Flower Art Challenge

This month’s challenge theme from the Art Elements blog is Flowers. Nothing inspires me more than flowers do. I love their many colors, shapes and textures. I have always been deeply moved, healed and inspired by the beauty in nature. We once had a home that had over 1,000 daffodils in the back field – my husband planted them over the years because he saw how much joy they brought me! 🙂

I make greeting cards with pressed, dried flowers. I photograph flowers. I design flowered jewelry and ceramic items and I love to arrange flowers. I adore flowers!

I have a number of different entries for this month’s Challenge, but several things are still works in progress. I was sick for a couple of weeks in July and didn’t get everything finished up. However, early in July, I made this bowl, with a floral motif in it.  It has now had its first kiln firing, but I haven’t had time to glaze and re-fire it. I am still pondering which glazes to use.

I have set myself a goal of having a booth at a large Art To Wear show next April. Judging will take place in January 2020  My goal (besides being juried in) is to have all my own ceramic jewelry in the show. This is a lofty goal, because I have tons of jewelry with art beads from other makers, but I haven’t done a lot of designing with my own ceramic components. Mostly I have just offered them for sale to jewelry designers. So I have my work cut out for me and I used this Art Elements challenge to jump start my efforts.

I made these yellow earrings early this month. They include my ceramic roses which I accented with lampwork glass by Third Eye Gypsys.

After making these earrings, I decided to make a bunch more roses to use for simple post earrings and necklaces. I haven’t had time to glaze them yet, but I plan to make them happy and colorful! These are the earring pairs.

These are larger and will be used in necklaces.

Next I made some daisy post earring pairs.

These also have a larger version for necklaces.

Here’s another floral earring pair, in a more rustic style.

And a last minute necklace addition… I made this simple necklace this afternoon with a new pendant I made last week.

Last of all, I want to share a floral “event” that took me by surprise this month. I posted some flower photographs on Instagram and Facebook. Shelly Turner, the owner of the OOAK Artisan Showcase gallery, in Rome, NY saw my photos and asked me to submit two of them to an upcoming show. The show is titled “Summer Afternoon” and it runs through August 4th. She sent me a photo of one of my pictures in the gallery.

And here’s the other flower photo I submitted; a stunning purple poppy.

I would like to thank Art Elements for hosting this challenge, with special thanks to Marsha Neal Minutella who arranged it all. This is a blog hop so please take some time and look at the wonderful things people are creating for this theme. I invite you to visit the artists’ blogs and leave a friendly comment, (if you are having issues leaving comments, try using google chrome as your browser).
You can also see and participate yourself via social media by using the hashtags: #AEThemeChallenge and #AEFlowers

Here is a list of the Visiting Artists:
Alysen
Cat
Divya
Evie and Beth
Jill
Hope
Kathy
Linda
Louise
Martha
Melissa
Michelle
Rozantia
Sarah
Sarajo
Tammy

And the Art Elements Blog Contributors:
Caroline
Cathy
Claire
Jenny
Laney
Lesley
Marsha
Susan

Linda Landig Jewelry

 

 

Art Elements Sunflower Challenge

Art Elements blog is hosting a Sunflower blog hop challenge today.  Participants have all agreed to create jewelry or other art forms with a sunflower theme.  I love sunflowers, so I hopped right in.

I took this close-up photo of a sunflower I had in a floral arrangement I’d made.  I love the streaks of reddish-brown on the yellow petals.  To achieve that effect on my ceramic pendants I layered two specific glazes.  The top glaze crackles when layered over the reddish-brown glaze beneath, allowing some of that lower layer of color to bleed through. I was so pleased with this effect that I made a whole pile of sunflower pendants, just because I was having so much fun with them. As you can see, each one is a little different as I played with different aspects of the design.

I made one pendant that was a bit larger the those above and which had a big enough hole to accommodate some leather.  I used that pendant in my necklace for today’s challenge.

I attached the pendant to the leather with a simple larks head knot and above it I placed two hand enameled tubes that I believe were made by Mary Dodd.  The leather then connects to some Terra Cast copper rings with a nice surface texture. I love how the copper color echoes the browns in the pendant.

I added a short strand of vintage glass beads and peanut beads, that I suspended from the rings, as well.  When worn, they drape just on top of the leather and end about an inch or so above the pendant .  Leather cording finishes off the back of the necklace, which ends in a copper-colored lobster clasp.  This is a nice long necklace, which I could have made without a clasp, because it slips easily over the head.

I have one sunflower pendant listed on my website, but if you want more, just message me here or through my website.

