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Playtime at the craft zoo

Saturday, March 5th, 2011

Well, not really. But sometimes when I’m experiment mode, I do feel like a little monkey. Just trying things.

I’m working on a new range of pieces, but still need to crack the method of fulfilling my vision. I decided to look at Shrink Plastic, it’s something I’ve had my eye on for a while, because it’s a flexible material that results in a strong acrylic flat piece.

What is it?

Basically it sold in sheets, about the thickness of 300gram paper, and you draw/ stamp onto it. Then you pop it into the oven and it shrinks (between 7 and 9 times) depending on which brand you use.

Attempts

My first attempt was an unmitigated disaster, I did not put it onto a baking tray and it overcooked. My dear husband says it looks like demon spawn and I have to agree. Anyway, this morning I had much better luck with it.

Shrink plastic steps

As you can see, there is still a lot of work. But I had a very enjoyable and productive day. I even got to draw a bit, something I haven’t done in an age.

Posted in Design process, Experiments, Process | 154 Comments »

Branding: where to start?

Monday, April 19th, 2010

When you start thinking about selling your handiwork you hit a mountain of to-do’s. For me, one of the most difficult and time-consuming, is branding. If you’re lucky, you have the start-up money to hire a professional but handmade artists often decide to do it themselves.

ColourLovers should be your first stop if you’re looking for colour inspiration. There are thousands of colour palettes to look at, and if you register you can create your own.

When I make jewellery, selecting colour schemes is easy as pie, but when I design onscreen my natural indecisiveness kicks in. I become bewildered with all the colour possibilities. ColourLovers’ Photocopa tool solves this problem. You upload an image and it extract the colour palette. Making it super easy to create a colour scheme that you know you’ll like.

Scrummy aubergine

I would never come up with this colour scheme on my own.

Candy

The colours in this one will have to be toned down in a design. But it provides a good starting point.

You can grab the colour codes from ColourLovers.

Blues and browns

One of my favourite colour schemes. I’ve done this palette before, but the colours on this one is much better.

Be sure to check out Brandi girl – a life inspired by color. Her posts are always interesting and she often extracts color palettes from photos.

Feel free to peruse my colour palettes on ColourLovers.

Do you have any time savers or creative compasses for branding?

Posted in Branding, marketing & advertising, Design process | 2 Comments »

Get out of your comfort zone

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

You might surprise yourself

I am in a really positive mood at the moment.

The past few weeks Tangentine has been the main project that I’ve been thinking, dreaming and working on. As you may know from experience that can sometimes suck the fun out of everything. I end up berating myself for not doing blog/ twitter posts, then pour over analytics results etc etc boring stuff, boring stuff.

So what’s changed?

Well, to be honest, not much. I still worry about those things, but today two things happened to me, which put me in a rocking mood!

My conditioning kicked in
I surprised myself

The first point needs a small explanation. I’ve worked as a web project manager for quite a long time and it is a very stressful and generally get-kicked-in-the-face kind of job. Because of that, I’ve learnt how important it is to rejoice in milestones. Generally a milestone is something big, like launching the website but it is also when you finish a certain part of the project. Sometimes a milestone would affect the whole company other times just me.

When I got really happy today, I started wondering why. (Did I mention I think too much?) And then it hit me. I must have hit some milestone without realising it. I had a breakthrough. An artistic epiphany.

I looked at the new earrings I just finished and I made something I never expected of myself. Indeed, I surprised myself. Why? Because I got out of my comfort zone.

earrings-hammered

When I did my product review a couple of weeks ago I came to the conclusion that I was stuck in a rut. The work in my Etsy shop did not reflect the depth and variety of the sketches or scribbled down ideas around my studio. So I’ve been focusing on turning some of those ideas into pieces. But then sometime this week I was paging through my jewellery books and magazines and looked at a fold-forming article. And without really thinking about it, and completely disregarding my focus, I pulled out my hammers and bench block. Something I’ve only used to flatten findings since I bought it.

So I started making my first leaf. It was an abject failure. But I was in some sort of sleepwalker brain state and just carried on playing. Somehow my fugue state was in place for the rest of the week. I did not think about what I was supposed to be doing, I was just working on some stuff. Then, as if by magic, I created something different from my other work while keeping to my design themes. It’s new, but completely me.

