To Gnome Me Is To Love Me

This month’s challenge, hosted by Art Elements, is “To gnome me is to love me…”  A gnome challenge is just what I needed! I made a ceramic gnome for my daughter last Christmas, but then just before I was ready to fire it, I broke it’s hat off! So I promised my daughter I’d make a replacement, but I’d never gotten around to doing it – until now! I glued the hat back on the broken gnome so you could get an idea of how it was supposed to look.

After I joined the Art Elements challenge, I made 3 new gnomes. However, I glaze and fire my ceramics at a community ceramics studio, which is closed now, due to Covid 19. So I’ll have to show the gnomes as just greenware (unfired clay). The other issue I had was that, other than a fettling knife, (a special knife for use in ceramics), all my tools were at my community studio. So these little guys are literally made by hand – only my hands, without any tools. They are a little rough, but I can clean them up once I can get back into the studio, before I kiln fire them.

Two views of new gnome 1

Two views of new gnome 2

And below is a photo of me smoothing the surface of the second gnome.

These first two gnomes were made about a week ago and have been drying ever since. Then last night I made a third, larger gnome. Here he is in the beginning stages. He has a body and a nose, but nothing else, at that point.

And here he is sort of complete. He needs to dry more and then get the details refined and the surface smoothed.

Two views of new gnome 3

Thank you for visiting my blog and viewing my unfinished gnomes. Can’t wait to get some tools, glaze and fire them. Thanks also to Jenny Daves-Reazor and Art Elements for hosting this challenge.

This is a blog hop. Please visit the artists below to see their interpretations of the gnome challenge.

AE team:
Marsha
Cathy
Jen
Jenny
Lesley
Claire
Niky

Guests:
Tammy
Linda – You Are Here
Hope
Cat
Sarajo

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

Art Elements COM

This month I’m playing along with Art Elements Component of the Month challenge. The super talented Lindsay Starr, created these innovative leather cabochons. To learn how she made these, you can read about her process here.  The cabochon I received is the second from the left, in the top photo.

This was an interesting challenge for me, because I’m not a seed beader, so I couldn’t create a beaded bezel.  Upon further reflection, I realized that I could use some techniques that I learned in a pine needle basketry course that I took about a year ago.

As you can see, the center of my basket is a stone cabochon.  My idea was to use Lindsay’s leather cab in a similar manner, but only weave two rows of pine needles around it and then use it as a brooch or pendant.  I glued a sturdy fabric to the back of the cab and prepared my pine needles.

Using dark green Irish waxed linen, I added the two rows of pine needles.   In the photo below, the second row is close to being finished.  I laid the cab on our glass coffee table and started playing with some different possible embellishments.  When I found a combination I liked, I trimmed the remaining pine needles to a tapered point and wove them in.

I used Fire Line to add the flowers and leaves.  I haven’t added any findings yet, as I haven’t decided if this should be a brooch or a pendant.  What do you think?

I’d position the cab sideways, as above, for a brooch.  If I were to make it into a pendant, I’d position it vertically.

A big thank you to Lindsay for sharing the leather cabochons with us. I also want to thank each of you for visiting my blog.  Now hop on over to the all the other participants and see all the fantastic things that everyone has created.

Guests:

Ann

Renetha

Patty

Sherri

Kelly

Linda

AE Writers:

Lesley

Laney

Lindsay

Caroline

Cathy

Cooky

Claire

Diana

Jenny

Susan

Niky

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

Linda Landig Jewelry

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