cream or jam first?

I had a cream tea yesterday in Chagford to celebrate one of my patterns being featured in the new MOYO, a magazine about surface pattern design. We had our usual discussion about whether the cream or jam should go on first. Whichever it tastes just as good!

Sprigmug  © Lesley Todd 2012

Lots of fab work from my fellow students is also on show in the magazine so if you’re interested in joining the new round of the Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design (ABSPD) courses that are about to begin why not take a look… Congrats to everyone who got featured!

A screenshot of the magazine… my pattern is 2nd row, 2nd down.

“MOYO, the world’s first online magazine dedicated to surface pattern design! Packed with interviews, design briefs, colour challenges, art reviews, student showcases, design tips, inspiration, trends and more.”

I had a lovely few hours exploring Chagford which is on the edge of Dartmoor in Devon. It’s a fabulous place, full of quirky shops, galleries, teashops and pubs. People are very friendly here and there is a great arty vibe. It is unusual for a small place to have so many independently owned shops selling everything you could think of or need. It would be an amazing place to live surrounded by lush countryside, maybe one day…

We found this Swedish mid century tray by Konga Princesse in one of the shops and decided to take it home.

We also visited Stone Lane Gardens where there are sculptures to be found hiding in the trees. I fell in love with the work of Tati Dennehy, nature had added it’s own flourish to her work and it couldn’t be more perfect in this woodland garden.

Sculpture by Tati Dennehy

I also fell for this beautiful owl sculpture, I’m afraid I don’t know the artist’s name. Please leave a comment if you know.

Gorgeous patterns to be found in nature… will definitely be using this as inspiration!

Bye for now and if you’re in the UK have a wonderful bank holiday weekend!

first exercise… sketchbook to pattern

So this is my first creative exercise from the Surface Pattern course I’ve signed up for. I’ve already learnt so much from reviewing module 1 yesterday (I’ve dived straight into module 2 because I was too impatient for module 1 to start in August!) Can’t believe how intense this course is already… I’m finding myself completely absorbed by it. Already noticing patterns everywhere!! 

Anyway… for the first exercise I chose to draw the mug on my desk and ended up simplifying it to create a motif (although I was supposed to embellish it). Then after scanning it into the computer I worked it up into a complete pattern. I never thought about creating motifs in this way… it’s a bit of a revelation to me!

Thank you for all the kind comments on my last post. It’s great to be back blogging again!

perfect timing

Well, it has been a while but I have just signed up to an exciting e-course!!! The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design!!! So I think it is the perfect time to settle back into blogging which I've wanted to do for a while. Hopefully interesting times ahead!

creating a mood

I’ve been having fun with my camera, taking photos of my new pyrography necklaces for my etsy shop. The forest has been great for finding different textures and backgrounds. I completely lost track of time and it became like when I am drawing, completely focused on just one thing, all the stress of life melted away.

Trying to think up ways of putting across my feelings for these necklaces through the photos is hard but I think I’m getting there! I’m hoping to come up with a sort of formula to make the following necklaces quicker to put into the shop.

I’m not sure I can count the photography part as work because I enjoy it so much, and there’s the added bonus that Floss gets a walk at the same time.

I have noticed the leaves changing colour already and Autumn is definitely in the air. The smell of Autumn in the forest is so evocative for me. When I was four, my first night away from home was with school to a place called Fox Howl in the forest. I can still remember the ranger taking us on a walk to show us all the different types of fungi. It was all such a big adventure.

silver patina

I’ve been making a keepsake for my god-daughter-to-be with silver metal clay. I took some photos after I oxidised the pendant with liver of sulphur because the colours that appeared were really beautiful. I can hardly bare to polish this back but the original idea was just to give it an antique finish and make the letter stand out more. I know it’s possible to keep patinas like this with some special wax but I think they eventually darken. Mmmm… what to do???!

sketchbook honey bee to thank you card

I recently bought myself some new Triplus pens and they have completely changed the way I use my sketchbook. I just love them! I use them for drawing, sketching out ideas, trying designs for pyrography, list making and lots more.

I drew this bee in my sketchbook, the amazing thing about drawing is that you notice and learn so much more about the subject you’re studying. For instance, I never knew that bees had little claw-like feet and such hairy legs!

I scanned my drawing into Photoshop and after a bit of tweaking came up with this which I liked better for what I had in mind.

It was one day last week, we were walking Floss and got talking to a man outside his house who owns a chocolate factory (can you imagine how lovely that would be?!). He told us he keeps bees so he can use the honey in his confectionery. I’ve always been interested in beekeeping so asked him lots of questions and then as I was getting round to asking him if he sold the wax (thinking that it would be great to use on my pyrography being so local) he fetched us a jar of honey and wouldn’t take anything in return.

A thank you card! I hope he likes it.

