Miracle Mabel

Can't believe I'm writing this ....

Mabel was savagely attacked by two dogs on Sunday while we had our lunchtime walk.

She had emergency surgery at the vets. She has come home this afternoon. She is in a lot of pain, has cuts and bruises all over her lower half. She has a broken pelvis. The deepest puncture wound (from where one the dogs had put her in its mouth and thrown her around) hasn't done any serious internal damage (amazingly).

I honestly thought she was dead. I have never witnessed anything so brutal and I was helpless. I couldn't get the dog off her. It was good fortune that a neighbour who was walking his dogs heard our screams and came running. He helped the owner of one of the dogs to get the dogs off. The other owner (whose dog was the most vicious of the two, walked over merely shouted at her dog).

My neighbour carried Mabel home. Another person put the details of an owner in my phone. 

We have a police officer visiting tomorrow so hopefully they will be able to find the owner(s) and prevent this happening to any other animal.

Mabel has a long road of recovery ahead of her (and we will booth have to learn to deal with the trauma) but she is a miracle dog. The vets say she is lucky to have survived.

#lovemabel

Rocky Horror 40th Anniversary Tour

No words needed!

Rocky Horror Prep

I've spent the evening helping my sister alter her Nun's outfit. I'm now gathering my things ready for tomorrow night while I dye my hair! Here's the outfit so far ....

The two pendants are handmade with resin ... One for me and one for my sister.

Gelli Plate Album

Another quick post via the medium of the blogger app on my phone!

I'm going to start to gather my gelli prints so am trying to crack on with the album. Here's one part of the cover. Not sure if it will be front or back yet. It's made using a collage of numerous prints.

In the meantime, I have been doing some more jewellery making. I'm hoping to combine the two ..... watch this space!!!

Epoxy resin

Quick post.
Learning about resin jewellery.
Still lots more to learn and much more practicing to be done. Here's this weekend's attempts.

Resin mixed with a combination of colourants, glitters, mica powders and specks of gilding flakes. Added in layers. When finished and dry, doming layer of resin added on the top. Here they are drying/curing.

It's very difficult to catch the luminosity and variety of colours with my iPhone so the pictures aren't the best. :-(

Recover

TAD Day 28    2013

Today I wanted to start to create an album of all the prints that I have made during TAD 2013. It turns out that I have too many for one album! … But that aside, I cut an 8.2″ square from the board at the back of two sketch books to collage using some of the prints. These will be used to front and back a ring binder album.
This is the progress so far for the front. A patchwork of cut prints glued on the board. I have started drawing a copy of a flower that I did for Day 23 TAD 2010! This will go in the top left, with my name at the bottom right. I’ve borrowed Dad’s punch and bought some book rings.
for the last day, I also wanted to show a completed piece. Here is a print from yesterday that I’ve used as a mixed media base. I’ve sketched daisies on tissue paper and painted daisies in acrylic and added typed words for a simple poem. As with all previous Gelli plate prints, it is 6×6″.

TAD 2013 has been brilliant. Totes super aces! It’s been a great pleasure to log in and see everyone’s creations. Creating and posting every day for me has been a challenge on many fronts.
I look forward to next year and bid a sad but fond farewell to 2013.

Trying to stay positive

TAD Day 27   2013

I'll try to keep this brief.
The good news was that I found the button I lost. The bad news is that somehow I've managed to lose the silver bead I made with it. I can't say how upset that has made me. I've rifled through refuse and recycling -  to no avail :-(
I have decided to cope with this by telling myself that if someone finds it, then they are very lucky and perhaps that was how it's meant to be. I will make another one and take the hit on the cost and dedicated time. If I find it, all well and good - I'll have one to give as a gift.
The time I have spent fretting/searching has left limited creative time. I did a couple of prints.

The large photo is the cowell shell bead that I cast in fine silver. It's the size of my little fingertip.

The bottom left of the montage will be the base for a mixed media piece. 

Flying

TAD Day 26  2013

Gelli plate printing again.
The prints were achieved by using just one peacock feather and dragging it down the plate. These are just 5 of them ... the first showing the silver birdie. He's been fired and roughly brushed but needs further burnishing.

