Bugs and Birthdays, Image Transfer Revisited Yet Again and Necklace Prevaricating. . .

It seems that Monthly posts will be the way to go for this blog. I intended to keep the posts coming every ten days or so, but that hasn't happened, so monthly it is. I hope. . .

There has been a particularly nasty flu bug going round our part of the UK this year. And although normally I am one of those people who 'Doesn't get ill', it knocked me for six. Admittedly, not for long, It was an intense night of constant coughing and no sleep at all, followed by a day of feeling 50% less ill but very sleep deprived, then a slow recovery over the next two weeks. I am back to about 85% normal but my work, the celebration of my wife's birthday, Valentine's day and my birthday were seriously disrupted. . .

But we did manage to get away for a night on Valentine's day, to this place. . .

And the weather was bright and clear, if a bit chilly

Anyway, back to something approaching normal now, cross fingers.

I have been getting back into making image transfer tile beads using my digital images. Trying to let the images speak for themselves a bit more than I used to. I made some bigger, more confidently patterned beads.

My idea was to sell them as plain tile beads, without bails or frames etc. This wasn't entirely successful. I think buyers like the extra element that a wire frame can add. I admit that I do too.

I tried deliberately not distressing the images, in line with my intention to let them speak for themselves as mentioned above, but I couldn't ignore the fact that my image beads look so cool when they have been knocked about a bit and scratched up, so I gave in to my instinct and gave them the treatment.

The black and white image beads seemed to respond best to this treatment. Especially once attached to a suitable upcycled wire frame.

same as the first image in this post in case you were wondering

I did discover something faintly interesting though. I had a small, bright, abstract, printed image in my image drawer that I thought would make a good tile bead. So I did the usual thing of placing it face down on poly clay, wetting the back and rubbing to transfer the image. it was only then that realised that it was an inkjet print and not a laser one. It was on high quality matt paper so the image stayed crisp and didn't run. Once all the backing paper was rubbed off I was left with a very thin but dull looking layer adhering to the polymer clay. It didn't look very good so I picked at a corner and found the whole layer just peeled off leaving the image on the poly clay. Unfortunately the image left on the poly clay was only about half as bright as the original print, but at least I got a result from inkjet paper, which I didn't think was possible. So image trans from inkjet paper is possible by the wetting and rubbing method, up to a point. As the tile bead looked quite old already I distressed it up a bit, which made it look like a very battered artifact from an alien civilisation or somesuch.

I know, but I did say only 'faintly interesting'. . .

On the necklace front, I made some somewhat more conventional bead ones, using some of my seriously grungy, rustic, crackle glaze effect, ancient look technique beads. I am quite pleased with them, and will probably try them for sale quite soon. Most likely in my own Facebook selling group, once I have created one that is. . .

Until next time. .
Jon x

Visuals vs Verbals - New Stuff, Same Theme and New Hope for Unemployed Beads

It's funny how being busy creating stuff cuts down on my time and motivation for blogging. I feel like I have very little to say other than "Here's my new stuff, hope you like it." . . .
So far my fan base, if I am allowed to call it that, has been very supportive. Most things that I make and list, sell, which is why I have been busy creating stuff and not blogging. . .

I still find myself strongly responding to old/unemployed beads and found objects, so I haven't been experimenting with new poly clay things lately. I have some ideas backing up in my head, but they will have to join the queue of ideas there already.

Actually, 'Queue' is the wrong word really, it's a bit more anarchic than that. Whichever idea pushes it's way to the front tends to prevail ;-)

At present, things involving upcycled wire with objects attached seems to be my primary output. There is a lot of mileage in it, so I expect it to be my primary output for a while, but who knows how I may feel in the future?

I still have a supply of unused beads and electronic components to spark ideas from, so I imagine they will keep me going for a while yet. People seem to like what I do so that also encourages me to continue down my particular avenue.

Connectors is a new departure, though well within the aforementioned theme. . . Things in frames and the relationship between them is still a theme too.

Asymmetry and offset beads is another thing I still find interesting. It's also a nice way to use image transfer beads that I really liked but that never got much interest as beads in themselves.

Electronic components in fancy frames is a new variation too. They are so bead like, especially the ones in cool colours.

A wide frame gives the opportunity to explore repetition, which is something I am interested in too. These small, double sided, chunky, image transfer disk beads got repurposed in this framed connector thingy

And this Kangaroo bead I made a while ago using a retro rubber stamp from an old set I found in a charity shop got repurposed. I could never work out quite what to do with it before. It might still be less than useful, but we shall see. Maybe it will be big in Australia. . .

