Wednesday 17 February 2010

Money don't grow on trees...

.... but I have been spending it this week, on materials and bits and pieces, as if it did!!  This week is seeing months worth of ideas and work come together in some designs I have made for pieces of jewellery I hope to begin selling sometime over the next few weeks (when I have my Paypal / bank account sorted :-)  ). I thought I'd post a couple of the pages from my design sketchbook here just to give you a feel for them and see what people think.

Firstly, here are a couple of necklaces I have already made using 'pre-fabricated' sterling silver pendants.  Each pendant is 1" square.  I will eventually have around a dozen of these to sell, each one will be different as the images are all hand drawn and painted individually.  I don't think I will buy any more of these pendants (lovely as they are) as I imported the pieces from the US and was hammered by customs!  I have made the bee necklace to keep and I think I am happier with the silk ribbon / clasp combination here than the one on the toadstool pendant.






I have come up with what I think is a much more interesting solution to make my own pendants for the the next designs..., these will also include a small amount of embroidery and beading (hope I'm not over-egging the pudding).  Hopefully I will have a couple of finished pendants to show you in the next week or so, the square ones will be 1 1/2" square and the rectangular ones will be 1" x 3".  Again, all the designs will be hand drawn / painted / made by me.  As you can see I will be concentrating mainly on 'flora and fauna' as subject matter.




Ignore the odd thing on the right!!  It's meant to be a fern pattern with an embroidery design running through it... it doesn't really work very well does it?  I might use the fern leaf idea for the reverse of some pendants but not sure yet.




There'll be a general 'otherworldly' fairytale quality to everything, I'm obsessed with fairytales, they definitely inspire some of the images.....  anyway, I do hope you like them!

Now I'm off to draw Scout's jar of doggy biscuits from her point of view - for the EDM I have been promising myself I would do all week!




10 comments:

  1. Nice pieces! I like the style of your drawings very much ^^! The card you did for your husband's birthday is awesome! And I'm curious to see the next drawing (the one from the dog's point of view : )!)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I especially love the bee and fox ones!
    And, to me, the fern is totally recognizable!
    I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished pieces!

    ReplyDelete
  3. These are lovely necklaces! Are they watercolors? Will they fade over time?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I really like your jewelry designs and I just love the mushrooms! Nothing wrong with fairytales. They bring the imagination to life.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I like them very much, and I think they will sell well. Too bad about the customs charge - the little frames are really nice. You have some wonderful ideas with these! nancy

    ReplyDelete
  6. Lesley, this is such a cool idea! I may have been living under the proverbial rock, but I've never seen anything like these necklaces before. Your designs are so sweet. Love the toadstool banner too- awesome!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Looking good, I look forward to seeing more of your jewellery! Personally I like the fern very much, it's the one I saw first in that page, so don't discard it completely.

    Good luck selling these!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Love the bee and the fern, really beautiful. Selling in UK by any chance some time? (being a new beekeeper, anything beelike i love!)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Your feedback is really appreciated guys!! I won't throw the fern idea away - I like fern a lot!! I have to get it in somewhere.

    Raena, I have bought some acrylic paints that are colourfast, but I think I will just use whatever feels right when I'm producing the work. These design ideas have all been done in watercolour, and I figure watercolour paintings hung on walls don't fade overnight. I've been wearing the bee one on a bit of cord for about 6 months (on and off)and it hasn't faded, I stil have the other pictures I did on the same sheet of paper at the same time and the picture in the pendant is still as vibrant. It is something I have thought a lot about though!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I agree with other comments about the fern - not to be discarded, it looks totally right to me. I love the pendants and look forward to getting my own. The bee one is really lovely all finished on its ribbon. xxx Oh, and Paul's card looks great too...and I also like the Swiss one...really atmospheric. :0)

    ReplyDelete

 

yasmin lawyer