Wednesday 23 July 2014

My favourite piece?

I was asked by one of my lovely followers what I would consider to be my favourite piece of jewellery.  Well, I'm sure it's not quite like asking someone which of their children is their favourite, but it's pretty tough, nonetheless!  It's particularly difficult, because, as my style evolves and I achieve new things, I become quite fond of the new pieces.  The only thing I can say for sure is that it will be a wire pendant - I'm very attached to some of my pictorial pendant designs.  So I think I will just show you the evolution of the picture pendants, with a few of my favourites along the way.  And I'll end with the one that is probably (maybe) my current favourite - until next week, anyway. ;)

This is where the obsession fascination with creating wearable wire pictures began.  When I was a child I loved making little nature dioramas, complete with tiny mirrors for lakes and moss for grass etc.  It occured me one evening how cool it would be if I could do something similar with a pendant.  And this was what I made:
Awful night-time photography aside, it's pretty basic.  Just a simple wire fish, some stone chips, twisted bugle beads for weed and tiny moonstones for bubbles.  But I was still quite excited when I'd finished - it was an underwater scene!

I progressed to this sort of thing - the fish are woven, of course, and the seaweed is more sophisticated, but the basic design is similar.
I was, of course, still mildly (!) obsessed with trees, and making them look like specific types of tree, like this olive tree.

And this is the very first pendant with a woven backdrop; I'm still a little bit in love with those glorious sunset colours.  It was inspired (of course) by the sky, with lots of mental wrangling over how I could depict a sunset.  I had a bit of a light-bulb moment, and this opened the way for many more scenes.


And then came the sheepsies ... I have an unwritten rule that I almost never use actual shaped beads or charms in my pendants, because of course I like to make life difficult for myself, and insist I create them myself from beads or wire!  I'm not tired of the sheep yet ...

So hopefully you can see the progression of my picture pendants over the last few years.  I think this is currently one of my favourites, as it just has so much in it (including my beloved sheepsies):


7 comments:

Unknown said...

My favourite piece is the wirework, flowers and leaves necklace which I am lucky to own. Everytime I wore it on holiday, it was remarked on. Wore it yesterday too and again, 2 compliments. x

Louise said...

Aw, thank you so much, Christine - that's lovely to read! :) x

Jackie said...

My favourite is my Goddess ... She is magnificent. I also always get asked about her, we are lucky people to have one! My husband, who, doesn't recognise anything, said oh look sheep you should buy one of those for a particular friend. It's not her birthday until January so please don't stop making them. All of your designs are beautiful and I particularly enjoyed this blog as the evolution was great. Xxx

Laney said...

I love your wire work :) those sunsets are lovely.

Louise said...

Aw, that's lovely, Jackie! I'm sure I'll still be creating sheep - but you know you can always contact me to make something for you. :) x

Thank you, Laney! :) x

Sharyl said...

How interesting to see this progression! Even the first one looks amazing, but I can see how your art has developed here. It's just so unique and so wonderful! Keep it up!

Louise said...

Thank you, Sharyl! :) x