Firing my imagination

My latest piece, Fiery Heart, is so called because of the bright, tropical-coloured beads I've used in its creation.



Inspiration for the colours used in its design came from a magazine advert for paint. I thought that the combination of brights in the room set just looked so gorgeous together that I needed to use them in my work.





Its so colourful that I almost want to keep it for myself. I won't though - you can buy it now on Folksy - just click the image below:

A ghostly giveaway

Did you know about Mrs B's 31 Days of Halloween? If you didn't, check it out now, for spooky giveaways and goodies: http://silvermoonwitch.blogspot.com

As I love Halloween, I am of course taking part. As part of today's Halloween fun, you can win this ghostly decoration:





Find out how by clicking here. Happy haunting!

Happy Autumn!

It's officially autumn now (the TNBC calendar says "Autumn Equinox" so it must be so), and I can therefore stop feeling a bit premature for talking about Halloween :) So, with only five and a half weeks, or 38 days, to go until the big day, I've been adding lots more spooky goodies to the Etsy shop.

After buying some wonderful Halloween-themed supplies, I created a little collection of beaded dangles:

The little bells I bought were used in creating these three pieces:





My favourite is this one, because the large orange bead looks like a big chunk of candy :)



I'd also bought some glow-in-the-dark beads, both round and bat-shaped, which went into the making of these:





Pop into the Halloween section of my shop for all of the above and more!

I've also been working on a commission for four silver pieces:



You can't tell from this picture, but the bat on the bottom right is huge! 16 inches wide in fact, double the size of my usual bats. Was awkward but fun to make :)

Halloween in July part 2 - a beaded skull

Production of the Halloween range has begun, and one of the first pieces I've created is this beaded skull:



This piece is the result of a series of sketches, in which I was working out how to make the skull look right. In my designs, I often draw something out as a line drawing first to see whether it would work in wire, as the construction of my wire pieces is basically made up of a series of curved lines. I always drew skulls face-on, and, as a line drawing, that always made them look too monkey-like.





However, while watching Buffy (series 7, which has a hand walking up a skull in the title sequence),



I hit on the (now obvious-sounding) idea that the skull did not have to be symmetrical face-on image, but could be a side-on image instead.





Thus, this design was born - a simple line drawing in copper wire, adorned with glass beads. Click the image below to go to the listing:

Halloween in July

We've been having some typically British weather here lately, otherwise known as rain. The sky is rather dull, grey and leaky. So, despite the fact that it's the middle of July, it feels like autumn. Autumnal feelings always lead me to start thinking about Halloween though, so it's not all bad.

I've been starting to think of some Halloween-related ideas, the first of which has the working title of Bat Bunting. I also think I've finally worked out how to make a skull from wire. Plus, I have many more ideas besides, so watch this space for lots of spooky goodies coming soon! Until then, click the bat to see what I currently have on offer:



I also have some greetings cards that would be great for Halloween. Click the image below to see those:



And remember kids, a bat is for life, not just for Halloween!

Burtonesque

Dear reader, it may not come as a huge surprise to you that I love Tim Burton. The Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice and others of his are among my favourite films, and a book called Burton on Burton has been one of the most interesting things I have read. My paintings have often been called Burtonesque, even though, in all but the piece below, there hasn't been a direct influence. It must just have filtered through from my subconscious ;)



So I'm very excited about Burton's re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland, to be released next year. Alice has long been one of my favourite stories, and I love seeing various artists' interpretations of scenes and themes from the book. I can't wait to see what he's done with it. With a cast that includes Johnny Depp, Stephen Fry, Matt Lucas and Alan Rickman, it surely can't fail to be awesome.

In celebration of this, an Etsy friend of mine, the fabulous jewellery-maker Gugaw, is having a merry unbirthday giveaway! You can win anything from her shop - just comment about your favourite piece on her blog.

New things and featurings

After months of a kind of creative block, the past few weeks has seen me creating in wire again. Suncatchers featuring some of my favourite themes - hearts, skulls, the rainbow, stars and bats - have been popping up all over the shop.

















In addition to this, I have also had my work featured in two places - the 'Gift of Art' Gift Guide campaign on Etsy's front page, in which they've used my 'Turquoise Star' piece:



And also on ACEO Showcase, the new blog from the creator of Cuteable, who has featured my 'Midnight Moon' ACEO:

Snow day!

Followers of my Twitter may have read that I was "Planning to be very creative" today - in other words, intending to spend the day doing a lot of painting and maybe even a bit of wirework. Well, the snow had other ideas. Much of today has been spent either watching the snow out of the window or actually being out playing in the snow, leaving little time for much else. But no matter. Days like this tend to bring a lot of inspiration, which makes up for the lack of actual work :)











I have in fact got some 'actual work' done today - I've made a start to a painting that will eventually look a bit like the last of the above photos:



I've also made a sinister snowman - don't have nightmares! ;)

Kinver Hearts

I've just listed my first printed greetings card - Kinver Hearts. I've been wanting to get this image printed for a while, and it finally exists in the form of a card.



The card has come out a little different to the original in colour, but I prefer it. The greys in the sky that you can see above have turned out more purple, which is great. Visit the listing here.

Just over a year ago, I blogged a little about the series of artworks that inspired this piece - visit the post here. It all started with this photograph, taken at Kinver Edge in the Midlands:



Shortly afterwards, I painted this piece. I opened up the negative space a little, allowing for a colourful sunset to be seen behind the plants:



Using that canvas as inspiration, I painted a similar scene in my art journal in watercolours and acrylics:



I experimented with that a little, adding an extra layer in acetate:





I also edited the photograph of the original, stretching it out:



Then playing with the contrast and adding hearts:



The original painting was originally to be for sale but we (that is, my boyfriend and I) liked it so much that we kept it.



I still wanted it to be for sale in some form though, hence these greetings cards (yes, there will be more!). I'm looking into getting prints of many of my paintings made too, of which Kinver will be one. There will also be a Kinver Hearts print - watch this space.