White Water Turquoise

I made this necklace for myself with some of my favourite White Water Mine Turquoise, some silver and a handmade pendant from Jean Christen ( Clay Genie ) I love wearing it!

Coping with the high cost of silver and gold

Reading my friend Lori's blog sparked my idea to write some musing on this subject from my perspective. I used to make art jewellery pieces up until a couple of years ago with sterling silver armatures wrapped with very fine silver wire, I developed my own style and things went well, but with the constantly rising cost of silver I began to question where I was going, add the gemstones etc, etc and expenses rose, yes it was fun to create, especially as I enjoy making as many parts of a design as I can apart from the gemstones obviously I leave that to mother nature.

Then a few years back I was introduced to Premo Polymer clay, its a bit like paint in solid form I thought so I was hooked. I took a few tutorials to begin with, then as usual I meandered off on my own. Many years ago I worked with clay but this was different I had colour now and many more colours could be mixed from the basics! So I made many different items from small sculptures to jewellery, which is now my preference.

Polymer clay it would seem has come into its own and is no longer considered the outsider but is sold in prestigious galleries, there are museum collections and displays of jewellery it has finally made it!

Last year I got to thinking how wonderful it would be to work with gold clay that I could shape into my own designs for necklaces and pendants, a lovely setting for beautiful Jaspers, Agates and Gemstones etc so working from my original sketches; I spent the next six months building a collection of art necklaces and pendants based in the gold polymer clay.

The Inspiration; water plays a large part in my life as I live close to the ocean, enjoy lakes and streams, with reeds and swans, the ponds in our garden. Trees are important to me, also mosses and ferns, each piece of jewellery I sketch has an inspiration in nature and the natural world around me. Sometimes it is a shape I want to capture or maybe a beautiful Jasper cab inspires a picture.

So my problem seems to be solved, I no longer need large quantities of silver or gold metal and I am excited with all the new possibilities this new direction has given me.

This collection will be available when we have finished updating the web site.

Bead Soup Blog Party!

I have just joined Lori Andersons Bead Soup Blog Party it sounds like its going to be fun! There is still time to join in just click on the logo on the right hand side of this page to be taken to Lori's blog.

Painting of Glenveagh

This is the watercolour I painted of Glenveagh gardens with the castle in the background. I really enjoyed doing paintings of the different places I visited. It was a long time since I had got out the paints, being involved with other things these days. I do notice some strange shadow lines on the left of the painting, I have no idea what made them as they are not part of the painting, very weird!

I tend to leave the art side of things to my daughter Lara she takes commisions for pet portraits and fantasy art also small clay sculptures she finished a set of cartoon style Dr Who sculptures before Christmas which were very detailed.

There are so many things I would like to do and try but time passes so quickly these days and I will never be able to fit them all in, maybe tomorrow!

Festival of the Trees

I took these photos at Glenveagh National Park in Donegal Ireland, the top picture is the castle and gardens, second the Gardeners Cottage, third Glenveagh Estate. The friends I was staying with at the time suggested I might like to go there, so we took a leisurely drive and arrived around lunchtime. The park itself has a wild beauty all its own, deep in the Derryveagh mountains that rise up from Lough Veagh. The estate runs to around 40,000 acres, the castle which we were able to take a tour of had a very lived in feeling about it, built in the 19th century by John George Adair a man born in County Laois who made his fortune in the USA and later owned by two other Americans. But it was Henry McIlhenny of Philadelphia who bought the estate in 1936 who left a lasting impression on the estate which he made the focus of his life for the 36 years he lived there. Henry McIlhenny developed the castle and gardens into what they are today. Henry also loved entertaining and one can imagine the parties and film stars invited to stay the guest book read like a who's who of actors, artists, musicians and famous names of the times.

The castle gardens are lovely when I came home I did a water colour painting of them from the photos I took, there was a picturesque Gardener's Cottage, in the grounds full of flowers at the time we visited. The contrast between these pretty gardens and the wild mountains and boglands bordered by the deep lough's made a pleasant oasis of culture and gentle beauty in the rugged landscape.

There is so much more I could write about Glenveagh but I will leave you with a picture or two from my pleasant stay.

New shop on Ruby Plaza

We have just opened a shop on Ruby Plaza, I have not put any of The Gold Collection pieces of jewellery in as I would prefer to put them on our own web site at least for now but there are some lovely gemstone necklaces, a bracelet and earrings, I shall be adding more during the weeks to come. The link to the shop is on the right just click it and you will be taken right to it.