I'm still letting eccentric suggestions have their day. I have no idea what this is, but the organic beads and the bit of left over wire seemed to want to be combined somehow. Go with the flow, is what I say ;-)

Hope you enjoyed the pics and apologies for my lack of things to say. Maybe my art can speak for me even though I have no idea what it's saying . . .

Blog Neglect, Cats and Woodpeckers, Old Doubts and Responding to The World

Well. . . I always start with that word! (Except every now and then when I don't of course). Somehow it makes it all a bit more conversational, as though I had just sat down with a cup of tea and was about to tell you about my day. An imposition of course, as you didn't actually ask, but as is the way with us bloggers, we just carry on as if you did. . . I know, "What are we like?".

Do they say that anywhere but the UK? I hope not as it should be said in a London accent, preferably South London. . . . Oh yeah, and the three dots thing, I do that a lot too. . . see? . . .
How much do you bet that I'm going to start the next paragraph with "Anyway"?

Scratched 'African' influence focal rectangle thing

Anyway, (Hah!) I have been neglecting this blog, not through choice, but through lack of opportunity, or at least a space of time that wouldn't be 'better spent' doing something else, and also through the paralysis brought on by guilt. It is ironic that the longer you leave something the louder the voice that tells you that you can't possibly do it now, as everyone will have given up and gone home.

I've got over that one. Mainly coz I have no shame but partly coz you are all nice people and weren't exactly waiting around for my verbal meanderings, but are quite happy to give them the once over when they decide to turn up. I assume anyway. . .

Different size grids

The other morning I got up early, ( I do this a lot, not through choice, but because I am awake and know I won't drift back into sleep however much I would like to. It's an age thing I think as I don't need to get up early anymore being retired and all.) As I was saying, or writing rather, I got up early and glanced out of the window into the back garden, where, in the early morning light, I discerned the cat, (Boudicca, the skinny, wriggly one) wrestling/sparring with something on the lawn. A flippn' Green Woodpecker no less! They aren't small birds, in fact, you may remember the photo of a woodpecker with a weasel seemingly riding on it's back, it was one of those. About three quarters of the size on the cat. . . Anyway, I rushed down and opened the back door ready to rescue the silly thing. Luckily that was enough of a distraction for Boudicca to look away and the bird to scarper, making indignant woodpecker noises. I admit I was also a bit worried for the cat, as those woodpeckers have serious beaks on them. They do frequent our lawn, as despite their name, they much prefer to eat ants out of the ground than indulge in any of this pecking wood business. I think it was an immature one, as I saw a couple of them with their parents on the lawn the other day.

"The Wildlife Diary of a Polymer Claying Man" eh?

Hollow Image Transfer and wire thingies 

My 'beads' thing has been going well ;-) I don't think 'beads' is quite the right word for what I am doing at present. I'm not sure what the correct term would be. Jewelry components' is a bit general maybe? 'Thingies' is kind of convenient but doesn't make it sound like I know what I am doing ;-)

Offset scratchy squares

I seem to sell most things I list on FB these days, which is great, but brings up the old doubts about what I should be making. It's the classic 'problem' that rears ugly head (maybe not so much ugly as unwelcome) when things start to sell. Vis - Should I make more of the things that I am pretty sure will sell, or should I continue the creative experimentation and follow wherever it leads, sales or not?

Not making things that people actually want seems a bit ungrateful somehow, but repeating yourself, and risking losing the spark that makes you You as it were is not such a good idea either. The real crunch comes when you realise that if do the arty thing rather than the more commercial thing, you are turning down an almost guaranteed chance to make a useful amount of money. . . Not easy for a lifelong freelancer to turn down. It's a good dilemma to have though I suppose.

I think the answer is to make enough time to do both.
I'm working on it.

I am also lucky in that I have a client base that seems to be interested and involved in my creative journey, and seem happy to come along with me so to speak. That is pretty special I think ;-)

Texture Squares, new poly clay beads for  change

My recent work has mainly been about upcycling things, beads I put aside for various reasons, and various bits of wire and wire mesh I found stored here and there dating from before this house was ours.
I am always alert to the possibility of reaching a kind of saturation point with particular techniques and concepts, and producing uninspiring work as a consequence. I was feeling like this point was approaching vis a vis wire and poly clay orphans. . .
Until I found some old 'pod' beads I made about three years ago, in one of my bead boxes, and got all inspired again!

Captive Pod, looks kind of Inuit maybe?