My thanks to Sue and to Art Elements for hosting this fun summer challenge. This is a blog hop, so be sure to share the love with all these other great artists!

Guests

Alysen
Anita
Cat
Divya
Jill
Kathy
Linda You are here.
Linda
Mischelle
Norma
Raven
Sarajo
Tammy

AE Team

Caroline
Cathy
Claire
Jenny
Laney
Lesley
Sue

Use Your Own Stash Challenge

This month I’m playing along with the Art Elements‘ monthly challenge blog hop. January’s challenge was to create jewelry using components in our own stash.  All of us have accumulated sooooo many beads.  I know that my beading table has mounds of beads on it.

With the New Year beginning, it would be nice to clean this mess up and work on reducing my stash and putting it to good use in some finished jewelry! To that end, here’s what I have made so far.

Several years ago, I helped Genea Civello teach her first class at Bead Fest in Philadelphia.  She taught several projects using Wooly Wire in combination with her gorgeous lampwork glass.  As reimbursement for my assistance, I got to choose a number of her lampwork beads, including the pair I used in these earrings.  The copper headpins are by Handmade by JGL.

I used some head pins from my stash to make the next pair of earrings.  I’m not certain whose heads pins these are.  Maybe Havana Beads, but I can’t say for sure.  These earrings are now living in Oaxaca, Mexico, with a friend of ours who is an anthropologist there.

I made the following pair for my monthly blog post on Earrings Everyday.  They feature lampwork by Paradise Beads and OutWest Glass that I’ve had in my stash forever.  Jenelle and Daniel (of Paradise Beads) used to live in the same town I do.  The little orange beads date way back to that time.  They’ve lived in Todos Santos, Mexico for at least 3-4 years now, so that’s how long those beads have hung out in my stash!

Admittedly, this final pair of earrings only partially fits into this challenge.  The polymer clay components by Heather Powers of Humble Beads are brand new, but the beads I stacked above them have all hung out in my stash for a long time.

So there you have it – a month’s worth of stash reduction.  I have so much more stash to work through.  It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it….

This is a blog hop, so check out all these other stash reducing bead stars!

Guests:
Kelly Rodgers
Sarajo Wentling
Samantha Wescott
Kathy Lindemer
Patty Miller
Linda Landig
Renetha Stanziano
Art Elements:
Jenny Davies-Reazor
Jen Cameron
Claire Fabian
Sue Kennedy
Niky Sayers
Lindsay Starr

Linda Landig Jewelry

 

 

Art Elements Component of the Month Reveal

Niky Sayers makes the most delightful clasps out of old coins. I’ve designed jewelry with her clasps before and was excited to throw my name in the hat to win one of her hare clasps this month.

I am always inspired by autumn colors and textures.  It’s easy to picture hares hopping through fallen leaves while scoping out safe burrows for their winter retreats, (although, do hares only live in drier regions? Hmmm, I may have to look into that… )

And that’s how the idea for this bracelet came to be.  I paired one of my ceramic leaf bracelet focals with Niky’s hare clasp and accented it with earthy, fall colors.

The bracelet went through two iterations.   Version 1 is shown below.  Originally I wanted the clasp near the front, hoping it would be more in the spotlight there. I was pleased with version 1 initially.  I took all the bracelet photos for this blog post and went about the rest of my day, wearing my new bracelet.

However, the more I wore it, the less I liked it.  It was too bulky and it didn’t drape gracefully on my wrist. It just looked stiff and chunky.

Should I start over, including re-doing all the photos?  Yup, it just wasn’t right and I knew that I would always feel uneasy about it, if I left it as version 1.

Enter Version 2.  Much better.  Some of the bulk in the front was reduced by moving the clasp to the back of the bracelet. I also replaced the bulky and awkward tip drilled pearls, with a double strand of smaller “peanut” beads.

Now there is a focus of interest in both the front and the back. The bracelet curves to the shape of the wrist, rather than standing out at stiff angles.  I’ve said this before, but I think that creating jewelry is like writing an essay.  First you free-write to express all your ideas. Then you go back and do the painstaking work of editing it down to the down to the crystallized essence of your vision.  I hope you can see that process at work here.

Many thanks to Niky for the opportunity to design with her awesome clasp.  And thanks, also, to my friends at Art Elements for hosting this giveaway and blog hop.

Now please visit all the participants in this blog hop, to see how they have used Niky’s clasp in their own unique designs.

