Jewellery!

Ages ago now, I used to make jewellery and I really enjoyed it and then I stopped. I've recently started again after unpacking all my supplies from moving and remembering how fun it was.

I can't do silversmithing anymore because I don't have the equipment or the space, but I had an unfinished bracelet hanging around my room and Vicky from Raindrops on Roses let me steal her workshop and her solder to finish the clasp.

I made this ring with the leftover silver. Thank you so much to Vicky because I was seriously rusty! I haven't done silversmithing for eight years!

I may not be working with silver any more but I can still work with beads, so I dug those out and started playing. I had to get a few more supplies before I could use some of the beads (and I still do), but here's what I've done so far:

It was getting dark when I took the photos, so they're a bit grainy I'm afraid. Here's the bracelets in smaller groups:

The clear elastic gave me a lot of problems, so I haven't cut the ends off yet. I'm going to glue the knots so they're extra secure and then cut them. The black elastic is fine without the glue so they're cut but I think I'll glue them as well just in case.

I'm on the hunt for wooden beads and gemstone beads because they're what I prefer working with, although none of the bracelets pictured have gemstones in them; I'm too nervous of using them in case I can't find any more. I also want to do jewellery with leather and waxed cord instead of just elastic.

I started working on these for myself, too. They're going to be hair ties - I have VERY long hair and I'm finally bored of having a plain elastic at the end of my braid, so I'm going to wrap these around it instead. They're made with wood, bone (I think) and waxed cord. If I have extra cord left over then I'll make a few more. I've only knotted the beads on the first one at the top, I haven't done the others yet. It's hard figuring out how much cord I need between the two - it's difficult to pull the large bone beads through a knot.

Which leads me to the point of this - I'm going to start an Etsy shop for this blog. Initially it will just have the bead jewellery on there but eventually, maybe I can put paintings and photo prints on there too. I'll make another post when it's all set up.

AND. Since I started writing this blog post, I've made 15 more bracelets. The two on the top row on the left are mine. I've kept three of the rainbow bracelets for myself.

There are 38 bracelets in total now, so that's 35 for the shop!

Art Dump plus one WIP

I was going to make separate posts for all of these, but then I decided that I couldn't really be bothered to.

First up is the sheet of flowers done with Copic markers. I put a preview of this on Instagram with just the lines drawn, so here's the "finished" version. The first one I couldn't really be bothered with. For its size, it was too detailed. The second one is probably my favourite: I like the colours and I like the way they blended together. The third one is too dark but I used the lightest colours so there's not much I can do about that. The fourth one needs Copic white and I don't have any, so that isn't quite finished, and the fifth one looked perfectly blended until it dried, otherwise that would've been my favourite instead. I could probably have played with it more but I didn't want to go back to it. These were completed ages ago - the date is written on the sheet.

Next is the watercolour sunset I previewed on Twitter. It was completed the day after the painting in the last post but I haven't had the chance to upload it before now. This is one of the most relaxing things I've ever painted - I loved every minute of it. I'm definitely going to do more skies!

Then there's a Copic multiliner brush pen scribble of Wish from one of the photos I took of him years ago. I couldn't be bothered to do his markings, especially with a brush pen (he's an Appaloosa) and I didn't want to ruin what I'd done as I was happy with it like this. It practically matches the photo and I couldn't erase anything because it was pen, so I was very happy to get the anatomy done. It's in an A5 sketchbook that I have solely for use with pen and ink and it's the third drawing in there.

The fourth drawing in the pen and ink sketchbook is this one of a (sort of) Rainbow Cobweb Delta Guppy. I bought a dip pen and drawing inks and this is my first try at using colours and doing a "proper" drawing with them. I got a bit carried away with it but the paper held up quite well and I'm pleased with how it turned out. I'd rather not know how many times I had to dip the pen.

Last but not least is a watercolour WIP with horses and stuff. I don't know if I'll ever get around to finishing it. It's been quite boring to do so far, if I'm being honest. I am extremely sick of seeing and mixing the colour green and the masking fluid tore the paper in several places so it looks a mess anyway. I don't know. Maybe I will, maybe I won't.

I'm going to return to the other watercolour flower soon so I can get that other sheet posted, then I'm going to try a few watercolours of people. No green there!

Watercolour Wednesday

(Although by the time the paint has dried and the internet has stopped being a bitch, it's Thursday.)

I've been following @charlesevansart on Twitter for a little while now and his paintings made me want to destroy more of my paper collection, so I did.

I ended up using different brushes and the whole-pan studio set because it's a bit stupid of me to waste travelling supplies when I'm sitting in my room. I struggled with them a little because there are lots of colours I'm not used to using and none of the colours are labelled. My half-pans have the colours written on the side of the pans but these don't. I'd guess the blue that I made so much use of was cobalt blue. Larger pans, larger brushes and larger paper was quite nice, though.

The paper has buckled a bit but it's had a LOT of water thrown at it. I can definitely tell it's better quality than the ancient paper I'm using for the practice sheets (I still haven't posted the last one, gulp). It didn't dissolve under pressure either, so that's good. I'm going to use the pad as a watercolour sketchbook of sorts. There's eleven sheets left for me to ruin/play with.

It's quite the landscape disaster, but I don't think I care that much. I used my own photos for reference and the location is one of my favourites.