW and ICAD

For WOYWW this week my desk is covered in gelli prints I made for the new Summer of Colour 2013.  The colour theme for this week is Citron green and Turquoise.  I didn't know where to begin on this so I've printed some backgrounds and started playing - I thought that might be a good way to find a starting point - and I'll see where I end up!   

Also this week I have been taking part in the new Index Card a Day challenge (ICAD), over at Daisy Yellow.

My idea for the cards started with this gorgeous fern that I planted in the garden last summer while in the throws of the Summer of Colour 2012 - it helped feed my obsession with pollen and spores!

  

It has settled in to the garden beautifully and is looking very lush and quite spectacular - so of course it had to be photographed!  I used the 'design' of it to hand carve a stamp, which became the basis for the 7 index cards. 

SUMMER OF COLOUR - WEEK 6

It's sadly the last week of Kristin's Summer of Color ice cream challenge and this weeks flavour is Watermelon Ice - in other words bright red with dark brown (for the choc chips!).

I've really enjoyed this colour palette and ended up doing two sketchbook pages continuing my pollen theme.

 I transferred the tree images using Golden Gel and then heated it around the trees to create tiny little white bubbles to represent a pollen 'haze'.  The band above the trees is made of tiny little beads.

I wanted to say a big thank you to Kristin for hosting the Summer of Color Challenge and also to everyone who has so kindly stopped by and left such lovely and positive comments - every single one has been so appreciated.

Still on the this weeks colour theme I think Lobelia Cardinalis 'Queen Victoria' has to be one of my all time favourite plants - these photos are from my garden last summer as it is late flowering and not in bloom yet - I wish it went from Spring through to Autumn!  I am linking these palettes to Rosie's Color Me Weekly.

  

I have been loving these colours and really enjoyed putting together some photo mosaics for Mosaic Monday over at Little Red House.   

SUMMER OF COLOUR - WEEK 5

It's the penultimate week for Kristin's Summer of Colour ice cream challenge and this week the colours are Wild n Reckless Sherbert - in other words bright blue, mauve and mid-green.

I probably stand alone in saying that this has to be the most unappealing colour combination for me - I don't think I would ever mix these colours for clothing, home decor or even gardening -  I feel mauve somehow kills bright blue when they are next to each other.  However, I decided to mute the colours somewhat and this helped me create this weeks sketchbook page.

I ended up having real problems with this - it just hasn't worked - I think there is too much going on and I've 'over egged the cake' so to speak!

However, not to be put off I decided to get the camera out and try and continue with the colour theme.  The flowers are a mixture of photos from my archives and a couple from the garden this week - the blue Ceratostigma (centre) is in full bloom at the moment and looking wonderful, as is the purple geranium (bottom left), although they are in completely different parts of the garden!  The last two mosaics are of things I found around the house.  I am linking these to Mosiac Monday over at Little Red House.

Finally, I found this beautiful Passion Flower while out and about this week.  The colours were almost right, but the stamens were yellow.  With the help of Photoshop I managed to manipulate the flower to fit the colour scheme - I do think it's rather pretty with the mauve centre but feel a little guilty at cheating like that!!!  I'm linking this colour palette to Rosie's 

Color Me Weekly.

SUMMER OF COLOUR - WEEK 4

This weeks ice cream challenge over at Kristin's Summer of Colour was Strawberry Lemonade Punch ice cream - in other words working with the colours pink and yellow.

 I wanted to continue working with my ongoing pollen theme but the colours just kept taking me to the beach!  I decided to incorporate both the pollen and the beach themes and I used images of shells, silver wire and beads, along with a pink cutout tree that I hope looks like coral now that I've cut the trunk off!

It's difficult to see the wires - they just look like pencil lines - so here's a close up of the wire and beads.

This is pretty much all the pink stuff I own!

But I do have some lovely pink and yellow Rockroses and St John's Wort in the garden at the moment - I have added them to some old photos to make a Strawberry Lemonade Punch photo mosaic to link with Little Red House!

While still in the pink/yellow frame of mind I found these beautiful caterpillars on some Verbascum plants at my local garden centre.  We moved the plants they were on to the back of the display so the staff would hopefully not find them and destroy them!  These caterpillars turn into Mullein moths and boy, can they eat Verbascum at a rate of knots!

I am linking these colour palettes to Colour Me Weekly over at Rosie's Leavesnbloom. 

 And finally, after playing around in photoshop with this photograph I took of a fern against a slab of slate, I rather liked the yellow and pink effect I ended up with.  Quite appropriate for the challenge, but not very realistic!

SUMMER OF COLOUR - WEEK 2 - MINT CHOC CHIP ICE CREAM

This week has been a real challenge!  Summer of Colour, hosted by the lovely Kristin over at Twinkle Twinkle challenged us to make a piece of art based on the colours of mint choc chip ice cream - green and brown in other words!