Guest Designers

Linda Landig

Kathy Lindemer

Divya N

Art Element Team

Claire Fabian

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Cathy Spivey Mendola

Susan Kennedy

Caroline Dewison

Lesley Watt

Diana Ptaszynski

Lindsay Starr

Laney Mead

Niky Sayers

Linda Landig Jewelry

June 2017 Component Challenge

Today is the reveal for the June 2017 Component Challenge, hosted by Janice Everett in her Facebook group Artisan Create Together.  Mari Carmen of Majoyoal  donated 12 pairs of her beautiful ceramic components for this Challenge. I received one of the violet pairs from the picture below.

I  really admire Mari Carmen’s way with glazes.  Her color combinations and the way she swirls the glaze colors together, without them ever looking muddy, just fills me with awe. 

For some reason the larger Czech glass flowers in my photos look like they are blue.  In reality they are lavender and purple with hints of gold. The Swarovski crystals are a pale, translucent green which echos the green at the top of Mari Carmen’s ceramic components.

Mari Carmen lives in Spain and I speak a little very basic Spanish. Whenever she comments on my Facebook page in Spanish, I try to read it without hitting the translate button, although she frequently comments in English too.  If I am able, I like to comment on her posts in Spanish.  You may remember that we lived in Oaxaca, MX for 3 months, two or three years ago. So I like to use my tiny bit of Spanish when I can.

I just want to thank Janice for all the work she puts into Artisan Create Together and I’d like to thank Mari Carmen for generously sharing her beautiful ceramic components with us.

Linda Landig Jewelry

Ceramic Heart Pendants And Charms

Dark Brick Red Heart Pendant with Black Dots

I’ve been adding some heart shaped pendants to my shop, because Valentines Day is quickly approaching.  I’m not much into the traditional pink and bright red, but I did make one pink heart because I know that many of you are fans of that color.  The heart is lightly textured and the pink glaze has faint flecks of blue in it.  One of Pantone’s 2016 Spring Colors  is Rose Quartz Pink.  This heart fits the bill nicely!

Pink Heart Pendant

Rose Quartz Pink Ceramic Heart

Sticking with the Pantone theme a bit longer, I’ve created a heart that is half Rose Quartz Pink and half Serenity Blue, (another Pantone color for 2016).  I rather like this one and hope to have time to make other “half ‘n half” hearts.

Blue and Pink Heart Pendant

Serenity Blue and Rose Quartz Pink heart pendant

I’m not a big fan of the bright, fire engine red that often shows up in heart designs, but I do love brick red.  In fact, as I am writing this, I realize that I’m wearing a brick red shirt layered over a navy blue tee, today.  I think I’ll need a heart to go with it!  The heart at the top of today’s post would work, or the one below.

Dark Brick Red Heart Pendant with Checkered Pattern

I also made a dark green heart pendant. It has two related, but different patterns on it.

Teal Green Ceramic Heart Pendant

Just for fun, (well all of this is fun, truth be told), I made some little heart charms, that would be sweet hanging off a bracelet or as a component dangling below a larger focal bead.

Three Little Heart Charms

Keep a watch on my shop and on my Facebook page, because I’ll soon be adding a pair of heart earring charms, flower pendants, charms and cabs as well as other bits and bobs.

I am always delighted to read your comments!   Hope to hear from you.

Linda Landig Jewelry

Component Of The Month Reveal – Doubled

Caroline Dewison, of Blueberri Beads, was our component hostess this month. Everyone received one of these unique and awesome lichen components.

I love how Caroline’s lichen have little cup shapes. This photo shows some similarly shaped lichen, that I saw during a walk, with my husband on the beach.

And here’s the lichen necklace, that I designed with Caroline’s pendant.

The green is quite intense, so I wanted a neutral background color, where the eyes could rest.  So I picked up the gray background in the pendant and added gray wooden cubes, 3 gray polymer rounds and some gray titanium hematite tubes that I picked up at Bead Fest last August. A rounded triangular polymer clay bead by Staci Louise Originals in black and straw-brown furthers the muted tones.

I highlighted the green, with a great, textured ceramic tube bead by White Clover Kiln.  I also used some green pearls, 2 green rubber rings and fun, green pellet beads.

I had some glass druk beads from Bead Fest that are the exact teal-turquoise color as the center of the lichen “cups”.  So I added 3 of those to accent the lichen centers.

To find out more about this necklace or to make a purchase, go to Linda Landig Jewelry

And here’s why the title of this post says that the Reveal is doubled.  When we had the August COM Reveal, I could only show a work-in-progress photo of the necklace I was making with Diana’s pendant.  Well, it’s finally done,  so I’m sharing the finished necklace now!

