Sunsets and Fog

These pics are of a foggy morning in North Holland Oct 2010.




Good reflections on the canal.        

  Large boat moored.
                                                       



The sun was tring to break through.    

These are fotos of a sunset over Noord Holland on 6 th October 2010.


The colours were just as they are here and have not been digitally enhanced with photoshop or something.

In this pic there is a plane to give it some perspective.




This is a really crisp silhouette against the fabulous pinks, blues and
golds.

Glass Buddah Head Lamp

I have a collection of heads..............I bit like Worzel Gummidge. I have hairdressers practise heads and ceramic heads and also glass heads in different humanoid shapes and Buddah heads.

For years I wanted to illuminate them.

 

 

 

I came across this second hand shelving unit from Ikea and set about realising my vision. I painted the shelves white to match the wall and therefore making them less 'visible'. I bought a set of lights with LEDS and all are on one piece of wire and I simply put one lamp underneath each glass head, one per shelf.

In the evening they give off a wonderful amount of colour and brighten up a dark area of my lounge.

The fotos here were taken in the daylight so you can just how bright they are even then.

Mosaic mirrors

Another of the things I make regularly are broken mirror mosaics. I make them usually to order and can make the background in any colour and cut the MDF backboard to any shape wanted. The shape of the backboard, mirror and the colour of the beads surrounding the mirror can all be the customers choice.

A selection of mirrors waiting to be sold or picked up.

 Basic square backboard with round mirror.Turquoise background. Green beading.

Orange background and blue beading.
Would you prefer to handg it up differently?........no problem

Dreadlock decorations

I have a few dreadlocks and whilst at university I decided I'd experiment making some hair decorations.......The tutors said they wouldn't work so I went ahead anyway. The tutor was wrong they did work even thought they are made in prototype copper. The soldering is none too good but hey its held.

I have now been wearing these for the best part of 12/13 years so they have been washed on a regular basis and dried and have withstood the continual dying of my hair. They have been bashed and bent so that now they are rather more organic in shape than they were at the begining.

I make this post because over the weekend another metal worker saw them and had a very good close look at them............he has a stall at festivals and I think next year his stall may just include these hair pieces.............I wanted to publicly stake my claim to the 'design' here and now!! :)

Hand made table

I made this table about five years ago. My husband works in a wood factory and he brought this unworked slice of wood home. I loved it and wanted to keep it just as it was. There was originally pieces of bark still around the edges but sadly it fell off as it dried out.

 

 
 

 
I simply sanded the wood and added a set of industrial wheels and it has been our occassional table ever since.

I saw something similar on another post today and decided it was time to give my old table an outing on my blog. When the table is not in use it wheels conveniently under the couch out of the way.

Peapods of contemplation

I did a design degree at university and i did mainly metalwork. These were my take on 'objects of contemplation' the 20th century equivalent of worry beads or an executive toy.




These forms are based on peapods and are nice to hold regardless of hand size. The metal is initially cold but quickly warms to hand temperature. The outer surface is decorated in different ways........bumps and craters, holes cut away to see smooth inner skin and balls which rotate in situ. Inside each there are more balls which depending on the handling roll smoothly around tinkling gently or crashing about ricocheting from inner posts and making an almighty clatter.



They are meant to be held and played with enjoying the textures and sounds and the therapeutic roliing within OR shaken to release noise and pent up stress!!



These are made from copper and then silver plated before assembly which made life very difficult. Future models would be made in silver this would make joining the pieces together a whole lot easier.

Leaves, horsetail hair, pine needles (Fotos aren't great they are fotos of fotos.)

Spines from horse chesnut leaves, pine needles and willow leaf ribbons.

Cherry leaves and horsetail hair.

Cherry leaves and willow.

Cherry leaves and pine needles.

Cherry leaves and pine needles.

For years I collected leaves and nature things like seed pods and grasses. I started making 3D sculptures using just natural things.

This one is made using willow and horsetail hair and is flexible and can be twisted and turned due to the elasticity of the horsetail hair.It always springs back to 'shape'

This one is made using the spines from horse chestnut leaves and pine needles and leaves suspeneded on horsetail hair which is elastic. If you blow through this the leaves twirl .

These are made using cherry tree leaves pinned together with pine needles

These sculptures become extremely brittle over time and moving them around can be fatal!! They are best left hanging from the ceiling so they are safe.

Applique wall hanging

 These are some pictures of a quilted wall hanging I have made with hand dyed fabrics and stitch work. The insppiration were some house plants. Green is one of my favourite colours.

 

 I am now attempting to make small A5 sized quilted pieces which will be sew together to make purses diary covers and all sort sof things. I will post fotos in a day or two as I go along.