The decision to try a shop was not taken lightly and hopefully it will work out, if you have never been to Ruby Plaza it is a sister online shopping mall to Ruby Lane,.I didn't find it very easy to begin with as there are so many do's and dont's lol.

There are such a lot of these places online now days it is a bit difficult to know just what would suit us best. Artfire seems quite good, so does DaWanda UK although nothing seems to be moving very fast in the present climate and I do think you can overstretch yourself and spend so much time putting items up on these places etc there is no time left for creating. Having said that I am hopeless at the selling side of things can't seem to manage it at all well, I think I have lost the art of writing good content over the years, although I used to enjoy writing and even wrote articles for a magazine at one time. I hope maybe someone will take a look at the new shop.

My autumn necklace this year is of course a Gold Collection piece. The strung necklace is peach moonstones with grey moonstone stars. I just couldn't resist these beautiful Jasper stones, they remind me of wild places in the dawn, just as the sun is coming up, streams with reeds, home to swans and birds aahhh what it is to dream!

New Jewellery at last

The London trip was nice but would have been a lot better if Lara and I had not both picked up some old virus there, which really spoilt the week! I have been unwell with it ever since which is a really long time and why I did not feel like writing anything as it was all doom and gloom lol. Now I am feeling much better and I have been moving forward with 'The Gold Collection' if your wondering why gold? Well gold polymer clay simply makes my art necklaces and pendants affordable, most people couldn't afford to buy my art designs in high carat gold, so this was a way of making them affordable.

I am useing many beautiful handcut Jaspers, Agates, Fossil materials and rare stones. Faceted and smooth gemstones in variety and choosing the most beautiful high quality gemstone beads and pearls for stringing. It has also been a time of experimentation, I am trying different things and cut the templates from my sketches, finding ways to set gemstones in the clay and I am loving it!

My ideas are moving forward, I have been especially inspired by ferns of all kinds recently; a number of different ones grow in my garden I am particularly fond of the Hart's Tongue fern. The hedgerows and places around here abound with ferns hiding between rocks and carpeting the moss grown floor under trees. So here is a necklace and pendant from The Gold Collection celebrating the Hart's Tongue and other ferns. The necklace will be for sale but the pendant I made as a gift for a dear friend.

I would love it if you would leave me a comment.

Desert Flower

This will be just a short post as my daughter and I are off tomorrow up to London, we stay with a friend just outside the city and tube in, so get the best of both worlds. We have several things planned to do, lunch with a cousin, visiting favourite shops, galleries and maybe a museum, we may go to the theatre and generally enjoy ourselves. We are both looking forward to this annual break.

We have had guests so I haven't been very creative recently but I have just finished an interesting asymetrical necklace which I named Desert Flower. The circles and tiny round beads are picture Jasper, the beautiful colour of these turquoise coloured stones look great in the centre of each circle with little silver beads the lovely chain is also silver I added just a sprinkling of Swarovski crystals in copper. I found the lovely silver flower toggle which seemed just right and Desert Flower was born! I think it turned out quite well.

Please do leave a comment if you would like to I love to hear from you all.

Summer flowers

Oh dear I have been so busy I have forgotten to post for ages so here I am at last.
The garden is coming along quite well, we desperately needed the rain, well now we have it, I suppose it just won't stop, July seems to always be a fairly wet month down here.

Lara and I are off up to London for a week in August to stay with a friend, meet up with my cousin for lunch, take in a show etc etc, we always have the best time and we are both looking forward to it as a nice break.

I have been adding to my Gold Collection and made several art necklaces two for a challenge which I can't put on the blog yet but I am adding a lovely summer flower pendant from the Gold Collection, which I just finished its in warm summer shades and is embellished with some beautiful vintage Swarovski AB crystals which are not too easy to see as they are tucked between the petals but they add a sparkle and shine the centre of the large flower has a vintage Swarovski and the little salmon pinkflowers have rows of tiny 2mm crystals as well, lots of sunshine in this piece!

I grow orchids so created this necklace of pink and white orchids and blue forget me nots. I made the sketch for this earlier in the year but never got round to making it till last month, once I started it was such a pretty piece to work on, I did enjoy finding just the right pale pink nugget pearls to add to it and the silver hook clasp which you can't see has a little flower too. Both these pieces will be going up for sale on the web site soon but if you are interested in either of them you can just email me now. .

