Saturday 21 May 2011

The Agony and The Ecstasy

Well, perhaps not quite.  But I'm referring to the absolute tedium of the groundwork when making a wire piece compared to the thrill of making all the little twiddly bits.  It's a real chore for me to spend hours wire-wrapping - especially if no beads are involved! - so I often save it until I have something to watch on the telly.  I can then concentrate on the good bit when the telly is off!

To me it's very much like decorating - you have to spend hours (sometimes days) preparing the walls and paintwork - rubbing down, filling, sanding etc. and it's only after all this hard graft has been done that you can get on with the fun bit - slapping the paint on.  Yes, I know that I can't have instant gratification, and I do understand that the finished result will only be acceptable if the groundwork was well-executed, but it still bores me! ;)

Case in point my latest piece below - wrapping that trellis took a lot longer than you'd think, and in my head I was already working on the vine, but you have to get the basic stuff right!  The trellis is in fact not perfectly shaped (I like to think of it as rustic) but I did spend hours wrapping the wretched thing.  And I'm quite pleased with the result.  After a lot of false starts and failed pieces this week, this one at least looks like it did in my head!

2 comments:

Hazel Ward said...

It's well worth the work Louise - it's a fab design :) For me, the most tedious part is after I make the beads, because that means hours of sanding pieces in water, urgh. Oh well, at least my fingers are nicely smooth and sanded by now :D

Louise said...

Thanks, Hazel! Lol - I absolutely hate all the sanding etc. that comes after making polymer clay beads, that's another in-front-of-the-telly job. And I think it wrecks my nails even more than wireworking! :O