Tuesday, March 24, 2009

New Pendant

I haven't made any jewellery for a while although I have lots of ideas for new pieces, my RA submissions have hijacked any artistic time I've had this month. However I'm seeing a friend this evening who celebrated her 50th birthday recently and I wanted to make her a piece as a gift. With time at a premium I wanted to add a pendant to a lovely three string necklace of mainly brown and amber coloured crystal beads that I found in the junk shop a while ago. On what was probably my last foray into a charity shop before tearing my tendon I picked up an etched metal picture in a wooden frame, quite popular a good few years ago, it has a floral design with birds and an Oriental bent to it. It's a little textured and mostly coloured with different golds and some black outlines. I thought it would compliment the beads nicely. Although it's quite thick it cuts easily and is fairly pliable so I cut a rectangle as a starter for my pendant. After some investigation, I discovered the metal is copper so I sanded it back to bring the copper through. I wanted softer edges for the piece so I rounded the corners and curved them in a little. I wanted to add some movement to the piece so used part of an old tarnished metal earring, the individual pieces all move independently. I added a bead using copper wire and used the same copper wire to attach the pendant to the necklace. The photo doesn't really do it justice - I didn't have my trusty professional photographer friend to hand! - but I wanted to share a pic as I have to part with it tonight!

Monday, March 16, 2009

Self Portrait Progress

The race to complete my Royal Academy submission continues albeit slowly! :oD After some trial and error (on my husband's part!) the canvases are now all bolted together securely and are quite sturdy although I think the addition of a vertical baton on the back will definitely make them rock solid. I've now drawn on my outline and am ready to start painting the canvases once they've all been separated again. I seem to have given myself a little tiny face but it's only a guideline so I can fiddle with it as I go along.



I'm setting up home in the dining room temporarily to avoid having to go up and down the stairs to my studio on my crutches too often. I don't think I mentioned previously but I'm working with a magenta, violet and turquiose colour scheme rather like this previous painting:

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition

Some of you will know that a piece of my assemblage was shortlisted for last year's Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition and it was such a blast that I thought I would have another stab at it this year!

This year I thought I'd like to submit a sculpture and a painting (as opposed to two sculptures last year) and plans were all going relatively smoothly until the Achilles monster stuck it's oar in! LOL Having already paid for my entries (yep, just call me tight!) and after a degree of ponderance I decided I would go ahead notwithstanding the plaster cast.

So, here's my first piece, Helicoidal Impulse.



The base of the piece is a vintage brass bell, and yes, if you hold the piece up and thwack the bell it is very musical! :O) The spiral is made from vintage Paxolin circuit boards supported on a bolt through the centre of the bell.


A view looking at the underneathof the spiral.


And, a view looking down.

Bearing in mind that I have to post my entry form by this weekend it would make sense to have completed my second piece as well but nooooooo, that would be too easy wouldn't it now? LOL

My second piece is a self portrait based on this photo:



This year I'm working on a body image project and have recently had a naked photo shoot. Wandering off the point briefly, if you've ever had body acceptance issues I highly recommend having a naked photo shoot. It may sound a bizarre thing to be suggesting but it has been the single most empowering thing I have ever done for myself. If you're local to me (or even if you're not!) then I recommend my good friend, Rob, he's excellent at putting folk at their ease in these situations and takes fantastic photos! If you want to know more, email me.

So, back to the painting... I'm going to do a life size (ish!) portrait but not on a straightforward square canvas! I am using nine canvases of varying sizes which will be joined together like this:


I will do a basic drawing of the figure with the canvases connected but will then paint them seperately mixing paint for each as I go so the finished painting will be purposely imperfect and a little fragmented. Watch this space for progress updates!

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Studio Goings On

Determined not to be hampered by having my left leg encased in plaster for eight (count them....) weeks I'm still managing to haul myself up to the studio! ;oD My second joint exhibition with Rob, 'Cos Mothers are Special, begins on Saturday with a preview tomorrow evening from 5pm to 7pm. If you're local, do pop in and say hello, there's nibbles, soft drinks, great artwork and I might even let you have a doodle on my cast! LOL



To whet your appetite, this is one of my mixed media canvas pieces made for the exhibition:



And some detail:





Earlier this week I made a card for a friend's birthday yesterday. I wanted to make something quite simple and whilst pondering what I had within reach of where I was sitting ;oD I spotted this fab vintage French book I picked up some time ago in the local junk shop. The pages were all falling out anyway so I helped them on their way and used the cover as my card. Richard is an erotic artist and writer so I thought the addition of a vintage pencil was appropriate. Simple but effective I hope!