Video tutorials 1 - 17b

Tweet

Pin It

Follow my blog with Bloglovin
My cover image is one that I have enhanced on iphoto. I took the original photograph in Pompeii. It was a detail from a fresco of a hunting scene - very very beautiful but naturally dull and faded after all its eventful history. 

I wanted to take it back to how it might  have looked when new. An impossible venture really - perhaps - but instead it just became more and more interesting as I heightened the colours, added contrast and definition. And what is more, it became very much in-line with what I try to create in my own work - erosion, cracks, shifts of light and colours - all conveying a sense of history and telling a story. 
Then I rotated the image to make the deer appear to be leaping over a precipice and throwing all caution to the winds to escape her hunter. I think that many of us can resonate with that. She escapes, she is a survivor and she is here today to inspire us all. I am very, very fond of her.

BBC film of my work made in the 1990's

Intro to new tutorials - series 1

part 1 - The start of making pendants and brooches etc using epoxy moulding paste - Siligum to make impressions from seed heads - bottlebrush, magnolia, fir, poppy etc plus found obects - old beer bottle cap, barnacled stones etc. Taking impressions with air dried papier mache. Using acrylic gold size. Using modroc to make pendant bases.
Some finished pieces -

part 2 - Building up stock - tray of impressions made from a poppy seed head and base of a fir-cone, using Siligum and air dried papier mache. Painting bottlebrush impression with sepia ink. Adding more acrylic gold size and metal leaf.

part 3 - Building up layers by adding modroc to decorate and strengthen the backs of some fir-cone impressions. Adding gold leaf onto acrylic gold size. Making impressions of/for little fir-cone earrings.

part 4 - Adding modroc to magnolia seed head impressions. Taking the curved seed head pendant to the next level by adding gold leaf. Making tissue paper discs and cones.

part 5 - Making simple tissue paper and P.V.A squares to use later. Making simple rolled pendant bails/beads. Making 'squeezed' beads.

part 6 - Tyvek and iridescent beads made with the aid of a heat gun. Update on squeezed beads, poppy head, little end of fir-cone base earrings and squashed beer cap impressions.

part 7 - Using epoxy resin.

part 8 - Up-date on tissue 'flowers' - squeezed beads with iridescent tissue, painted with resin, with Daler-Rowney Shimmering Blue. Adding sepia ink to the iridescent tissue before heating/shrinking. Ideas for decorating squeezed beads. Big circular brooch - stage 1.

Source: Uploaded by user via Hilary on Pinterest

part 9 - My aim is to encourage anyone to be able to make beautiful jewellery from easily found materials, often those that are recycled - plastic milk bottles - discs, square and clear glass bugle and seed beads. Extra tissue and P.V.A backing for 'flowers' - tip - wooden kebab stick through a drinking straw. Making delicate flowers with eye pins, layered tissue squares + 3D glue. Ideas for earrings/components for pins, necklaces, bracelets etc.

part 10 - brief glimpse of nearly finished papier mache bowl. More ideas using empty plastic milk bottles and little squares of torn layered tissue paper and P.V.A glue threaded on wire. Sequence - milk bottle plastic square, seed bead, torn tissue square, seed bead, repeat a few times, then seed bead, bugle bead, tyvek bead and repeat. Plastic milk bottle handle cut into 0.5cm widths and pierced also works well. Caution about pyrography tool. Open windows/doors. It works beautifully on air dried papier mache, tissue paper/P.V.A glue. Work on ceramic tile and UNPLUG after using! Poking into bottlebrush seed head to deepen indentations.

part 11 - Strengthening 'flower' discs without losing transparency with tissue and P.V.A/water. Squeezed beads - Daler-Rowney System 3 white acrylic, Sundown Magenta - pearlescent, Marine Blue - F.W mixed. Using silver foil independently and under transparent acrylic inks. Fraying modroc to add to back of conical pieces (made from tissue and air dried papier mache)

A little diversion - Introducing Emmy the hen.

A little diversion - Beach-combing in Salcombe - a collection of found bits and bobs to use in the future.

part 12 - an update.

part 13 - Making rings with Modroc and air dried papier mache on tube wrapped with Cling Film. Using magnolia epoxy mould to make additions to rings etc.

Treasures from the River Thames - finds from beach-combing at low tide.

Back in the studio in Devon

part 14 - papier mache 'flowers' etc - next step
Papier mache 'flowers' - adding Liquitex Acylic Gesso. Resin on iridescent tissue (heat shrunk) beads. Burning 'flowers' with a pyrography tool. Deepening bottle brush seed head with pyrography tool.

part 14a - some more ideas on making paper 'flowers' - made from tissue paper and p.v.a glue/water mix, air dried papier mache clay, modroc - curved ones with petals, formed on the top of an old light bulb or inflated balloon.

Part 15 - Finished necklaces using Tyvek + iridescent tissue (heat shrunk), glass beads and squeeze formed air dried papier mache clay, fragments of clay pipes from Mud-larking on The River Thames. Making a mould with Siligum epoxy moulding paste to take an impression from beach pebbles to make an air dried papier mache clay necklace. The bottle brush pendant - nearly finished + bottle brush ring. Milliput epoxy moulding paste to add to the Modrock/air dried papier mache clay bangle.

Part 16a - A more indepth tutorial on making iridescent or fantasy film beads for jewellery. NB - These processes must be done with excellent ventilation. Work outside or with a good through draft - open windows and doors, use a fan to move the air away from you.

Part 16b - Always work with excellent ventilation!

Part 16c - Adding some colour variations to the iridescent tissue with acrylic inks, water colour and a black acrylic paint with glittery bits in it.


Series 1 - part 17 - making a papier mache bowl with Modroc etc.

Series 1 - part 17a - adding a foot to the basic Modroc bowl.

Series 1 - part 17b - modrock and air dried papier mache bowl.