Literary Inspiration

Next to my passion for beads is my passion for books and reading. I work in the children's department of a public library in the west end of Toronto. I love to share books and stories with children. Sometimes the books inspire a bead creation.

Two years ago I was inspired by the children's novel "The Calder Game" by Blue Balliett. In the story the children learn about mobiles and the artist Alexander Calder. I decided to make a mobile for the Bag of Beads challenge at the Toronto Bead Society. I made a number of beaded objects and created a mobile which hangs from a copper pipe structure.

Beads we were given

Stumpers, copper pipe end and metallic fibre paper

Work in progress

Finished mobile

It was fun to create each of the individual objects, but then I had to fine tune them and the lengths of wire they balance on. The science of the art of the mobile was an added challenge.

The completed mobile sits on my book shelf with the books by one of my favourite children's authors, L.M. Montgomery.

Being inspired by a book and and artist for this project was fun.

I am off to work on a vase inspired by a flower. More about it soon.

Have a great weekend.

Ancient Inspiration

I love to work with some of the amazing lampwork beads created by local and international glasswork artists. The challenge that can arise is how to create a piece that showcases the lampwork but is wearable and stylish.

If there are enough beads in the set you can just add an accent and create a simple strung necklace like this piece.

Copper plated dragon necklace

Here I added the Swarovski crystals, copper rectangles and spacers to the lampwork. There were enough beads to make a complete necklace.

There are times thou when the set is smaller or you want to keep the beads as a centre focus. I was inspired by this ancient Greek necklet. I imagine that the ends could be connected to lengths of chain to create a full length neck piece.

Gold and blue glass paste, Cypro-Classical, 450-400 B.C. (ROM)

Here are few of my pieces using this design idea.

Circle around my heart

Owl Babies

Elizabeth's necklace

Aqua Dots

Blue Galaxy

Purple Galaxy

Spring Creativ Festival

Here are some sample of that I made earlier this year for Rypan Designs. All of these beautiful designs are going to be available as kits at the Spring Creativ Festival. Rypan Designs is booth #372. Stop by to see these and other great designs, oh and say hello!

Wisteria

Textured Net with Icy Blue

Textured Net in Tangerine and Blue

Textured Net in Beautiful Lilac

Textured Net in Royal Blue

all images and designs are ©Rypan Designs

Inspiration sources

I am always amazed at what inspires artists, designers and crafters. I am going to try posting regularly about some of my current and past inspiration sources. Along with the pieces I created from them.

One of my current favourite places to go for an inspirational boast is the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum). Here are a few recent pictures I took that are now in my inspiration folder.

From the Teck Galleries -














From the Asian galleries -










From the Art of Collecting exhibit -









Next Friday I will look at one of my inspirations and the piece that it inspired.

Have a great weekend!!

Flat pack origami

For the Paper Arts design of the Designer Style Challenge I am going to do some origami flowers and a vase.

I have made some in the past, including the table centers for a friend's wedding a number of years ago.

For the design I wanted an unusual vase design. Looking thru origami books I came across a book called Unit polyhedoron origami by Tomoko Fuse. It shows how to combine folded shapes to make 3-D objects.

Using triangles, hexagons and connectors I was able to make this.


Here is another view.


I made it with origami paper I already had, so this is not the final colour. I like the general shape of the base, but I am going to modify the height to make it more like a bowl.

Using paper I was able to get at the Paper Place, I am now playing with the colour and texture for the final piece. Smooth shiny silver accented with purple or a crumpled and textured silver accented with purple. Prototypes are in progress.

Challenge of blogging

It has been almost a year since my last post. I have been working on and completing many projects. I just have not been driven to blog about them.

Writing has always been a challenge for me. I had hope that this blog would help me improve and be come more confident. It did work for awhile, but last year I lost the drive to continue.

Well thanks to my mom, who keeps asking me to start again. I am going to work on this again. So it is time to get back to sharing what I have done and will be doing.

Let the blogging begin!

Creativity, Productivity and a Deadline

I have not posted on my blog from quite awhile. I recently started a post about blocked creativity, but it did not get finished or posted.

I have been in a bit of a creative funk lately. I worked on a number of samples earlier in the spring for Maria over at Rypan Designs. But since then I have not been able to really work on and complete any significant piece of beadwork. I have done earrings and simple pendants but the drive and desire to do anything else is just not there.

This week thou I have a co-worker, Carrie, who is leaving my library to work at another branch. She loves pink and I decided that I would make something for her. Today was the last day we would be working together, so I had a deadline. I have also been going thru back issues of Bead & Button and Beadwork to see if I want to sell them at an upcoming garage sale.

I found the perfect design for Carrie's necklace. In the December 2008 Bead & Button magazine had a design by Donna Pagano Denny called Scalloped Lace. It combined Swarovski crystals with seed beads using a modified Right Angle Weave. It called for two colours of crystals but I decided to use just Rose Alabaster bicones.

As I was finishing the necklace I remembered a pattern the I had printed from Beadwork. It was for right angle weave earrings by Leslie Rogalski. They coordinated perfectly with the necklace. I used just Rose Alabaster bicones instead of the two colours suggested in the pattern.

A deadline help me get some of my creativity back. Hope that it is not just a spark but a blaze of creativity and productivity!

Complete set

Detail of Earrings

Detail of Necklace