tumblr

Gone and got myself a online pin board here

Marrakesh Delights

Here are a few surfaces and patterns that caught my eye on a recent trip to Morocco. If one is a lover of colour and textures Marrakech is your city , around every corner there is a beautiful colour combination wether it be on walls,doors, market stalls... everywhere really!. This city knows how to offer a visual feast.

Julie Blyfield

A beautiful collection from australian jeweller Julie Blyfield who is strongly influenced by botanical specimens and historic embroidery which contain floral motifs. Blyfield's fascination with south australian plants and landscape is evident within these enamelled pieces.

Indian Green Cufflinks

Layers of Autumn - A Brooch

Robert Rauschenberg

Beautiful work from the American artist. Enjoy!

Turquoise & Gold Earrings

Octagon

Come along to see a collection of work from recent scottish graduates (including myself) . This Fringe exhibition takes place with an opening night on the 18th August and goes on till the 20 August. You will find Octagon taking place in Thompson's tower which is situated in Dr Neils Garden , Duddingston village which is a twenty minute walk from Edinburgh's city centre through hollyrood park .

Art in Action

Recently I took part in Art in Action, a four day art and craft event in the middle of Oxfordshire. With hundreds of artists and craftsmen alongside 250,00 visitors its full to the brim of activity and creativity. Volunteering with the Guild of Enamellers I had a great day of seeing lots of different workshops , stalls and exhibitions. Much to my delight while on a break I came across Helen Carnac's collection of vessels entitled 'Each Other'. Carnac creates beautiful mark making and textures fusing vitreous enamels to the surface of steel. Carnac presented this collection on a painted and drawn on structure which reflected the qualities found with the vessels.

Emerging enamellists from New Designers

Emily Knight - Series of temple bangles

Bekki Churcher - The Cells

Here are a couple of designer/makers from the 2011 New Designers that collections caught my eye due to their painterly approach to enamelling. Emily Knight's theme for her final year collection was based on her travels to India. The pieces Emily created was based on her memories and experiences of her time in this country full of textures, colours and patterns that are evident in this collection of work.


Another design graduate from Glasgow School of Art using enamelling in an expressive way was Bekki Churcher. The inspiration from Bekki's collection was centered around a modern ruin of St Peter's Seminary based in Cardross , Glasgow. This concrete building was completed in 1966 and used as a teaching college up until the 1980's. From being an award winning piece of architecture it now lies in Cardross village as a concrete skeleton being taken over by nature. Bekki's work encapsulates this juxtaposition of the man made versus nature.

Amelia's magazine mention

Got a little mention on Amelia's magazine which is exciting here it is!

Six Foot Gallery

My work will be shown at the Six Foot Gallery in Glasgow. The exhibition opens tomorrow night so if your in the area come along!

A House of Jewels

Degree show 2011/ New Designers

Here are a few photos of what my space looked like during degree show if you did'nt get a chance to catch it . I would like to display my work in a similar fashion at New Designers which takes place in London in July.

The Victoria and Albert Museum and Dundee

To my delight my work was metioned in an article in The Scotsman under the theme of architecture check it out here

Degree show 2011

Just to let everyone know I will be exhibiting my degree show collection this week alongside my classmates on Level 7 of the Mathew building at Duncan of Jordanstone in Dundee. We had a very successful opening on Friday night followed by a very busy couple of days. As a year group we have received a lot of positive feed back on how varied and dynamic our show has been. Come and have a look at the jewellery and objects made from salt, plastic, enamel , glass, precious metals and more. Here is Sanna wearing one of my pieces enjoy!

Guild of Enamellers Conference 2011

Last weekend I attended the annual Guild of Enamellers conference which this year took place in Canterbury. It was a wonderful few days of meeting lots of fellow enamellers from beginners like myself to others who have been enamelling for years. Along with the workshops there were talks and discussions along with opportunities to purchase supplies. It was fantastic of all these makers to meet in one place and I'm already looking foward to the next one next year! Here a few photos of pieces made in the various workshops such as Introduction to printing on enamel using photographic transfers with Tamar De Vries Winter and garden enamels with Carol Griffin.

The day the cow got cast.

Yesterday I started casting a cow to add to my Indian street scene, the base for moulding this creature was an old Victorian lead toy which was a British model of this animal . With a little help from the magic of Milliput the cow was given an Indian make over with a hump and horns . The next stage of this process is to clean him up with filing and then to gold plate the little chap. Thanks to Kerrianne for showing me the ropes and helping with the creation of this farm animal.

Degree Show Preview

Here is a sneak peak at whats to come in May . My first piece is a mixture of gold leaf, enamel, pencil and copper. Very excited about the next few houses that are being constructed watch this space!

Noah's Ark

These are images of early 19th century toys made from wood, tin and lead that have been an inspiration to my current enamelling project. This Noah's Ark (1830s) was the only toy allowed to bought out of the play box on a Sundays due to it's religious connotations. Tin toys began to make an appearance on the markets, shops and stalls in the 1880s. Germany in the early 20th century was the leading country in tin toy production this came to a halt when war began . Lead was used in toy production although it was halted to a stand still in the 20th century due to the damaging effects the metal can have on one's nervous system which can cause blood and brain disorders.

Enamelled Temple.

So this is my first piece almost complete (finally!) for my degree show it just needs a few more tweaks and it should then be finished. It been a learning curve with mixing stone settings with the different enamels and keeping the copper shapes underneath the colours as I would like them.

Hoop Bird

This piece was designed and made for our recent Christmas sale. It was one out of the three necklaces I created for the event along with a single bird on a chain and another bird sitting inside a cage with semi precious stones attached.

Dirty Martini and Wasabi Green

This weekend a few fellow jewellers descended on another Helen's glass making workshop. There were a huge amount of coloured rods that when melted and combined turned into beautiful glass beads. Helen made a tricky skill look very straight forward to master until one is having a go and realise its takes a huge amount of practice and skill to achieve the detail and colour combinations that are found in Helen's work. The stacks of rods all piled up together made it difficult to make one's mind up about which one to select for making into bead. I loved some of the names such as a light blue rod entitled Dirty martini or my favorite shade of green known in the glass world as Wasabi.