Rachel's project

Rachel's project was inspired by the Gothic.  She has used a wide variety of media and I haven't managed to get pictures of the finished pieces as she took them away to finish off at college.  She has learned to saw, solder, file and polish; enamel on copper and to make lamp worked glass beads (and is a bit of a demon with the torch now).  The bracelet combines textured and enamelled copper panels and is not quite finished in this picture as she has also made a ring that will be attached to it.  She also used faux bone and polymer clay in some of her development work.  For the enamelling on the bracelet she has used a scraffito technique on two of the panels and embedded tiny glass beads into the surface of the enamel on another two.  I hope she will continue to explore these ideas and techniques.

Back to work again

although in reality I have never been away.  As I live so close to my studio I have been in there at some point every day over the holiday period.  Today though I have decided that I need to be a bit more focussed and disciplined about what I do, now everyone else is back at work too.  I have been trying to make a set of glass beads for a bracelet but couldn't quite decide on the exact colour I wanted.  In theory I needed only 9 beads but now have the kiln on annealing a fairly large batch.  Some of them a light blue with flecks of gold; others or transparent with aventurine old gold frit so look quite dark.  I have experimented a bit with transparent and inclusions of fine silver (but had a fairly high failure rate so am not holding out much hope for these) and I ended up by making a few more of my odd bird beads.

I also finally got around to cutting a negative shape in faux bone to use in my press to form another bird shape from a thin sheet of sterling silver.  I still haven't really got to grips with press forming.  I can see the potential for making multiples of shapes but at the moment still have a preference for casting if I want to produce multiples of anything.  All that work and nothing to show you!

Fresh from the kiln

These small beads are a new batch I am working on and really enjoying the soft reactive glass.  The very odd shaped button is my first attempt using a bead mandrel with two prongs, it looks a bit like an enamelling firing fork but smaller.  As you can see I haven't got the hang of this at all - and getting it off the mandrel was a bit of a nightmare so it may be some time before I attempt another.

I might sew it onto a bag I have that originally had a handmade ceramic button that got broken.

Snow, ice and precious bones

Here is my bracelet inspired by the Scoresby collection in Whitby Museum.  The bracelet is call Snow, Ice and Precious Bones.  The glass beads are inspired by Captain Scoresby Junior's detailed drawings of snowflakes and the silver beads are based upon a number of pieces of whale bone that were on display in the recent exhibition on whaling.

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.  

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 on art clay silver

I have been working on my enamelled beads again today and here are the results.  In the front is a small test sample together with a small silver bead.  The larger beads are enamelled to match up and tone with some glass beads I am also working on.  They are not perfect but I am quite pleased.