Pod Suspended, Organic form meets Geometric Grid

It did make me notice something very obvious, but that had failed to penetrate my thick head, namely, that my work is very much about responding to what is around me. I don't plan anything. I don't sketch or design, I find that it all works better if I let things occur to me and see what happens. I have a general idea, some techniques and an aesthetic worked out, but other than that it's fairly spontaneous. That said, I like to think I have a trained and finely tuned instinct for what 'works' and what doesn't. It's all totally subjective of course, all about me and my personal tastes and preferences, but for better or worse, love it or hate it, take it or leave it, at the end of the day I think I am quite good at being me ;-)

Jon x

Weather Served in Chunks, Crunchy Grass, Wasp Bother and More Arty Components

Grid Spikes, my ideas often end up getting combined at some point. .

It's been a funny sort of year weather wise. Everything has come in chunks. We had a a couple of weeks of cold and snow, just when we were expecting Spring, then we had weeks of wet/very wet weather and now we're experiencing a big chunk of hot, dry stuff. Very nice to have bright sunlight and lovely warm evenings in the garden of course, I don't want to appear ungrateful, but the lawn is brown, and crunches when you walk on it. Time for at least some rain, but maybe not a big chunk of wet weather. Moderation in all things and a bit of variety, like things used to be eh?

Double sided, round, hollow, polymer clay beads on upcycled wire stalks

Talking of 'things', whatever the weather I have been finding some time to make some. 'Things' that is. As in 'not readily definable objects'. I seem to work best creatively when I don't have a solid aim in mind but just let ideas happen and see where they take me. They don't always take me in obviously usable directions, but that's ok, the process is always useful somehow even if the product sometimes isn't.

Well, my process isn't quite as random as that maybe, I do like to set some simple, but not too rigid guidelines to keep the creative flow from turning into a total splurge. 

Freedom and control, the two opposing forces we juggle with and negotiate between. . .

Rejuvenated texture squares and upcycled wire

The things I have been making combine polymer clay beads and wire in various ways.

I have quite a few beads lurking here and there that I never quite found the right use for, never managed to sell, took down from my Etsy shop when Etsy was looking like an increasingly bad option, (it has improved imho) or rescued from unsatisfactory necklaces I made quite a while ago. 

I have been combining them with upcycled, scavenged, thick wire mesh to make simple, what I call 'Industrial Boho' earring components and the like. 

OK, pretentious maybe, but it sounds better than 'Unwanted Beads and Discarded Wire' earring components. . . ;-) 

Kind of African Gothic texture spikes from an abandoned necklace plus bent wire bits

The wire I use is thick but quite malleable, so I can bend it with round nose pliers to make interesting simple shapes, and basic loops, being sure to smooth off any sharp edges in the process.

Distressed image trans rectangle and wire combination

The previously mentioned electronic components get a look in every now and then too. I'll get round to using them more in due course. Plenty of time for that.

I was going to make these into earrings myself, but decided to sell them as is

A groovy 'Traffic Light' pendant - no they don't light up

I recently, as in just the other day found a two part epoxy glue that bonds metal to metal. That is going to be very useful going forward as I am not yet versed in the art of soldering. I tried it out and it works well. Tightly wrapped wire and good superglue has worked well so far but super tough epoxy will work even better.

More rejuvenated texture squares with upcycled wire grid bits, and suitably grey coloured epoxy glue on the wrapped join

The good news is that people seem to like them and my regular customers like them well enough to buy them so I'm pleased ;-)

Oh yeah, wasps. Some smaller than usual wasps were just starting to build a nest in the shed, I only noticed when one stung me on the knuckle as I was reaching for the lawn rake, and another managed to tangle itself in my t shirt at the lower back and stung me there too. That got my attention ;-) I sprayed the beejasus out of those buggers so that will have sorted them. Stinging me! The nerve!

Anyway, off on hols to a lovely Greek island for a week so see you when I get back.

Jon x

Progress, Resistance, Chicken Troubles and Back to Some Kind of Normal

Well, the Open Studios thing has finally come to an end. On balance I don't really think it was worth the work and expense.It was nice to have people (not many though) come and see our work and make approving noises. And it was nice that I sold a few pieces. I suppose we have put ourselves on the map somewhat but the whole thing did take up too much of my time and head space really. . .

On the poly clay spike front, I have been trying them out as earrings with integral ear wires. Getting a  shape that I like and that I feel goes with the general design has been tricky.

Not something I've done before and as a non pierced eared male I have limited experience of the practical issues involved. I posted on FB for advice and received some useful feedback.

I adapted the ear wires as a consequence. And I also ordered some niobium for alternative ear wires as copper turns some people's earlobes green. It looks pretty much like oxidised copper, I have tried hammering it gently and found that it distresses nicely (in my view anyway). Not too much or the grey of the metal shows through the coating a bit too much. So it's all good.

