Have You Ever?...

Now I know I said I was going to get back to the subject of narrowing down artistic direction and I will, just wait. I just  have  to share my latest creation first.

Have you ever worked on something that refused to come together for a long time, but when it finally did it was not just finished but it sang to you?

This piece had flummoxed me for about two years(I guess). It was something of a series of experiments. First was the faux dichroic center. I had found some dichroic mica powder and started working with it. (I actually have blended my own color variations, but that is for another post.) Later when I was trying to figure out what I could do with a 1 1/4" domed textured piece of faux dichroic polymer clay, I came across the work of Cheryl Harris in a copy of Belle Armoire Jewelry. What she was doing there with using real dichroic glass cabs I could certainly do with my faux one. I gave it a try and really liked my result.

I just couldn't figure out what to do with it. Should it be a pendant? Should it become a broach? Because of the way I spaced out the elements I couldn't even come to a firm decision of what should be the top and bottom! Now don't misunderstand me, I am not habitually indecisive. I just could see too many different possibilities and really did not want to mess this up.

Well, along came wire sculpting. Now I knew what I wanted to do with it. It took a number of different tries to get something that I felt worked, but I perservered. I'm really glad I did.

In addition to the wire giving the pendant something to hang by, it really complements the piece. By following some of the original curves and adding a few more spiral flourishes I kept in line with the flow of the clay vines.

I will bring this back to narrowing down my artistic direction by saying that when I was finished I just could not stop looking at what I just did. I even said to myself that this was the kind of art I want to do. This pendant sang to me. I immediately began seeing new and different possibilities based on what I held in my hands. I knew that I had found the inspirational focus I had been looking for. To me this pendant has all of the top five elements that I identified that I want to have in my work.

Fantasy; Nature; Colorful; Magical; Earthy

New Layout

I was looking through some templates for blogs and when I saw this one I thought it would be a good one for me. The torn edges make me think of sketchbook pages. Since I am always writing things down, ideas reminders, sketches, things that I would like to try when I get back to the studio, etc. it just felt like a great fit. The brown/beige tones are not something I would normally choose since I am more drawn to jewel tones, but at least they won't clash with any of the pictures I will post here. I want to do something about the way the main title is displayed. I will live with it for now because I don't want to go digging around in the code just now. I taught myself enough HTML to write my first website, but I have not kept up at all. XML is beyond me without doing some close examination of the code.

Do I Have to Choose Just One?

I am in the process of cleaning up my studio yet again. My husband just shakes his head about all of the accumulated "stuff" that I have in there. Many artisan crafters will switch from craft to craft as new ones grab their attention. I am certainly no exception!

Let's see, what sorts of goodies do I have in my studio? I have lots and lots of polymer clay in various brands and colors; many many beads; wire in various gauges and metals; a sewing machine (make that two- I shouldn't forget the vintage Pfaff on which my polymer clay oven sits); several boxes of fabric; wool waiting to be dyed, carded and spun or otherwise used; plus all the tools and gadgets for all of the above. Oh, and then there is the bookshelf full of magazines, printouts and books. Lots of stuff yes, but the thing is that I can see how they all interrelate.

More later...
Mechelle

More fun with pictures

Well, I took a look at how my last post appeared and it looks like the two images I picked were too big to sit side by side. I'll try again with skinnier ones.

Well, it looks good here in the editor. Lets see about as a live post.

Trying out putting pictures in posts

Well, that was a suprise. The picture appeared above what I had typed in first. hmmm.... that has potentional for captioning.

I took some pictures of some of my work this morning and I thought I would try to see if I could figure out how to place them in a post.

Now let's see what happens when I add another picture.

Ah-hah! I moved the curser down to the next line rather than leaving it at the end of where I typed and the new picture appeared below my typing.

Now to see if I can put more than one picture at the same level in the post.

Nope, doesn't look like I can. Not even with setting one to align left and the other to align right. Oh, well...

Later,

Mechelle