I guess the point I am trying to make is push yourself out of your comfort zone and see what you come up with.

My tips to get out of your comfort zone are:
1) Evaluate your work in a measurable way. Then work out what type of things you’re missing and work on those.
2) Set yourself a goal. Mine is to make at least 5 sets of new earrings.
3) Think about the themes and ideas you use in your work.
4) Throw a random factor into your process. Use a different material or technique than usual.
5) See what happens.

Why don’t you try it sometime?

Inspiration, creativity and productivity – an audit

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

I generally do not have problems with inspiration. I have a slightly different problem; I have too many divergent ideas. This frequently results in periods of inaction, because I cannot decide what to do first. Illustrating that inspiration is not necessarily the stumble block for creating beautiful, creative pieces. Discipline plays a large part as well.
After struggling with my productivity for quite some time I feel I am progressing very well with finishing pieces. With this in mind, I started wondering whether I am just being smug about my own creativity. How creative are those many ideas that I have?
Obviously, the automatic response is: ‘Oh, yes, but I have so many different ideas’. But is that adequate? I generally distrust knee-jerk reactions, so I decided to have a closer look at my pieces. I am also working on my next jewellery range at the moment. The rough drawings are done and I am waiting for my supplies to be delivered.
So I figured this is a perfect time for a little creative audit.
My first step is setting parameters for the audit. I decided to look at the pieces I currently have on Etsy shop. For my second set of parameters I decided to review the pieces according to:

Type – necklace, bracelets, pendants, rings and earrings
Form – the shape of the piece
Medium – polymer clay, metal
Technique

I currently have:

19 necklaces and five pendants
6 bracelets
No earrings!
One ring

Necklaces
Form
Looking at my necklaces I am quite dismayed at the lack of variety. Yes, of course, the colours are quite different but there are actually only 3 different styles of necklaces. Beaded, beads knotted on leather and two pieces incorporating silver chain.
At least the small varieties of having ovoid shapes and constructing with silver wire helps.
Medium
They are mostly made out of polymer clay, which is OK as that is my preferred medium.
Conclusions
I better step up on the design front! I should focus on:

Different shapes and sizes for beads
Incorporating more metal in my pieces
Using chain as a design element

Pendant
Ja, OK. I had to upload 5 more pendants before I posted this article. It would have been too lame to only have 1.
Form
The shapes are simple with rounded rectangles and covered squares – all of them strung on leather cord.
Medium
I only have polymer clay pendants.
Conclusions

Upload/ make more pendants
Use different materials and techniques
Play around with shapes and dimensions
Incorporate some of my basic design obsessions like figure/ground and transparency with layers
Construct hanging pendants out of multiple objects and string them on chain

Bracelets
Form
Hmmmm… I only have cuffs and beaded bracelets. I think I can do better.

Medium
Polymer clay with some metal used in the construction.

Conclusions
I like wearing and making cuffs, so that is OK. But I love leather bracelets and wearing many chunky pieces at the same time. Both lacking from my portfolio at the moment.

I should:

Use leather cord and leather for constructing some pieces
Make some resin pieces
Play around with different shapes
I really have to make some earrings and more rings

Techniques
I decided it would make more sense talking about techniques in general.
Polymer clay
My pieces are dominantly using stacks (stripes) and millifiori canes (mostly floral). That’s crazy. I love playing around with different techniques so why isn’t my portfolio showing that?
I am going to focus on image transfers, some mokame gane, micro mosaics, faux techniques like jade and bone as well as making some moulds next.
For metal I want to play around with hammering some pieces, finally try that etching technique I read about and do some riveting.

Elements missing from my design
Dimension: polymer clay is so easy to work with. Why stick with the normal shapes like round beads?
Communicating meaning: I am so interested in meaning and understanding the world around me. Looking at my pieces I don’t see much of my interests in there. They’re not telling any of the stories that I think about when I work. None of my themes or interests seems to be represented in my work at the moment.
To be honest I am actually a little annoyed with myself after my design audit. But I am also delighted with the outcomes on this little experiment. I think the rough drawing for the next batch of jewellery stands up against a lot of my self-criticism. But I think it also shows that I am a bit smug about my creativity. There are always different areas to push yoursef into and without critical thought on your own work you will never get there.

I will be posting new pieces based on this little audit in the next couple of weeks.
Get in touch if you also did a design audit of your work.

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