College – Term 6 – Final Major Project – another light shade

Posted on 19th April 2013 by Neil

It’s another light shade, this time featuring cut-outs using silhouettes based on my own observational drawings. I’ve cut the silhouettes from heavy interfacing, used Bondaweb to fuse to a layer of white cotton, and then machine stitched them onto the card frame.

And this afternoon, I spent a couple of hours in a darkened room. The stress hadn’t got to me (though the same can’t be said for our tutor this morning!), but the need to photograph all my creations to date had. Here’s a selection:

College – Term 5 – Final Major Project – another paper craft light shade

Posted on 8th April 2013 by Neil

Well after a flurry of activity over the last two weeks watching my new studio get installed, and then decorating it, constructing furniture and moving in – as well as emptying out and putting back to right the dining room, conservatory and some of the craft room – I have my first ‘working’ day in the studio.

Of the various things I have to catch up with, college work is one priority as I have a mid-way assessment tomorrow. Consequently, I have taken pics of my latest light shade in my series. This one features one of the patterns I gleaned from a visit to the Islamic artefacts at the British Museum, drawn into Illustrator, adapted for the round and then screenprinted in opaque white ink onto thick tracing paper, and then constructed onto a card frame. As with the previous post, here are photos of the shade in daylight, and internally lit at night.

Bottle Cap Memories

Posted on 6th April 2013 by Neil

It’s Altered or Recycled theme this month over at the WOW! Embossing Powder Challenge blog. This is what I came up with for my design team submission. I need to make an admission – my intention was to use recycled beer bottle caps for this project, but I’ve not had bottled beer for a little while and ran out of time to collect any from the pub… So the project has switched from ‘recycled’ to ‘altered’!

Do you find pouring resin too expensive? Or takes too long to set? Me too, so I came up with an alternative: I’ve used molten WOW! Clear Gloss Ultra High to create the domed glazing in each of the bottle cap frames, and WOW! Earthtones to colour the stamped lettering. Hope you like it, and more details on how to make your own are here.

I’m also happy to accept commission requests if anyone would like one made – all you’d need to do is provide the digital photos/scans. Email me if you’re interested.

I’m a Certified Powertex Trainer!

Posted on 18th March 2013 by Neil

Yesterday, I had a very pleasant day workshop with Brit from Powertex British Isles. Powertex is a range of products based round a liquid fabric hardener. Having completed the workshop, I’m now certified to train you how to make figurines such as these:

They are 19 inches high, and constructed from wood and plaster formers, foil, masking tape, pressed mulberry fibres and old t-shirts all coated with Powertex and pigments. Let me know if you’re up for a training session in my new studio later in the year!

College – Term 5 – Final Major Project – Paper crafted light shades

Posted on 11th March 2013 by Neil

It’s already March, and only two weeks before we finish Term 5. One more term to go, and that’s my college course done and dusted. If it weren’t for my new studio to look forward to working in, and the list of jobs to do in the house, I know I would be dreading the end of college. Though I was unwell last week, I did carry on with my final major project. It’s grown out of looking at Islamic geometric patterns – I’ve learnt to construct geometric shapes with a compass and ruler, transferring them into Illustrator, and then finally applying them to 3D polyhedra. I settled on a truncated cuboctohedron as my main construction, and played about with various construction techniques.

Here are just four of the anticipated dozen final pieces. Some are uninspiring in daylight, but come alive when internally lit. Others inspire in both lights. I can tell you that I got a blood blister in my finger tip from all the scoring of folds. I can reveal that the shadowfold light required 360 separate knots. And that I stuck down each of the 400 petals on the frilly one! All are handcrafted (though I did use the Cricut machine to cut out the shapes to my design!) and nothing more than fabric or paper and glue. They are roughly 6-7 inches in diameter and designed to sit over an inexpensive battery powered LED light (£1 for two in Poundland!).

Arabian-style Lantern

Posted on 6th March 2013 by Neil

I’ve created this Arabian-style lantern from scratch – paper crafting at its most time-consuming! For this version, I’ve used WOW! Embossing Powders to coat most of the surfaces and more pictures and instructions are here. A template for those brave enough to do the cutting is here.

College – Textiles – Term 4 – Final Project

Posted on 23rd December 2012 by Neil

The choice of final project in textiles was to either design and make three tea towels, an apron or a Cornell-style fine art box. I followed my ceramics theme and chose the box, and thus embarked on a project to include every technique I could think of to transfer my patterns from my sketchbook to my ‘panoply of patterns’. Here’s the completed box, complete with my display sheets displaying its contents:

Lots of techniques in here, from free hand drawing with a fabric gel pen, to free motion machine stitching, backstitch hand embroidery, iron on transfers, applique, fabric paint and quilting to name but a few…

College Course – Ceramics – Term 4 – Final Project

Posted on 23rd December 2012 by Neil

For our final project this term, we’ve had four weeks to work on either a ceramic bird house, or a Cornell-style box. In principle, we had to slab build the box and then use at least two of the techniques we’d learnt to decorate it. I’ve gone for the Cornell-style fine art box:

Once again, all the work is based on my bead or button collection – the filigree is the back slab layered with D-shaped extrusions and then pierced (two techniques already!). The flowers are one and two part plaster moulds taken from other beads (sprig moulds, technique three). The box will dry over the Christmas break and then get fired – it’s white earthstone, and we’ll be playing with glazes next term. The box will hold vertical strings of ceramic beads, which I made by designing my own extrusion die, slicing this into uniform thicknesses, piercing and then carving (and there’s technique four):

Twelve Tags of 2012 – December

Posted on 16th November 2012 by Neil

It’s the last Craft Club of the year tomorrow, and thus the last of my twelve tags of 2012. This one incorporates WOW! Embossing Powder, die cut tattered pine cone, a cocktail stick, hot glue, dry glitter and the special secret ingredient – an upcycled orange juice carton! There will be the option to add holly sprigs as well.

Christmas Stained Glass

Posted on 5th November 2012 by Neil

I’ve just posted my latest WOW! Embossing Powder project over at the design team blog. I learnt quite a lot about embossing powder onto glass! Follow the link to also learn how I managed to take a photo of a mirror without being in it…