Opal necklaces

It seems ages since I have been able to write anything on the blog, or even go to peek at what everyone is doing at the moment. The web site is still unfinished, but we now have a nice new panelled front door frame and the door has been repainted. Lara and I have been working hard in the garden clearing brambles that have come in from next door, ready for the fencing. This holiday weekend all three of us have been working hard cutting back and clearing, clearing, clearing, getting ready for the new fences to go up hopefully in two to three weeks time


I have completed two necklaces both with opals set in gold polymer clay they are in an antique style. I start with sketches, then make templates, I really enjoyed making these just not quite as much as creating the Pandora's lol.

The double strand necklace has a piece of boulder opal set in the focal which has sculpted ends the fantastic iridescent enameled effect was achieved with mica powders, I love using these! The beads are Amazonite and a beautiful Brazilian Amazonite it is such a wonderful colour very soft teal/aqua, almost the last of my white baroque pearls and glass beads that were just a perfect colour, it drapes well and looks lovely on.


The second necklace is quite unusual as it is in three pieces not quite as I envisaged it in the beginning though! Two lovely pieces of boulder opal grace the side panels and an opal triplet the central panel, you can't really see the colours opal is so difficult to photograph, but they are beautiful. I used the mica powders again on the sculpted pieces to give an iridescent enamel effect. The gemstones for the necklace are Apatite bricks with yellow Fluorite rounds and Apatite chips with glass beads to link the pieces together.


I adore the colours in these two necklaces as I live by the sea it just reflects the wonderful tones and shades of the ocean seen from my window on any day. These are not on the web site as yet I thought I would preview them here first, what do you think I would love to hear from you?

Feeling Creative!

Our overhaul of the web site this year seems to be taking forever, Lara who is also the webmaster has been so busy with her commissions and other work that it is on a go slow and only half finished. We really wanted to showcase not just work for sale but commissions, work in progress artwork, jewellery and sculptures.

There just seems to be so much to do with work progressing in the house, it is a very old house so needs constant attention and it has taken us years to eventually get down to the bottom floor, there are four floors and we finished the kitchen last Christmas but still more to do, when I say finished the kitchen I mean it was gutted completely right up to the joists, my husband did all the work himself so it all takes a lot of time. Right now he is finishing two of the windows we had double glazed last year but never got to finish around them. then there is the front door the frame is all rotted out so needs replacing but of course it isn't that easy or straightforward, never is in this house, so we await the various carpenters who will hopefully submit their prices in the not to distant future. I haven't even mentioned the garden yet! The fences one side are falling down and have to be replaced and the whole garden sorted out and my lovely canal pond filled in as being at the bottom of the garden it has become a lot of work to clean it etc. So I will have to bring my large Koi up to the top pond and somehow enlarge it a little bit as I hand feed them and couldn't bring myself to part with them, they are like old friends.

Not much time for web sites you might say, I have been in a very creative mood recently, but now I feel strangely restive with too many ideas popping up in my thoughts and none of them really settling into something definite I can work with, so I am going to show you some of the things I have finished in my Pandora collection.

The little blue lilies pendant has bronze wire the loop at the bottom I was going to add something but don't know just what yet! The Pandora necklace took a very long time to construct as it was so complicated it was really inspiring to create, have to say I enjoyed it immensely and is so comfortable to wear, I love it!

Pandora

Lara and I went to see the film Avatar in 3D earlier this year, I loved the concept of an unspoiled planet full of natural wonders, we bought the hardback book Avatar to share between us a few weeks later and although not a thick book it was interesting and gave some insight into the design and making of the film. The use of colours intrigued me as did the idea of floating mountains in fact I found it all quite enchanting.

Since then I have been working on my Pandora collection of pendants and necklaces inspired by the strangely beautiful alien world of Pandora. Sculpted in Polymer clay, the photos don't really show them to best effect as they are dusted with interference and mica powders to add that special iridescence the pendants and necklaces were exciting and intricate to design I really enjoyed making them, so I thought I would share some of them with you, I hope you like them to!

Easter Sunday Afternoon

This afternoon I went with my daughter and husband to a graveyard at the top of a hill, the sun was shining and the sweet smell of the glorious white narcissi and yellow daffodils lining the paths between the tall stately ceders wafted on the breeze. Each year for the last three years my daughter has visited the last earthly resting place of her dear friend Anthony, who lost his brave battle just a few days after his 22nd birthday.
Each year Lara has put a sprig of Rosemary for remembrance on the grave, I always cut the stems carefully for her and we bind them with ribbon in his favourite colour royal blue. Lara believes that knowing Anthony has made her a better more careing person, he will always be remembered and his courage in the face of great odds, will perhaps make us grateful for the health we have right now and the love we share as a family.

