IMT - Intimacy

For Inspire Me Thursday. The theme was intimacy and I've taken the second meaning as inspiration - a quiet and private atmosphere.

A relaxing bath with bubbles, candles and chocolate.

IMT - Square

My post for Inspire Me Thursday this week is inspired by the photo-collages of David Hockney. To be honest, I'm not the greatest Hockney fan (in part because I once wrote to him and he didn't reply! :-( but he's a busy guy..). However because he is from Bradford, my home city, there is a huge Hockney gallery - Salts Mill - nearby and I've been there so many times over the years.

One piece I was always drawn to was his "Nude 1984" (on the left). However when you're a young girl growing up - thats a pretty scary naked lady!
So it always fascinated me in one way or another. The photo-montage technique is very interesting to me. I like the way the main image is made up of so many smaller parts. By laying the small photos together, he has distorted some parts of her figure. The big image is so ambigious - I realised it may not even all be the same person. I realised what a fun technique this would be to experiment with.






David Hockney "Chair" & Hockney "Mother 1 Yorkshire Moors"


Some of my experiments: At the top of the post is a self-portrait. It is made up from lots of little squares and I've experimented with different media; coloured pencils, watercolour, sketching pencils and also with how I've laid them out. All the seperate parts of my face are there but I've just mixed them about.


I also decided to try some photo-collages of my own. I made them by cutting out little squares from magazines.



I have placed them to create landscapes. The first is sky, sea and sand.



I also did a cityscape of buildings and sky and a countryscape with flowers and sky.









So Mr Hockney all is forgiven.

IMT - Fun and Games

For IMT this week scribble pictures which are really fun to do. I did them as an activity from the book "Explore Yourself Through Art" by Vicky Barber.



"Close your eyes and scribble on a blank piece of paper for 3 seconds. the time limit is to prevent you from developing a thought process because you should not draw as such, but just make spontaneous marks on the page.

Open your eyes and look at the scribble you have created until you see something recognizable in it. Now define and complete the scribble."




This is great to do and it feels so liberating to be totally spontaneous. Its also really interesting, starting out with a blank page and no idea of what you will eventually create. Great exercise for me as I can perhaps over think things so loved just seeing what flowed with no pre-planning.

Russian Firebird Necklace

When I saw that the UK Beaders theme this month was "holiday destinations" I knew right away that I had to make something about St Petersburg.


I love all things Russian and have shown here some of the photos and postcards from my holiday there last year, which inspired me to make the necklace.

I was thinking especially of the traditional costumes, beautiful patterns, decor and lacquer paintings. I get really carried away with it all and have collected loads of odd bits and pieces over the last couple of years.

I've been wanting to do something Russian-esque for ages so I'm glad this challenge came along and I could start having a good think about what to do.

I started with a lacquered brooch and based the whole design upon that.

I had also bought the book "Beading with Cabochons" about a month earlier so I was dying to try this out and thought the elaborate and decorative beadwork would fit in well with my theme.

I've also taken some pictures of the cabochon as I was beading it to show how it was made up.


Gluing the brooch on to the backing material and beading three rows of seed beads around the edges.


Adding hoops of seed beads to the top. Which will allow the pendant to sit on the straps.





The finishing touches. Adding a fancy fringe and border in red, gold and black to match the brooch and straps.

Edited 23/09

The Russian Firebird necklace won the "holiday destinations" challenge! I'm really pleased and thank you so much to the members who voted for it.

Here is the link for the artist of the month blog:

http://www.uk-beaders.co.uk/artistofthemonth.htm

Inspire Me Thursday - Watercolours

The thing I love about painting in watercolour is the way colours blend in to each other in a wash. So this week I chose to do two of them with colours graduating from red,orange, yellow and purple, blue, green.
To make it a bit different and as an experiment I then wove the two together - mixing the colours again.

Jewellery studio

This is a photograph of my little studio where I do most of my jewellery work. I'm lucky to be able to use a spare room at my dad's house which we have converted - with lots and lots of storage for all those little beads - finally colour coordinated!

Inspire Me Thursday - DNA

Something a bit different for IMT this week as I've been doing a lot more jewellery making than painting recently. Although I am still working on a painting inspired by the "Dear Diary" prompt and I'll post it when it is eventually finished.

When I saw the theme was DNA it made me think of the tubular peyote stitch I am working on at the moment. The beads swirl round in close strands and look like DNA.

Here is a necklace I am working on - with the strands in tubular peyote. I'm still doing something wrong because it is supposed to be much more regular and even than mine but I kind of like the random ruffled look it has at the moment.

I've beaded round an Agate slice as the pendant. Its still a work in progress because I'm hoping to add more embellishments in different shades of blue to match the different tones in the pendant.