In addition to the pendant, the turquoise, ceramic round bead was also made by Diana.  Artisan ceramic beads by Karen Totten of Starry Road and Gaea are also included in this necklace.  The beads are strung on Irish waxed linen and the chain is upcycled from an old purse of mine.   This necklace is now available in my shop.

I want to thank Caroline for sharing her lichen pendants with us.  It was a delight to work with.

This is a blog hop and I encourage you to visit the blogs listed below to see what the other participants have made with Caroline’s stunning pendants.

Guest Artists

Nicole Prince

Kathy Lindemer

AJE Team

Diana Ptaszynski

Lesley Watt

Niky Sayers

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Susan Kennedy

Lindsay Starr

Jennifer Stout Cameron

Kristen Stevens

Linda Landig

Caroline Dewison

I am always delighted to read your comments!   Hope to hear from you.

Linda Landig Jewelry

Save

Raven Theme – Work In Progress

October’s AJE Component of the Month challenge centered on a raven theme, rather than on a specific component.  Participants were invited to create raven  jewelry or jewelry components.

On the Art Jewelry Elements blog, Karen shared some Native American origin stories and Jenny wrote about Celtic and Norse raven mythology.

I have had very little time to focus on jewelry this month, as we’ve been busy getting our house ready to put on the market. However, I thought I could at least show you some preliminary drawings.

Unlike some of my AJE teammates, I have no background in drawing or painting and I’ve only recently begun making a few tentative sketches.  My 1st idea was to keep things simple and just draw a raven feather that I could translate into a pendant.  Even though you’d think a feather would be easy to draw, it took me quite a long time to get the shape and proportions to my liking.  I think this will transfer well into clay.  I have some ideas for patterns to go inside the feather outline.  Can’t wait to carve out some time, so I can get my hands back into clay.

I got to see one of Caroline’s initial raven drawings and Jennifer has been privately sharing some of her drawings from a college class she has been taking this semester.  They inspired me to try drawing a raven head.  Three labored attempts landed in the trash before the drawing you see below.  And I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I erased portions of this picture, because I couldn’t get the proportions right.  This was several hours of work.  Obviously this does not come naturally to me.  But I’m all about stretching beyond your comfort zone.  Karen helped me see that this guy needs a bit more structure at the top of the head, especially at the juncture with the beak.  But overall I’m pretty happy with him – I surprised myself!  I have no plans to make this raven head into a pendant.  I just challenged myself to try drawing this for the fun of it.  I do plan to make use of the feather, though.

Although I have a raven pendant from Jenny Davies-Reazor, I ran out of time to design a necklace with it.  I will, however, share a finished necklace that is already in my shop and just waiting to fly home with someone.

Blue Raven Necklace

This is a blog hop!  So head on over to Art Jewelry Elements to get links to all the other participants.  I can’t wait to see what everyone has made!

And by the way-

I am always delighted to read your comments!   Hope to hear from you.

Linda Landig Jewelry

Oak Leaf And Acorn Necklace

AJE Component Of The Month Reveal

I hosted the September Component of the Month on the Art Jewelry Elements blog. Each of the participants received one of the pendants below.

After distributing the pendants, I got the idea to make some with 3 loops, rather than two.  My design features one of the new three loop pendants.

Using Irish waxed linen I dangled a pewter squirrel, by Green Girl Studio from the bottom loop.  At the front of the necklace,  I knotted mossy green glass, wood, recycled glass and trade beads, on orange leather cording.  The back is a simple pattern of seed beads.

I have one 2-loop oak leaf pendant in my shop now and will be adding a few more 2 and 3 loop pendants later this afternoon or early evening.

I want to thank everyone who participated in this month’s COM.  To see everyone’s creations, follow these links!

Guests
Carolyn Lawson
Alice Peterson
Diana Ptaszynski

AJE Team

Susan Kennedy
Niky Sayers
Caroline Dewison
Jenny Davies-Reazor

Linda Landig – You are here
Lindsay Starr
Kristen Stevens

I am always delighted to read your comments!   Hope to hear from you.

Linda Landig Jewelry

Autumn Pendant Giveway

Ready to move into designing jewelry for autumn?  I’m hosting a giveaway over on the Art Jewelry Elements blog that might help you get started.  2 lucky people will each win one of my ceramic Oak Leaf & Acorn pendants.

To find out to enter the giveaway, go to Art Jewelry Elements and read the directions carefully.  Then throw your name in the hat and cross your fingers!

Good luck!

Linda Landig Jewelry

 

Good luck!