Lara's Art

Today I wanted to share with you my daughters art, Lara took a diploma course at the London Art College in Pet Portraiture and received a pass with merit at the end of 2008, needless to say her dad and I were very proud of her and she has had many commissions since, though mostly fantasy art, in fact her fantasy work and cartoons are all over the net lol. So I thought it would be rather nice to showcase some of the non fantasy pictures Lara did to win her diploma.

The horses head I really like as I love horses and used to ride a lot when younger, it was also the first horse she had ever drawn. The Borzoi is not one of ours and I have asked her to do portraits of our Borzois all sadly passed away now, I still miss them, both these portraits are in Derwent coloured pencil her medium of choice.

The third portrait is a rather thoughtful forest Gorilla in Acrylic it was the final piece submitted for her exam.

I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I enjoyed sharing them with you.

Spring Weddings & Inspiration

I am not sure the two always go together but in this case they do, as I have a bridal commision for a May wedding the bride and four bridesmaids, I am halfway through and really enjoying it. How delightful to design something for a big day, no matter whether it be gowns or jewellery. In my case it is jewellery and the colours are silver and purple.

The bride likes a very dainty necklace and happily I had some of the tiniest purple nugget pearls which she fell in love with, so that made a good base to start from. I added purple velvet crystals and some lavendar blue pearl rondels, then she chose a silver filigree flower with clear crystal petals and a centre of lavendar blue, I offset the flower to just below her collarbone, I hope she likes it when she sees it tomorrow.

Well now it is Sunday and my bride loves her necklace! I finished the rest yesterday and have taken a couple of pictures to show the brides and three of the bridesmaids necklaces. The bridesmaids dresses are purple with gold embellishments.

I have also added some of the necklaces we have in our spring sale, you can see them on the right hand side of the page just email if you would like anything!

Spring Inspiration!

At last I am updating the blog after the OWOH, time has just slipped away from me and I so wanted to show you some new spring designs. Having lacked inspiration since Christmas and the two viruses one after the other; suddenly my muse is back and I am so busy creating new art jewellery, especially in Polymer clay. I love working with colour, just like painting, then I can add silver, bronze, glass, gemstones, crystals it is just amazing what a fantastic medium it is, I can't imagine a world without colour!

I love Camellias and grow several in my garden, I especially like this small stripped one with a huge boss of golden stamens, each Camellia I made has a centre of Swarovski crystal, the armature is Sterling Silver and for fun I made it in two parts. I joined them with the silver wire and added round Garnet gemstones and little silver beads, it will have a chain added made to length, the pendant measures just four inches from the top of the longest silver curl to the bottom of the lower flower and I signed it on the back. I think it worked out rather well don't you? It hasn't gone on the web site yet as I thought I would preview it here first, but enquiries are always welcome.

I will have more spring inspirations to share with you later this week.

One World One Heart winners

At last I am able to publish the winners of my giveaways, I had to wait a bit as one person was unable to contact me, I have really enjoyed doing this and hope to join in again next year if it is still going.
The winner of my necklace is Jasmine of Natures Whispers blog, Jasmine makes the most beautiful embellished felt scarves and felt necklaces I am not sure how to put links to sites yet as it won't copy and paste!
The winner of the freeform Forest Heart is Linda of The Briar Rose Gate who does the most delightful animal paintings.
The winner of the second freeform Forest Heart is Sharon of SharDon Exclusives, Sharon makes elegant beaded jewellery.
I will have some new things to write about in the journal later this week but need to take some photos first.

Another Giveaway

Well I am both surprised and delighted to find there were so many comments on my giveaway, thank you all so very much. I am also thrilled that I now have some new followers and what I would love to do is another little giveway ( not sure just what yet though ), for all of my new followers, I will draw this the same day as the other two. I will let the winners of all the giveaways know by the 16th/17th as I will be away tomorrow and unable to complete the draw. I have some more of your blogs to get to this evening before it all closes down so I had better hurry!

One World One Heart

This is the first time I have participated in One World One Heart and I hope it will be a wonderful journey of discovery to meet new people and hopefully make new friends, a ride on the magic carpet no less, I hope that you will join me on the ride!

