Messing about with silver

I was trying to get a bit further with all the projects I have going at the moment.
The first job was a clearing up session to try to get a working area. During this process I found a little cheap St Christopher pendant I aquired when I bought a second hand chain. Well since he isn't officially a saint any more I decided to melt him. It's a fairly nasty little pendant anyway, (sorry if you have one like it)

 Here's the original little pendant, about the size of a 5p and very thin, with an embossed image, which is not much clearer than that close up.

Here's the melted result, I'm quite pleased that I've managed to keep the little hanging loop. I like the colours on the reverse, I doubt if I'll be able to keep those if I want to clean the rest, I'll give it a try though.

I've actually combed some of the fleece, I bought two 'slicker' combs for dogs from Wilkos (wilkinsons for the uninitiated) for about £3.50 each rather than about 10 times that for proper carding combs. I've also started making the body for one of the paper puppets. The paper rabbit has a coat of gesso ready for decorating. I've really got to concentrate on one project at a time.

As a complete side issue how about this jackdaw posing for me in the local churchyard last week.

Oh and here's a slow worm who visited last sunday.

In the background you can see a clutter of moulds and deckles, a bowl of pulp and the paper rabbit, just to prove I'm working hard.

The recycling project moves on

I've made a few beginnings on the Beaford Arts recycling project. I've spent some time thinking about what should be included, the centre is about performng arts, and about outreach and bringing arts and community together. I started thinking just about a book, and I think there will will be one. I've begun to make some puppet figures, so far only the heads, I'm planning to represent a performance space and have some puppets that can move by some mechanical means. The movement wont be very sophisticated, probably a crank that turns to make them 'dance' a bit.

The heads are just faces because I'm making them with paper casting, I think they may stay that way, my thinking is connected to the ephemeral and artificial nature of a performance, putting on a mask or alter ego to perform whether as an actor or a more direct performer like a musician. I've always liked the Quay Brothers so an element of that wierdness might creep in.
I have a roll of copper mesh and I think the bodies may be formed from that, probably with more paper attached.
The rabbit has not been an unqualified success, it was really difficult to remove from the mould and I had to repair a couple of bits.

You can see there are a few cracks still, I'm not sure how to repair the outer surface, where it's whole and well moulded it has a wonderful silky smoothness which would be lost if I repair the outside with extra pulp, unless I can somehow put it back into the mould to redry. It took about 4 days to dry enough to take out the first time, and that includes 2 1/2 hour sessions in the oven and sitting it on a radiator at night and in the morning when we have one on in the bathroom.
I intend to give it a 'performance' element by applying a story to the rabbit's surface and some kind of noise creating thing inside. I'd like to have an electronic 'voice' inside the rabbit but it's proving very difficult to find one exccept on import sites that want you to buy 1,000 units! By the way does a rabbit make a noise?

Hello

This is my first attempt at a blog. I'm an ancient jewellery designer living in devon. I make my jewellery using sea glass and ceramics washed up on the beaches of North Devon.
I also work part time in a local library and with my husband in his Brass Rubbing Centre within the Combe Martin wildlfe and dinosaur park a great place, full of mad animals you can get close to and noisy parrots. One of the parrots has learnt to whistle the theme from The Great Escape! Below you can see a rabbit happily feeding under a dinosaur taken at the end of the day when everyone had gone home.






















Here's a picture of a piece of my jewellery I hope you'll want to see more. I have shops on MISI and Etsy I don't seem to be able to link to Etsy at the moment so if you can my shop is called vintage beader. I also have my own website; click on the photo to see it.


That's probably more than enough waffle for now. I'll try to update soon. Cheers everyone.