Now, I love green - in the great outdoors - but I don't really work with it, wear it much or live with it in my home. 

Anyway, after a week of struggling I have managed to put together a sketchbook page loosely based on my on-going theme of pollen.

I also made a photo mosaic of the very few minty green things around my home - including a specially made cupcake, some marzipan eggs, and two pretty green moths from my collection - and I am linking this to the

Little Red House

And finally I've put together a colour palette that I am linking to 

Colour Me Weekly over at Rosie's LeavesnBloom.

SUMMER OF COLOUR - WEEK 1

I'm taking part in this years Summer of Colour challenge - each week for six weeks we shall be making art based on an ice cream colour combination - how yummy!  This weeks prompt was rainbow sherbert, with oranges, pinks, yellows and a bit of white.

As some of you may already know I have rather an obsession with pollen and seeds, and I decided to continue working along this theme.  

To the Navaho the Pollen Path is sacred.  It represents the source of life and the path to the centre of existence.

The words on the second piece of work are from a Navaho night chant:

In the house of life I wander,

On the pollen path,

With a god of cloud I wander,

To a holy place,

With a god ahead I wander,

And a god behind.

In the house of life I wander, 

On the pollen path.

 I have a small south facing flower bed in a corner of my garden that has become a vivid pink and orange colour scheme - it's wonderful and the colours really buzz in the hot sunshine. I must admit it doesn't look so good on dull days, that's when the pastels come into their own, but it more than makes up for it on sunny days!

So, still being very 'into' this colour scheme, I decided to put together a photo mosaic of pink and orange flowers to link up with Mosaic Monday over at the Little Red House.  

Finally I made a colour palette, still in the same theme of pink and orange but not as vibrant as the rainbow sherbert ice cream colours.  I love how the flowers change from a delicate mauve/pink to the peachy colour as they go up the stem.  I am linking this to Color Me Weekly.

POLLEN TIME AND WOYWW #154

I don't quite know what's happening out there but when I went to photograph my desk for WOYWW this morning I found bright sunlight streaming through the window - highly unusual but very welcome.

On the desk this week is  my just-finished sketch and also on the back of the desk is a large furnishing fabric book - I was wondering if the swirly patterns of the fabric were pollen-like!

Here's the finished sketch - the beautiful little clock image is from my super-talented blog friend Terri over at Art-Life-Rust - thank you Terri!

WOYWW 152 AND TAG TUESDAY

This week I was moaning about the fact that my reels of washi tape were bursting out of the box they were in and the lid wouldn't close.  So, my wonderful husband disappeared into his garage and came out with this tape holder - it fits perfectly on the top of my shelf units and under the sloping ceiling - he even left room for me to buy a few more reels of tape - but I don't think he realised that!

The over-sized teacup is from my favourite book store/coffee shop in San Diego.

   Still in the mood for getting organised I sorted all my plain ribbons onto a wire coat hanger - I was fed up with sorting through a box full of tangled mess each time I wanted ribbon.  It is rather big to live on the notice board so I shall have to find a home for it - but it's a lot easier to use like that!

The little tags on the board are covered in small pieces of lace, patterned ribbons, stickers and tapes that I have -it's a quick reminder of what is hidden away in the bottom of boxes, without having to rummage too much!

For Tag Tuesday this week I decided to stick with the theme of pollen, despite the subject being sewing!   

I printed pollen images onto silk and then sewed them onto tags (so I am being true to the theme!).  I decided on a white background so the pollen could 'float' around.

My current obsession by Rob Kesseler and Madeline Harley

I know a lot of people feel quite negative towards pollen as they suffer from it so badly during the summer.  I get terrible hay fever each year and I find it hard to believe that something that makes my life so horribly miserable can be so utterly beautiful!  What is so wondrous is that life is dependent on each of these exquisite little works of nature!

I'm linking this to WOYWW - if you want to nose around other people's work desks and see what they are up to click on the link on the right.

Also, why not visit Tag Tuesday and see some beautiful tags with this week's theme of 'sewing'.

   

POLLEN AND WOYWW

On my work desk this week is a beautiful book on Pollen - a strange subject, I know, but I have been fascinated with pollen and have been including references to it in my work for a long time.

I have been working on several sketches and using the book as inspiration.   

Images from 'Pollen' by Rob Kesseler and Madeline Harley

 I LOVE using Winsor and Newton drawing inks but they aren't colour fast/permanent for display purposes so I only use them in sketchbooks - they are so vibrant.

Not sure where this is going - I might use it as a basis for another piece of work.  I love cutting up 'disasters' and re-using them!

I am linking this to What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday (WOYWW).  Use the link on the right to pop over and look at some fabulous and interesting arty places!