I have two items from our organic collection. First I have a lovely handmade necklace made by myself. Second is a polymer clay forest heart to give away at the end of the journey February the 15th. To be eligable you must leave a comment and a link or email address so I can contact you if you should be a winner.

The necklace is made from Peruvian pink opal, black onyx with a pi pendant of fossil stone, wire wrapped in silver with a small silver hook to fasten.

Polymer clay heart with forest leaves and flowers, small hole for stringing through the top.

New Year New Ideas?

I am not quite sure this is the right title as I seem to be all out of good ideas and inspiration right now. I think it must be a combination of the old virus thing I got Christmas day and seems to have left me with lethagy and an overwhelming sense of doom and gloom or maybe it is the unacustomed cold in my part of the world. Whatever it is I need to shake it off fast, I have had a look at all my inspirational pictures, done the colour thing, got out wool and beads sorted pearls all to no avail, my muse has deserted me I know it won't be forever and I really need to concentrate on spring making everything new and fresh. It is not that I haven't tried any ideas I have, I just can't seem to make them take shape on paper or in clay. Maybe I am trying too hard perhaps I should sit down with a good book and just wait for it to happen.

Is anyone else feeling like this at this time of year?

A new year, new start is such a wonderful feeling, what will the year bring and what will we bring to it. I shall leave this post with a necklace I made just before Christmas for a dinner I went to with my daughter. Made with amazing silvered lampwork lentils, I had just enough of the gorgeous matching stick pearls, it is like they were just waiting for these lovely lampwork beads made by Connie Poggi, I added some black onyx rondelles and a sprinkling of gold fill spacers and my favourite S clasp. Perhaps just posting will galvanise me into action who knows!

Flower pendant

One of my resolutions for the New Year is to post more in this journal, my daughter was supposed to be posting her things in here and I was writing my Wordpress journal well it hasn't worked as I seem to be left to do both so I am making a start with a little picture of a polymer clay chrysanthemum I made in the autumn.

I decided I would like to make a pendant I started with a sketch and decided to use some heavy gague sterling silver for the form I could then add a silver chain later. I wanted the leaves to climb up the silver with the flower and bud at the base I used a large faceted amethyst for the centre of the flower and tucked pearls in between the petals and at the end of the bud. A leaf is embellished with have some tiny glass beads, Christi Friesens wonderful work was the inspiration for the flower.

Lara gave our web site a bit of a make over before Christmas and we have a huge sale with up to 60% off to make way for some new designs and projects in the New Year

Soft Sculpture Bears

At last the new page is up on the web site for some of my soft sculpture mohair bears, as the site now reflects our multi media art and not just the jewellery I thought it would be nice to have a page with some of my bears. I had to stop making my soft sculpture after an accident, my wrist would no longer take the strain any more it was a great sadness to me as I loved creating my own designs and dying the mohair and alpaca that I used. The bears I put on the web site are all Teddy type bears.

I especially loved making my Kermode bears, they stood between 20" & 24" I hand shaded them. I have added a picture of a Kermode that I considered to be one of the best, I made these to commission only so I no longer have him.

My Dragonslair Bears appeared in many magazines internationally and also a Lark Book. I do still make the occasional bear not the large ones I loved making though. Now I mainly enjoy making needlefelted tiny bears and animals.

At least I never get bored how can one be bored with so many things to design and make, with new things to learn, every day brings a new challenge, renewed interest, so much to look at the leaves turning such wonderful colours as the autumn draws on. A hedgehog appeared at the back door a couple of days ago, they will soon be curled up and hibernating but with the mild weather we will see them around for a bit longer.

Wrong link!

Oh dear somehow the link got put in all wrong it should read http://www.thesilverlodge.co.uk ahh thats better, thanks for pointing it out ChezChani so glad you liked the site though, I think Lara made a really nice job of it and the feedback has been all good.

Grand Sale

Well here I am again, the web site redesign is finally finished all is uploaded and we are starting out with a Grand Sale up to 60% off, at http://www.thesilverlodge@tiscali.co.uk to clear the way for new things we want to showcase. The site has been redesigned with our multi media art in mind so there will be more art jewellery, art, sculptures etc all in their own galleries, we have lots of ideas for the future and lots of new things to go on the web site.

