Has it Really Been That Long?

Has it REALLY been THAT long since I last blogged?!?

Well, what can I say? I've been rather busy since last, er, March.

What HAVE I been doing? Well, making, making and more making of course, keeping my stock up in my Folksy Shop and in Gloucestershire Arts and Crafts Centre and Taurus Crafts in Lydney. I attended some fabulous Christmas markets at Nature in Art and Gloucester Cathedral and I ran several classes at the Arts and Crafts Centre (including one using silver clay)! I also started experimenting with new techniques, which I am still refining and getting really excited about - including wax mould carving, photopolymer stamps and using copper and bronze clays - all things I fully intend to blog about over the coming months. In between all that Little Miss MoonRiver grew up a bit more and went off to secondary school (sob) and I studied a bit of theology (as you do)! SO all in all it has been a busy and crazy 2015.

And so, new year 2016 was a time to reassess and take stock. I have decided that from the end of January, I will no longer sell my jewellery at Gloucestershire Arts and Crafts Centre. I'm rather sad about this as I have loved my time there and made some fabulous friends, but I am simply not getting enough time in the workshop to develop all the new ideas I'm so excited about. I still have classes booked there each month though (for full details see attached poster) so I'm not disappearing entirely!

Right now, I'm itching to jump into all the half finished projects and ideas I have lying around but I really must be disciplined and attend to some less glamorous tasks like tidying up websites, shops and, yes, blogs. On that note, I hope it won't be so long until I post again!

 

What you can do with just 1 leaf

Making my jewellery I use natural, found materials in a variety of ways. These three pendants are all made using the very same oak leaf in three different ways.

This piece was made by rolling out a slab of silver clay and then pressing the leaf into the surface to leave an impression. I then cut carefully around the outline to give the leaf shape. When the clay was dry, I sanded and smoothed the edges until I was happy with them and added a handmade bail to the back for the chain. When it was all ready I fired it in the kiln before giving it only a slight polish which has left it with a fairly matt finish. I've added patina to enhance the leaf texture.

Next came this piece. Again this was made by rolling out a slab of clay and impressing the leaf into its surface. This time, instead of cutting around the outline of the leaf I cut a free-form shape around the leaf. When the clay was dry I refined the edges as before and drilled the hole to take the jump ring. After firing, I polished around the leaf using a fine point on my polishing tool to give a shiny contrast to the texture of the leaf. Again I added patina to enhance the leaf veins.

This leaf was made entirely differently. I used silver clay paste to build up layers on the surface of the leaf itself. When it was thick enough and completely dry I fired it in my kiln which burnt away the leaf and left a 999 fine silver leaf in its place. I then drilled the hole and added the jump ring before tumbling to give a really great shine, again adding patina to enhance the natural texture.

As you can imagine - if you want to use the same leaf more than once, you have to make sure to work in this order! Once you've used a leaf with the paste method, it's all burnt to ash and you have a totally unique silver leaf that can't be re-created.

All these leaves are currently listed in my Folksy Shop.