And to think, that honey might have been made using the flowers from our garden! How ace is that? I’ve never tried local honey before. It doesn’t taste like any honey I’ve tasted before and it’s delicious.

A peek at what I’ve been crafting…

I’ve been woodburning designs and patterns onto beads and making necklaces with my pyrography kit. For ages now I’ve been fascinated by tattoos, especially old school type tatts. I’d love to get one done (my mum is horrified by this even though I’m in my mid 30’s! Haha!) but I hate needles so it will take a lot of courage. I’m a big fan of The Cannibal Bonbon blog, her work is amazing! So maybe one day I will travel to Paris for a tattoo. Maybe! In the mean time I will play with some tatts on wood and I’ll wear one round my neck instead.

I’ve got lots more designs to show you, many of them are geometric patterns (another fascination of mine at the moment) and I’m working on building up a collection and putting them in my etsy shop. I’d really like to open a new shop with a brand new name for my pyrography but I’m finding it hard to choose one and I’m not sure it’s a good idea after building up some good feedback with Bird Ahoy. But now would be the best time to do it. What to do… what to do…?

Any suggestions would be very welcome! Especially for a name.

old red fox pyrography

My latest woodburning.

Old Red’s a wily fox who likes nothing more than finding a quiet spot to sunbath. He knows that he’s less likely to be spotted if he follows the edge of the field and in any case, everyone knows that the edge is always the most interesting place to be with all the wild flowers, animals and birds nesting!

I have taken to hanging these little circles of English sycamore wood on the wall like mini artworks.

There is also a small slice of yew that I’m working on from the timber yard down the road. I’ve decided on a sleeping fox this time. Rumours of a mini festival being organised at the yard centred around wood craft with a barbeque and some live music have caught my interest. Sounds like fun! My friend asked if I’d like to show some of my work so of course I said yes! Better get cracking then!

Bye for now.

painted pebbles

I got a bit fed up with the dust from engraving pebbles recently and decided to try painting them for a change. So much easier to clean up afterwards! The beautiful piece of wood underneath is a piece of yew branch that my friend cut and sanded for me. It’s so lovely that I’m struggling to take my pyrography pen anywhere near it, although my friend is insisting that’s why he gave it to me. I am ecstatic to have some local wood that has come from a tree surgeon who is very passionate about trees. He always tries to find the best use for every part of the trees he works with (if he can’t save them) and does his best to make sure the wood won’t end up in a landfill in 30 years time by becoming cheap veneered furniture.


Anyway, back to the pebbles… birds and foxes, I think my favourite is the owl. I’ve come to realise that if I draw them straight out onto the pebble without using my sketchbook they have more spontaneity and better lines. All these pebbles are quite tiny and I had to use a very fine brush.

Did you hear the good news about the forests?!!! I was so relieved to hear the announcement that after the immense public response our government have decided to drop their plans to sell our public woodland!!!!! How brilliant is that?!!! Thank you so much to everyone who signed the petition or wrote an email. People power really does work!!

toadstools

Yes, I’ve been at it again and I’m still lost in the woods but with the mushrooms this time. I enjoyed trying out some more pen and ink type hatching on this woodburning. Although I wish that I’d made the toadstool a bit more jaunty looking. Maybe I’ll do another one. I’ve been using Danish oil on the previous woodburnings to finish them off although I’d like a more environmentally friendly oil finish if there is one. Any ideas?

If I’m not burning bits of wood with my pyrography machine or out walking Floss I’m to be found curled up somewhere with my new kindle, a present from Mr P. I downloaded Jane Eyre as my first book to read, never read it before and really loving it. Although it seems paradoxical to be reading a book written in the 19th century on an electronic device and I am feeling a bit sentimentally lost without the feel of paper and the smell of a real book, I also love the fact that I never lose my page, my arm never aches and it’s just so easy to turn the page or look up a word that I don’t understand, I can read in bed without waking Mr P up too. I’ve always been a bit of a night owl. Also, I love the random pictures of authors which appear when you turn the device off. Has anyone else got one?

Right, must go and walk Floss in the forest before it goes dark. Bye for now.

green deep woods

Here is my latest offering… a piece of sycamore burned with a bird in the rain. I changed the wire ‘nib’ on the wood burning machine for this one. It has a sort of spoon shape and is good for shading.

The woods are on my mind a lot at the moment. On Wednesday the government, after a heated debate followed by a divided vote and then a further vote behind locked doors, finally opted to go ahead and sell our public forests and woodland. This isn’t the end of the road though, as the Save Our Woods campaign journey will carry on to the House of Lords and the House of Commons. You can still sign the petition here… it will make a difference. Over 450,000 people have now added their names! During the debate a number of conservative MPs also expressed concern about the amount of letters they were receiving from their constituents… write to your MP here. It’s made very easy for you and only takes a few minutes depending on how much you want to add.

on not knowing when to stop

So this is how it is now.

And this is how it was when I should have probably stopped.

I don’t know, what do you think?

I just can’t seem to stop tweaking things sometimes and then eventually I forget where I started from.

I think I just wanted it to look older and a bit worn and not so pristine. Not sure if I succeeded or not without ruining it.

Anyway, these two squirrels are enjoying a cup of nut tea on a huge fly agaric mushroom! I used another piece of English sycamore for the wood burning, it’s a large key ring.

I got a bit het up before when I was reading the news. The pope’s visit last year cost the taxpayer £10m, this was for just a few days. Apparently that is around about the same amount it costs the government (after timber sales) to look after the forests for a whole year. No disrespect, but I know which I would rather have.

If you haven’t already signed the petition to stop the government selling our public forests, please sign it here. You can also email your MP. The website makes it really easy to do and call me sad but it’s quite exciting to get a fancy letter through your door with ‘House of Commons’ embossed on the envelope (not cutting the stationery budget then?).

Right, feeling much calmer now, which is good considering I’m about to get hold of that pyrography machine again!

smouldering wood

The first attempt using my new pyrography machine was so much fun and my hair had the faint aroma of wood smoke for the rest of the evening. It surprised me how slow the process was but I found it so relaxing and satisfying that I’m looking forward to doing another one. First though I can’t decide if I’ve finished this piece or not and I’m in two minds as to whether I should fill in the tree or not. I have a bad habit of always pushing things too far and then wishing I hadn’t so I’ve decided to leave it for now. What do you think?

It’s destined to be either a large key ring or a small wall hanging.

I used an idea from my sketchbook. All my ideas seem to revolve around the forest these days probably because of my daily walks with Floss. It seemed fitting to use a nature based idea on the wood which is a lovely piece of English sycamore.

This is the wire tip that heats up to burn the wood. You can make all sorts of marks and tones depending on how long you hold it on the wood.

Speaking of the forest, the government is planning on selling off our precious woodland. You can find out more about it here and more importantly, there is a public consultation starting from today that will run for 12 weeks until 21st April 2011. If the issue is important to you then please take the time to respond to it. You can find the document on the forestry commission website and it is possible to respond online. This is our chance to make our views known.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend.

silver tea party

My mum loves tea and always makes it properly in a pot. It is always brought out on a tray with the milk in a little jug and a separate pot of hot water. It is their ritual at least three times a day. I think my mum would stop functioning without her daily cuppa.

So I decided to make a tea necklace. It took me a while to figure out how to construct a teapot from metal clay. I knew if I tried to make it straight from the clay that it would start to dry and crack before I’d finished it because of the short working time. So I made a prototype from polymer clay first. I spent ages getting it just how I wanted it and it was very fiddly being so small. When it was finished I realised that to make life much easier for myself I could make a silicon mould from it to create an exact replica (albeit a slightly smaller one with the shrinkage of the clay when it’s fired). That was a lot of fun! So I made a tea cup too.

The moulds were very easy to work with, the clay popped out without any problems, even with the very thin handles to deal with.

After firing and aging with liver of sulphur it looked like an old, well used teapot and I strung it with some crystals and a magnetic clasp to make it easy to take on and off.

I just wish the price of silver would come down. There are so many things dancing around in my head that I’d like to make but it is so expensive at the moment. I will have to start drawing them out in my sketchbook in preparation.

silver trinkets

I wanted to make Mr P a very personal gift so I spent some time thinking about textures and things he loves and holds dear. There is a pair of leather boots that he’s very attached to that I will forever associate with him so I decided to make a texture plate using some polymer clay. I was really pleased with the amount of detail it picked up and transferred to the metal clay. When I aged the fired silver with liver of sulphur and polished it back, the texture really popped out. It was like magic.

I think Mr P likes it. It’s dangling from his neck as I type.

hibernation!!

I've just been woken out of my temporary blogging hibernation with a jolt! I have won the most beautiful amazing giveaway at the Mimilove blog!! I really can't believe my luck!! As I just said to Karen, I haven't won anything for a long time so I must have been saving all my luck up for something really wonderful! If you've not seen Karen's stitching and painting magic before go and take a look, it's really amazing artwork!! And to top it off I won a lovely book as well so maybe there will be some stitchery going on around here soon too!

Here I have been braving the cold and ice of the forest every day with the wolflet. The freezing fog has created the most amazing winter wonderland, with mini icicles adorning every leaf, twig and branch.

These photos of the rose are from last week before the real deep freeze kicked in. Needless to say, the rose is now hibernating too.

I've just been cutting out a freezer paper stencil with a scalpel knife. I'm typing this while I'm waiting for the paint to dry on the t-shirt. I'm so impatient that I have to distract myself so I don't pull the stencil off too soon and ruin it. There are also some silver metal clay presents in the works too but I will post about that another time so as not to spoil any surprises.

Keep warm and snug wherever you are! I am off to celebrate my win with a hot chocolate!