I finished a new watercolour painting yesterday from my July trip to Ireland of Glenveagh Castle and gardens, now I just need to buy a frame and mount sometime, as I only have smaller ones left. I really do find it quite relaxing to be painting again. Soon the evenings will draw in and the light will not be so good, I am enjoying while I can, the lovely sunshine we are getting in this Indian Summer even though the nights can get quite cool now. There have been some gorgeous sunsets though!

An update

It has been ages since I last posted on here I have been leaving it up to Lara to do the posting but I have recently gone back to my roots and have started painting again, after a holiday with friends in Ireland. I came home with loads of photos of places we visited mostly coastal, ruined castles etc but there were several gems among the usual snaps one of them was this sweet little St Gobban's church just big enough to hold the bridal couple and parson with possibly two witnesses, I painted two pictures one I sent as a gift to my friends and this one I kept as a memento of a happy time spent with them.

Tutorial

I made my first tutorial for a clay sculpture, I thought you would be interested in seeing. I wrote it and my friend edited it and put it on her site.

It's to make this little guy here.

You can make Skillet, a cute creature I made up. The tutorial is $10 and can be bought through the site here. I will be making more if they are popular. I hope to make creatures holding things and show how to make fur and blend clay. I'm also thinking of doing a bigger project later in the year and doing an online class for polymer clay sculpture.

~Lara

More commissions

Here are two recent commissions I did. Both are creatures I have never made before and I think both turned out well, especially the second one.

The first is this

He's a professor and belongs to a friend of mine. This was the first time I'd made a human and to be honest, although I was happy with him, his skin darkened too much in the oven while I baked him. One of his hands was way too dark. I was pretty happy with his face and hair though. The character wears a lot of hair gel so I glazed his hair to make it look wet and keep it authentic.

He holds a death ray gun in his hand, which was probably the hardest thing to make. I used wire supports in his legs and the arm holding the gun but stupidly didn't make the wire go through the hand so of course when I put the gun in it, it threatened to break at the wrist and I had to bake him on his side.

I have problems thinking out ideas. Of course it's logical that the wire had to go right down the hand but I never thought of that. How I think bugs me a lot. I try to be logical but it comes out wrong. Anyway, I'm happy with this and I'm glad it didn't turn into a complete failure for a first try at a human.

Human heads are really hard to make though; I'm used to making muzzles and beaks on the front of the head and to make one that has no muzzle was strange for me. I like him though!

Here is the other commission, a ram. I've never made a ram before either but he was fun and fairly simple to make. His horns were the hardest part because I was afraid they would droop while he was baking and they weren't supported with wire since I didn't think they would need it. However I put in card supports to keep them in place in the oven and it worked fine.

I like how I did his legs and hooves, they worked really great for a first try so that's something else I know I can do now.

I glazed his horns to make them look nicer and I think the hardest part with him was the different coloured markings. To make those, I make really thin bits of clay and try to blend them onto the body. I think the blending worked best on the legs. Blending is easiest with softer clay so you can rub it with your fingers and it will just smooth on to the rest of the clay.

I used reference drawings for both of these characters.

If you would like a commission, check out my site here!

~Lara

Sculptures

I thought you guys might like to see one of my commissions. It's a sculpture of a collie my friend commissioned for her husband.

Her husband has a collie character. I was told the pose could be anything but that he was an active collie so I chose this playful pose for him. He cost $45 and if you would like a similar one of any animal, please let me know by leaving a comment! I am always open for them.

~Lara

Ancient Egyptian Artifacts

Jackie's hand made clay pendant was announced a winner in the Egyptian Treasures contest in Beads and Beyond magazine in October 2008! The inspiration was the Tutankhamun exhibition at the O2 in London. Each polymer clay piece was made separately and applied, no molds were used. The central winged scarab is a vintage brass componant, as are the two ankhs, the cabochons are vintage Swarovski crystal. It also includes turquoise and glass beads. It hangs from a vintage brass chain with lotus flower ornaments. This ornate and intricate pendant was inspired by a piece from the tomb called Tutankhamun's pendant.Jackie is now working on an Egyptian collection.

Please click here to see the rest of the collection so far.

~Lara

Dragon sculpture

Hey everyone!

First let me thank you who have left nice comments on here. I'm sorry I can't reply to them individually, Blogger doesn't seem to have a feature that allows you to reply which I think is pretty silly. I think I might write to them and suggest that they make a feature where you can reply. The other weblogs I'm on have a reply thing, so why not here?

Anyway, today I would like to show you a dragon sculpture I made a couple of days ago.