The other area of progress has been the rustic, industrial, gothic, ancient modern/whatever pieces I have been making lately, using grungy wire mesh and/or recycled poly clay beads/upcycled electronic components. I was having the same issues/doubts over suitable ear wires for them as with the spikes, except for the choice of metal. I use titanium as it is hypo allergenic and a suitable grey colour. So far I have been concentrating on the wire + poly clay ones without added electronic bits, but I am getting my head round those too. I do seem to have been leaning towards black and white beads too, but there are colour ones in the offing too;-)

In both cases I have gone for a relatively standard ear wire shape, (much as I want to be original and oh so different. .) often with some sort of detail on the shank, such as a bead or a bit of wire wrap, as that seems to balance out the piece. I guess ear wires have evolved that way for a reason. I am still taking inspiration from the work of others so I imagine my designs will develop. We'll see.

Incidentally, the first pic in this post is of an experiment using earring posts instead of wires, looks promising too. Stay tuned. . . ;-)

I am going to try selling the integral ear wire spikes and the industrial/ancient earrings but am hitting quite a bit of internal resistance. Not sure why. I don't think it's fear that nobody will buy them, as I am ok with that. Maybe it's a feeling that I am making myself vulnerable by exposing my work to more knowledgable and potentially critical view ;-) But that is all about me rather than about real life. Maybe it's the step I am taking further down the road towards making jewellery rather than supplies that is intimidating me. And the fact that I will want to charge a decent amount for the grungy wire stuff as it is original and takes a fair bit of time to make.

Of course the other issue is that I am quite fond of them. I like referring to what I have made before when wrestling with something new.
When things sell, they are out of your life. Some things I have made and listed sold so quick I feel I hardly knew them ;-)
I shall try a FB group or two with them sometime soon though, internal resistance or no.

The smaller of our two chickens got broody again, so I shut her out of the chicken coop to attempt to dissuade her from sitting in there 24/7 getting progressively less healthy. Unfortunately, I forgot to open it up again before I went to bed. This has happened before with no ill effects but this time, come the morning there were no chickens and a small pile of discarded feathers in a corner of the orchard. Fox I reckon. Well, couldn't be anything else really. So I feel guilty ;-(
But life goes on. I will get couple of new chickens once we come back from holiday in July, and take better care of them I hope.
Oh well, onwards and upwards ;-)
Jon x

The Curious Case of The Blue Soup - A Spike Spike - and the imminent rise of Mid Century Primitive. . .

Well, starting in a backwards direction, just to be awkward, with the Mid Century Primitive, the above pic should show you what I'm on about. . .

The primitive bit is easy to get your head round, pretty self explanatory, but the Mid Century might be a bit less so. Someone mentioned it in a comment on FB and it resonated. I think there is something about the shape and colours that is resonant of fifties and sixties interior design. Your mileage may vary.

Dunno. A bit of a tenuous correlation maybe, but it's a fun invented category to explore the inherent contradictions, or indeed the inherent similarities to be found within it. ;-) 

More about this further down the blog post.

The spike in spike sales may be an oh-so-witty pun but it is also a real life event. I had another good selling session on FB the other day. (Update - and again last night!) My spikes seem to hit the spot with quite a few people.
Hooray for quite a few people, is what I say. Though a spike does imply a sharp up followed by a sharp down, so maybe it's not such a feel good analogy. . .
Anyway, the beads below all sold, amongst others. Long may it continue ;-)

I'll get to the blue soup in my own good time thank you. The subject of Mid Century Primitive is more pressing a matter. Imho of course.

It's a mixture of artily crude and deliberately and sophisticatedly unsophisticated workmanship and simple, sculptural shapes (whatever that means, as any shape could be 'sculptural' really. . . but I think you know what I mean) reminiscent of shapes popular in the fifties and sixties, especially amongst ceramic artists. Who were no doubt influenced by such artists as Brancusi, Arp, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth etc. Well, that's my take on it.

Maybe because like such artists the shapes are defined by the process as much as by an imposed conscious decision. .  Discuss. . .

I'm not saying my work lives up that ideal, but it's what I am aiming for, without getting too precious about it all. It's fun to make this stuff.

Oh yeah, the ones below sold too ;-)

Blue what? . . Oh yeah, soup.

Well. . . It's all about red cabbage. I cooked a roast chicken with all sorts of veg in the pan below it, including red cabbage. The process turned the cabbage and consequently all the veg dark blackish blue. . . ooer. . .

When I made soup from the chicken carcass and bits (as I always do) I included the left over veg. I whizzed it up in the blender and got blue black, slightly frothy, due to the blending process, soup! Yay! My wife was appalled as it didn't look even vaguely appetising ;-) I ate it however.

It tasted great with a bit of yoghurt thrown in. Hah! Mid Century Primitive Soup. . .

Till next time,
Jon x