Niky Sayers Artisan Jewellery: art element theme

31.7.18

July Art Elements Challenge

July's Art Elements Theme Challenge was chosen by our wonderful and talented Jen Cameron and was seed pods.
As soon as I learnt of the theme I started to collected all the different seed pods that I came across, but I had no idea what I was going to make and found it hard to get started.

I decided to try some thing easy to begin with and made this copper fold formed seed pod with Jen's beautiful lamp work head pins bursting out....

Then once I saw Claire's fantastic polymer clay tutorial on the Art Elements Blog I decided that I needed to try making some of those, I did not unfortunately get to Finnish these as I am very easily distracted and they need a few more coats of paint....

The polymer clay got me thinking, oh how about moulding tiny seed pods and recreating them in silver metal clay?!?

I looked for the smallest I could get my hands on but with the best textures and heres what I came up with....

I started to add gems and beads to see what I could create with the metal clay pods but in the end they just looked much better on there own so I made them into simple earrings, the studs have a wonderful star type pattern.

Then I wanted to try some art work, I really like the idea of painting and drawing but always find it hard to get started! So on these ones I used parts of the seed pods and either stuck them on to the page or used them and some acrylic paint to print on the page, these were experiments and need a bit more work but as I was making the "helicopter" seed pod piece I was distracted by how much they looked like dragonfly wings so then I made this....

Not seed pods but seed pod inspired, I made a water cooler background (I had much too much fun doing this and may have made 50 or so water colours splats) and used the helicopter pods and some acrylic paints to print the wings and drew a very simple dragonfly and added some more water colour, I rather like this one!

Thank you Jen for inspiring us all this month, I can't wait to see what everyone else has created...

Guest Artists:

Tammy

Raven

Alysen

Anita

Cat

Kimberly

Rozantia

Art Elements Team:

Jen

29.4.18

April Horse Theme Challenge Reveal

As always this month has flown by and yet again it is time for the Art Elements monthly Reveal. Our theme for April was chosen by our amazing Jenny and was horses.

I must admit when I first found out the theme I thought.... oh this will be easy, I live right by Sandown Race Corse, I see horses all the time, inspiration is bound to strike!

So I went out and photoed everything horse related that I could find, I learnt all about the Shire Horses at Hampton Court....

"The Shire is a British breed of draught horse. It is usually black, bay, or grey. It is a tall breed, and Shires have at various times held world records both for the largest horse and for the tallest horse.

Population numbers are still considered to be at critical levels by both the UK-based Rare Breeds Survival Trust and the US-based American Livestock Breeds Conservancy." Wikipedia

I had a vague idea that I would make a necklace with a shire horse (with it beautiful fluffy feet) standing tall above a nice sized cab set in a gold bezel with a horse shoe or a cart cut out of the backplate behind the stone, but I could not find the right stone in my collection and I really could not draw the horse small enough for a necklace but big enough to get all the detail in so I had to think again!

Ah, I know I thought... I will paint a unicorn, that will be easy and then I will have lots of time to work on some other ideas! WRONG! Oh my gosh, was I wrong....

So I found a site that shows how to draw a unicorn I drew out my outline and added some paint. Now I am not a painter, I very rarely paint and when I do it is just really playing around with colours but all of a sudden I was filled with confidence and just started throwing paint on to the canvas. At this point I decided that I needed some more colour so I just kept adding....

Then this happened! For me colour can make or break everything and I really broke this one, so I did what everyone who had invested HOURS into a painting that they hated would do and had a melt down and gessoed over the whole thing....

Then I made a mental list of all the things I hated and tried not to do them all again! Many, many, many hours later I had glued pieces of book pages/maps on, added lighter colours and less of them and even sanded down the paint in a few areas to add some distressing and texture....

It's no where near finished yet, there are still MANY more hours of painting and lots more layers that need to go into it but I am in a happy place in that I don't currently want to throw it out of the window!

I really like the colours and love the map pieces and the texture on the moon, now I just need to be brave enough to add the shading and decided what is going on with the rest of the piece. Did I mention I don't like painting!!!!

Thank you Jenny for this months challenge, I really stepped out of my comfort zone and I can't wait to see what everyone else has created....

Here is the list of participants:

Guests: