It's been a while...

Yet again I find myself in a position where I've failed to post for several months. The last 5 posts don't really count as I just did them and backdated - they're copied over from my personal blog. I have however been a busy bunny over the last year. My Stardust and Sparkles jewellery and art website has been massively updated and is a lot more alive than it was previously.

I took up encaustic art (painting with hot wax) around Christmastime and have had a lot of fun with it - check out my encaustic art work on my website. I'm in love with the colours and that you don't need to be able to draw particularly well to produce really rather pretty paintings. I'm just about at the stage where I'm feeling confident talking about it. I've never been much good as an artist so it took a while to get rid of the mindset that anyone looking at my art would be laughing at the juvenileness of it all.



I've also set up a facebook page for Stardust and Sparkles. Its new and still at the stage where I'm overjoyed with any new 'Likes' so click on the box and like me, like me, like me! I promise not to post on it more than a couple of times a week, max and its great for keeping up with new and cool shiny things á la Stephie :o).



I'm also currently loving deviantart although it's been sadly neglected of late, and the wonderful Eni Oken's Jewelry Lessons site where I'm hoping to write tutorials. I enjoy writing them, I'm pretty good at it but I do prefer writing for cash.

Speaking of lessons, I'm in Creative Jewellery magazine and Stringing magazine this summer - the first with a necklace tutorial, the second with a pair of earrings. I've got tutorials coming up in Creative Beads & Jewellery magazine here in the UK as well - not entirely certain when - this year - but it was done in my capacity as designer for www.madcowbeads.com and Georgie, the business owner was handling the mag submissions. So I know I've got one - I think two but I'm uncertain - coming up soonish, along with a bracelet in the winter issue of Stringing.

Anyway... with any luck, the next thing you hear from me will be an update on the 52 weeks project. It's become abundantly clear that with craft fair bookings and small children, I don't have a chance in hell of managing one every week. I've started Week 6 - Bezel Settings but have yet to get to a stage where I feel I've accomplished much. I can set a stone in a plain bezel. Kinda. Thats not spectacular enough for me to be ready to post about it just yet :o)

Finally, I'm in the process of running down the beads-and-findings side of my business. There's still a few bargains to be picked up at my Princess Jewellery website and the main bulk of my stock is on ebay at my Princess Jewellery eBay Store. Postage is free for UK buyers and cheap for international buyers so don't miss out.

Until later!
Stephie

52 Weeks: Week 1 - Wax Landscapes Part3

OK... better day today. Somewhere along the line I improved a couple of earlier ones (or at least modified them!) so I'll start with them.

IMPROVED 1



I mentioned to someone that I thought this might look better with little flowers added. And figured I didn't have anything to lose. It does look better. Not brilliant, but better than it did.

IMPROVED 2




This was my first attempt at castles. Due to the nature of the medium, they're more suggestive. Not especially happy with them but needed to try.

Now... onto the actual attempts

Attempt 11



Attempt 11 - Another castle attempt while playing with textures and marks. I'm... undecided on this one. Done on the hotplate with a silicone rubber tipped thingy. Thats a technical term.

ATTEMPT 12




Attempt 12 - heh, I like this. Crystaline cave. The 'crystals' were done by dabbing a brayer on (little mini rubber roller), waterfall done with tissue and sponge.

ATTEMPT 13




Attempt 13 - I quite like this as well. Sky could be more variegated but I like the slightly surrealistic colour. Part iron, part sponge.

ATTEMPT 14




Attempt 14 - this I like although the background could do with softening. It looks better 'in the flesh'. Done with iron, stylus, tissue and hotplate

ATTEMPT 15




Attempt 15 - my final one before calling it quits on week 1. and I do like this. Sea, sky and island all done with hotplate and tissue, foreground done with the iron.

So... the objective was to improve my wax landscape technique and I did. In about 10 hours total over 3 sessions. Objective was also to explore techniques I shy away from usually and there's a fair amount of iron and stylus work there both of which aren't my usual MO. And there was some new techniques in there - stamping with my brayer and working with tissue are both things I haven't tried before.

Just to finish up I played around with abstract texture and depth.


TEXTURE 1




Texture 1 - This was done entirely with cotton buds. Yes the thing you clean your ears with. Then iron-blotted with tissue afterwards.

TEXTURE 2



And this was done but putting my wax card down onto the hotplate on it, drawing melty wax strips on it then dragging a wiggly poly clay cutter down and up and left and right. Then blasting it with a hot air gun. To see what happened.

It's been interesting and rather fun :) Next week is Friendly Plastic, something I've never used before.