New classes

During the middle of winter I don't usually teach classes in my studio because there is always the chance the roads will be too bad for students to get here.  This winter has been particularly snowy, I don't remember having this much snow in December before.  Anyway, it gives me a bit of free time to play around with new ideas.  At the moment I am testing out an idea for a workshop embellishing beads and here are my first two samples.  The smaller of the two is 16mm in diameter and they are both enamelled.  I will be running this as a workshop later in 2011, let me know if you are interested in learning this technique.

The walk to work

Ok, so first of all it is not really a walk at all as I only have to come out of the house door (the nearest one in the photo) and into the studio door which is just before the larger house, where my outdoor light is showing against the wall!  This is the view this morning though.  As you can see myself and my partner have already been backwards and forwards a few times - in his case this is to make sure my fire is lit and that the place is nice and warm.  I somehow just can't work at all if I am cold.  I have been in and made a couple of beads this morning but have spent the rest of the day back home doing stuff on the computer....... it is the last Sunday before Christmas anyway so I don't feel any great compulsion to produce a lot of work at the moment.  Having said that, I have lots of ideas for things that I want to try out so am hoping for a few peaceful days now over the holidays and if it keeps snowing like this I won't be able to go anywhere even if I want to.

Autumn

I have spent quite a long time today sorting out glass beaded jewellery ready to send off for an exhibition. I have also been thinking about a new website, although difficult to decided whether to just stick with the very simple thing I have and keep on with the blog alongside it.

I have also been sorting out new images ready to have a batch of business cards and some postcards printed. Re-sizing the images for print always seems to take twice as long as I expect it to, so the day is nearly over and I have been sitting at the computer screen for too much of it.

I have put some of my new images in as a slide show called Autumn 2009 so that you can see what I have been up to.

New large holed beads

A couple of days ago I began a batch of large holed beads in bright colours for the summer.  This is part of my preparation for North Yorkshire Open Studios '09.  I need to finish off some new bracelets ready to sell to the crowds of visitors I am hoping will appear over the five days my studio is going to be open.  Here are the finished beads, threaded temporarily onto a bead mandrel so that i could photograph them.  I also ordered more glass rods in different colours (as if I didn't have enough already) so am looking forward to trying some of them out.  Anyway, very short entry today and back to the studio to try some of those colours ....

Another day, another bead

Yesterday I spent a bit of time studying a fantastic book on the history of beads.  Inspired I then went on to attempt large holed beads with 'horns'.  I began by doing the spotted yellow and dark blue bead, just to get my hand in and then went on to make the other three.  These are fresh from the kiln, not quite sure where this idea is going but it was interesting to try.  

Inspired by maps

I have also just taken a few more beads inspired by old maps out of the kiln, freshly annealed.  I have introduced a pale blue to the black and ivory combination in the new samples, to try and give them a third level of depth.    I will have to think about this idea for a while now before I make any more, just to make sure it really is expressing what I want.

I do want to think about how I am going to use more colour in this body of work though.  The museum is full of fantastic and very colourful objects but so far I seem to have produced work that is mainly black and white.

Summer colours

Here are my latest batch of lovely summery beads, fresh from the kiln.  I have been making a few squared ones as well as playing around with colour combinations.  I can't seem to escape from the blues and turquoises though, just like enamel they are always beautiful.

Design ideas

I am starting to sort out more ideas for my 'Inspired by Heritage' residency at Whitby Museum.  I have been looking at pictures I have taken and sketched a few things out.  I have also made a couple of test beads attempting to capture the essence of old maps made during the travels of Whitby's sea Captains.  I love the way in which they charted the depths and sometimes show the edges of land with the equivalent of contour lines as shadow lines around them.  

Blue necklace

Here is another necklace I showed at the exhibition at Guild of Enamellers annual conference a few days ago.  This one is hand made lamp worked glass beads combined with a large bead made in art clay silver and enamelled.  The tiny spacer beads are also hand made using art clay silver. Some of the glass beads have been included on the website of Beads and Beyond magazine, although I didn't get anywhere in the competition as the standard of entries was fantastic.  It is nice to have the picture on their website though.

The Guild of Enamellers is a fantastic organisation run by an enthusiastic group of people and it is a real honour to be their Chair (person) for the year.

Enamelling and beads

I have just spent a very hectic but enjoyable weekend at the annual conference of the Guild of Enamellers.  We always have a themed exhibition and this year the theme was textures, chosen by Carol Griffin when she was Chair.  

This was my entry.  It is a combination of lava beads with silver overlay paste and then enamelled onto; two beads made in art clay silver and enamelled and a whole variety of hand made lamp worked glass beads.  

Anglo-Saxons on the North East Coast

I have spent a very interesting couple of days listening to a variety of talks about the Anglo-Saxons on the North East Coast.  Saturday was spent at the Museum listening to presentations on Monasteries, cemeteries, manuscripts and parishes.  The archaeologist Steve Sherlock showed some images of very beautiful glass beads among the many interesting finds in excavations in the Loftus area.  I am always fascinated to see ancient glass beads in museums so seeing them documented as part of the finds of an archaeological dig was really interesting too. They looked just like contemporary beads - there was even an example of millefiore among the images he showed.  Today was a visit first to St Oswald's Church at Lythe.  Amongst the fabulous Anglo-Saxon carvings in the Church at Lythe is this lovely bird.  The group then went on to the visit the area around the headland where Whitby Abbey stands.  Sarah Jennings and Tony Wilmott of English Heritage talked about the excavations that have taken place over the last few years and about the finding and the impact this has had on the understanding of the Abbey and settlement around it.  

More beads

I seem to have spent too much time catching up on paperwork today, but it needed to be done and now is up to date again.  I did try rivetting a few piece of aluminium together which is something I have been meaning to do for a while.  I still need more practice though before I will start using rivets regularly in my work - they would need to be consistently perfect to be part of a piece of jewellery.

Earlier in the week I had made a few more glass beads, trying different combinations of glass colours and here are the results.  The pale grey on white was inspired by shadows and tracks in the snow.  The large and irregular bead is hollow and has Nyx flashed so looks metallic.  I was intending to start a whole lot of new colours for Spring but got distracted by the combination of black with the silvered plum and made a whole batch of them, lovely but not exactly Spring like.