blueberribeads

It seems to have been dark forever, so I’ve really enjoyed taking part in Lesley’s Winter AJE theme challenge – The Rebirth of the Sun… thinking about brighter days coming has really cheered me up!

Earlier in December, I created some pendants…

But for the reveal I decided I would like to try something other than jewellery or components.

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks looking for inspiration and reading through winter solstice stories and it’s fascinating to see how the different cultures interpreted the changes in light. My favourite story and the one I chose to portray is the tale of The Raven and the Sun from the Tsimshian Tribe. Here’s an abbreviated version…

Once the sky had no day. When the sky was clear there was some light from the stars but when it was cloudy it was very dark. Raven had put fish in the rivers and fruit trees in the land but he was saddened by the darkness. The Sun at that time was kept in a box by a chief in the sky. The Raven came to a hole in the sky and went through. He came to a spring where the chief’s daughter would fetch water. He changed himself into a cedar seed and floated on the water. When the girl drank from spring she swallowed the seed without noticing and became pregnant. A boy child was born which was really Raven. As a toddler he begged to play with the yellow ball that grandfather kept in a box. He was allowed to play with the Sun and when the chief looked away he turned back into Raven and flew back through the hole in the sky.                                                          http://solar-center.stanford.edu/folklore/raven-and-sun.html

And here’s my interpretation of the story…

The box is hand built from raku clay and smoke fired. Raven sits on top of the box in his true form.

And inside the box is the sun…

The glowing inner was created with copper leaf. I did want to use gold leaf, but couldn’t get hold of any in time. I still think the copper gives it a lovely warm glow, and I love the contrast against the smokey dark clay.

Thanks for reading, and if you’d like to see what the rest of the team and guests have made for the challenge, follow the links below 🙂

I’m very excited today as it’s the reveal of my component of the month for the Art Jewellery Elements Blog.

AJE Team members and special guests were given either one of my new Lichen pendants or cabochons and I really can’t wait to see what everyone’s done with them.

I chose a cabochon for myself, but my excitement quickly turned to dread… I make all sorts of components, but never make any jewellery, or ever really consider what to do with them… I was stumped. For a couple of weeks I sat and looked at it wondering what on earth I should make.

I love the texture of the cabochon, I carried out around 50 tests to get the glazes just as I wanted them, looking like stone and crusty lichens and I decided I wanted to reflect this in the design. I had a woodland palette in mind, something natural echoing the colours of the cab with an organic finish. I wanted it to look as though it had grown rather than been created by hand.

First the ‘chain’ part was created by rolling a long length of deep purple merino wool with hot water and soap to create a long snake. I then laid the rest of the design over the top of it using more merino and curly wool, some really colourful wool nepps, and wet felted everything together.

After drying, the cabochon was glued down and bezelled to hold it in place.

I added some little accents of beads to complete the design. As usual, I wanted to add all the beads, but I decided to keep it subtle and I love the results.

As my ideas came too late, I didn’t have time to finish it, but I’m going to make some cord ends with etched copper pipe. The felted ends of the necklace will be inserted into them with a loop to attach a clasp.

And now for the exciting part, I hope you’ll join me in the blog hop to see what everyone else has made! Follow the links below…

Guests

It’s been quiet on here for a while, I missed my usual monthly COM blog post using Melissa’s gorgeous metal clay components thanks to our rubbish postal service. But they did turn up eventually, so keep an eye out for a future post using those!

This month, we decided to change it up a bit and rather than sending each member a component to work with, we all created our own designs with a theme – Hares! You might have noticed that I’m a little bit obsessed with these wonderful creatures, so making something with this topic wasn’t ever going to be a problem!

And the great thing about this challenge is that everyone can join in using their own medium. There were no set rules to what you could do… just create hares!

I got a little bit carried away with raku firing and experimenting with masking glazes – here are some of my favourites…

This one is bare raku clay with the design masked and glazed in a rusty colour. I love the halo effect this glaze creates and the specks of grog in the clay could be stars!

Another using the same technique on a pendant.

This one was fired with the hare masked and then later decorated with copper lustre. The hare wasn’t dark enough for my liking, so it was coloured with Indian ink for a better contrast.

Another using the same technique, but with church like trees stretching through the design.

And these are a work in progress. testing screen printing with my own drawings.

And for the reveal today, I decided to do something completely different….

I’ve wanted a hare ring for a long time, but never found exactly what I was looking for that wasn’t an absolute fortune. So having a perfect excuse to make one, I ordered some silver. The band is made from 2mm sheet, etched with a tree design, and the running hare is cut from 0.5mm sheet and sweat soldered on to the band.

Originally, it was going to include a 3mm moonstone cabochon, but after trying the stone in place, it looked a bit too much. I think it’s perfect just as it is and haven’t taken it off since I finished it!

Thanks for reading, and to see what the rest of the team and our lovely guests have created… follow the links for the Hop!