Click on it to see the full size version. I am working on my sculptures slowly but surely. To do this I have been making a wide variety of characters, both those that belong to my friends and also my own. I wanted to make a dragon sculpture so this is not a character I have but just a random dragon. Afterwards, it occured to me that I could have made one of my own dragon characters so next time I make one, it will be one of those.

This one is called Augustus P. Drake. I don't know what the P stands for and the name is just one I made up. He's the biggest sculpture I've made so far and one of the most detailed. I didn't use armatures although I should have really because I had to prop bits of him up while he baked. I need to use armatures in wings so they don't flop around as much. He is holding a crystal and I am happy with how his paws came out since usually I make paws too big and clunky and they just look fat and silly.

I love how I did his head and for once I can say that I am happy with the sculpture as a whole. Usually there are various parts I think I could have done better or that didn't come out very well. The only small niggle I have is that one of his wings should have been higher and it was when I put him in the oven to bake, it must have slipped down so that was disappointing. Once again, I really need armatures.

As I said before, I have another dragon in mind and I want to make another of the characters from my book too. I have already made one which came out nicely (except for the front legs) and is in my deviantART gallery but if I do another, sadly I won't be able to show it since my book characters are pretty unique. It will be a test to see if I can make a reptilian character standing on all fours with a wire armature.

I hope you like Augustus anyway, I've come a long way since I first started with polymer clay.

~Lara

Pet Portraits

Hi guys,
it's Lara here. I thought I'd make a post and tell you about some of the artwork I'm doing. I have a variety of talents artwise. I can make things in clay, draw, paint (although I prefer to paint on things like t-shirts and figures as opposed to just canvas or paper), I do some digital art, I can needlefelt and mostly I work in traditional media.

I thought I would tell you about my pet portraits course in this post. I started the course last year with London Art College, for a diploma in pet portraits and it finishes next month. I've come pretty far since then and although I still struggle sometimes, I am getting the hang of it for the most part.
A few of my images can be seen on my Storm Artists gallery, those are the ones I'm most proud of. My latest piece that I sent off to be marked by my tutor (the course is one you do from home) is this, a 5 picture montage of my cat, Borris.
I think you can click on it for a bigger one although I did resize it. The full sized version is in my gallery.
I am proud of this, I like the top two images and the middle coloured one. The bottom two images aren't as good. I captured his personality in the coloured one very well even though the head's symmetry is a little off. I am very critical of my work as you can tell lol!
I worked from photos for this. I had prepared quite a while ago for this particular piece of coursework, it involved taking a lot of photos of the animal and choosing five favourites. I always take lot of photos of my cat and make videos of him too. A few of the photos have been just by chance and I've caught him in lots of cute poses.
This is one of the pieces I sent in for marking, along with a portrait of a horses' head. You can also see the horses' head in my gallery.
I hope to be good enough to sell these since I love drawing animals and I always have ever since I was a small child. I have three more pieces of coursework to do before the course ends and I'm waiting to see what my tutor thinks of my cat, Borris and the horse!
Please let me know what you think! I don't get many comments on my pet portraits since I only really post them on Storm Artists and not many people watch me there just yet.

~Lara

Our wedding jewellery

We have decided recently to add a wedding gallery to our web site, The Silver Lodge. It all came about when we received an email in March from a young woman who was getting married in May this year. She had been browsing our web site and came across some polymer clay calla lilly focal beads I had made using the colours of real flowers I grow in my garden as these flowers come in beautiful shades, not just the usual white. She asked if I could design a bracelet and earrings for her in cream to match a tiara she had just bought. I sketched a design and made it up using sterling silver and some Swarovski pearls and crystals. It was really pretty and unique.

The young lady was pleased with the photos we emailed her and was thrilled when she received her set. It was a real joy to be able to make this unusual design and know it was for such a special occasion. That was when we decided it would be really nice to add a bridal gallery even though much of our jewellery is occasion jewellery. We have since made another but different bracelet as most of our jewellery is only one of a kind!

Jackie & Lara

Our first post!

This is our first venture into the world of online journals. We are a mother and daughter; Jackie and Lara, both multimedia artists. It is our intention here to share some of our work with you.
We have a web site called The Silver Lodge which is full of our jewellery designs including polymer clay and art jewellery.
We live in a beautiful spot on the south west coast of England where the sea meets the sky and we do not have far to look for inspiration for our jewellery or artwork.