Day trip to Scout Mountain

Yesterday we took a break from town and headed south just about 15 miles to get up into the mountains. Click on the photo below (that's Scout Mountain) and see some of the beautiful soul enriching moments in nature that we found out there :) There's just 25 photos, just click on the arrow above each photo to see the next. Hope it inspires you like it did us!

Sue
www.adyinart.com

Building a better Mousetrap (wearable vessel art)

I've had an issue with the designs of the wearable vessels I've been experimenting with from the start. The original idea came from a project on the Sculpey site. It looked lovely, but the cord goes right up through the center of the bottle, which makes it pretty much useless for carrying anything in it. It's small, and not much could fit anyways but it's just the principle of the thing.

There's also an issue with the original lid not wanting to stay on the bottle. So I've tried various different methods to try and resolve the problem.

The latest was a hinge method, which works fine, but causes the bottle to flop a bit, rather than lay in a nice straight line down the chest. I like my end results to look polished and I'm just not getting that effect like I want.

So I sat down to try and design something a bit better. My sketch work is a mess, but I'm not trying to draw something pretty, just see if a design might work.

Here I played with the idea of using a pin to keep the lid on the bottle. I'm not really sure how well the pin would stay in, though I do like the oval shaped bottle for design. The problem with that is trying to get the mold out of the bottle later and there's also an issue with attaching the pin to the bottom, if it does work its way out then the whole bottom of the bottle could be lost.

Here I decided to go to a squarish shape and use a trapeze mount, similar to the idea behind my sculpture art pendants. I don't want to drill holes all over the piece, it's not really that thick, so I thought of using triangular strips of clay on the outside to trap the wire between them and the actual sides of the bottle. I also thought it would hang better if I attached it to a round tube for the necklace to run through. I'm thinking this last design might work well. 

With sculpting I can picture something in my mind and make it work, but with the more mechanical side of design I end up experimenting and, in my opinion, wasting clay on sub-standard designs. If I sit down and sketch I can usually see what the issues that I might encounter will be and hopefully build a better mousetrap as I work with it on paper.

Sue
www.adyinart.com

More playing around with jewelry

I'm taking the weekend off, but thought I'd show some if the other things I was playing with yesterday. I just take the leftover pieces from my clay 'fabric' and just cut out interesting patterns for earrings, pendants and beads. 

This week's site of the week showcases jewelry/sculpture metal artist Courtney Gray . I found her quite by accident, I was looking into using PMC (precious metal clay) and then found that it won't keep sculpted shapes so was looking into silversmithing. Courtney had a fabulous how to video on you tube and I followed the links to her site. Gotta love a woman who gets down and dirty with metal :D

Wearable Vessel Art

I've been making little bottle necklaces and fooling around with the design...this is my latest which works like a hinge. The bottles are 2 inches high and can hold secret messages or other small items.

I worked on a couple more today and did several earring sets and a few decorative pendants. You can see them on my website.

When art goes Bad

'When art goes bad' sounds like one of those specials on Animal Planet when someone seriously gets maimed, but there really are days in an artist's life when you end up feeling like you've just been mauled. You know how it is...things you've done a hundred times with no problem just won't work and if you're trying something new you can even wonder what ever made you thought you could be an artist.

I know that when I have a day like that it's usually because I'm over tired. Today was one of those days...everything I touched just fell apart or was ruined because other things fell apart. I even stabbed my finger with a razor knife (just a nick, but red doesn't mix well in ivory clay). I ended up salvaging part of my work and used it to make a new frame for tomorrow's work, so at least I didn't end up with a total loss for the day. On days like this it really is easy to question everything I'm doing, but in the end I realize it's just an off day. Tomorrow I will be fresh after a good night's sleep and I'll be right back in the old saddle.