TAD Day 25  2013

This evening I went to a jewellery class. I attended last autumn for 10 weeks. Today a short 5 week course started. It was lovely to catch up with Sam, the tutor, and a couple of participants from last year.
The course is for silver clay. This time Sam has added in resin as well as the cost of silver clay (known as PMC or Art clay silver) is so expensive. Typically, in the UK, 7g costs around £18.

It's a fascinating medium to work with. when it first became available, people referred to it as silver alchemy. Tonight I used just shy of a full 10g pack. I used a birdie cutter and 2 moulds that I had made - one from a cowell shell and one from the button stash that I took charge of after my Gran passed away. (She'd collected all sorts for years and years)
I've misplaced the button that I used to make the mould (I'm very disorganised) but even if I never find it, I have the mould! (along with hundreds of other buttons!)
I can't actually post a photo of finished products due to the nature of the material. It is a combination of teeny tiny particles of pure silver combined with water and an organic binder. This gives it the feel of a porcelain clay.

     

• The first stage is to create your shape/form. It quickly starts to dry out and crack. As it has a clay consistency it takes on detail and texture very easily.
• The second stage is for the clay to dry out completely. If it hasn't dried out pockets of moisture can create bubbles. This is best done over a few hours at ambient temperature but can be speeded up using, for example, a hotplate on a low setting.
• The third stage is to fire the piece. This burns off the organic binder and sinters the metal. As water and binder are no longer present, the finished piece shrinks by approx 10%. This further enhances the texture/pattern. After firing, it is 99.9% fine silver! (sterling silver is 92.5%)
• Finally, the piece needs to be burnished/polished. This can be done by hand or using a tumbler.

Anyhow, I'm rambling!!! it's such a remarkable product and there are some amazing silver artists out there.
The photos I have posted are very boring! ... just the moulds and the clay that has yet to dry! After they've dried I will sand and refine them. I may fire them tomorrow so I can post photos that might look a little prettier!   ;-)

Mum and Dad

 TAD 2013 Day 24 .... a quick card

On the way out today I noticed that my neighbour had been busy. Sue takes care of our shared garden and this morning she must have been busy again preparing for spring as this planter was outside my door. I quickly made a card printing a copy of one of my monoprints (posted here earlier in the month). The print was made from a fern leaf from our garden.

I've titled this "Mum and Dad" because Mabel and I go to see Mum and Dad most Sundays for a roast dinner. Today I had wanted to take their fingerprints to make into polymer stamps to make an impression in silver clay. I tried with an inkless printing kit but the impression wasn't clear enough. Then we tried with an ink pad but I think the prints were a little too inky. Also, I was using Mum's scanner and I don't know if I got the brightness/contrast part nailed or not. As they are due to fly out of the country, we decided to wait to try again on their return (and I'm sure it would look a bit odd going through airport security with black ink stained fingertips!) When they get back I'll have a mammoth fingerprinting session!
The photo of Mum and Dad is one that I took in September 2012 while we were on holiday in the Lake District.

Resist

Thing-a-day 23

Using acrylic stamps, I stamped with versamark and clear embossing powder. Using this as a resist, I used Derwent Artbars and water on my Gelli plate. When dry, I washed over with watercolour.

For images 1,2 and 3 I used Inkylicious stamps. For image 4 I used a Kanban stamp.

Thank You

Thing-a-day 22

I have so many good, loving, caring and helpful people in my life that I can never have too many cards or notelets to say thank you.

Today I sliced up some A4 felt textured card to make some A6 sized cards.
I masked off a section for printing on. I gathered some fern leaves from the garden, grabbed the clingfilm and got out my Gelli plate, acrylic paints, waterspray, flow medium and Derwent Artbars.

Here are the results so far.

The first run of prints used acrylic/acrylic and flow enhancer. Second run of prints used artbars with acrylic flow enhancer and water.

The second photo shows a card created using acrylic paints with flow enhancer on the Gelli plate with crumpled clingfilm. It is the first pull (I did a second pull also which is shown in the montage above) I then stamped on two images from the Inkylicious stamp range using Tsukineko Brilliance pigment ink in lightning black.