'From a small seed a mighty trunk may grow'



Silver and Felt Pinecone Seed Pendant

 So, the Academic year is over for another year, or at least until September!!

The last few weeks have been quite hetic with hand in and manning the exhibition.

Now that everything is settling down again, I felt it was time to share my final products with you from the Design Event brief and here they are!!!



Porcelain and Felt Showpiece Necklace

These products were inspired from one of my happy places as this was the theme of the brief, the garden and nature within it gave me a wealth of possibilities to choose from and open up future ideas to consider in the future.

For these products I used a combination of materials from each area, instead of seperately making products in each discipline, I enjoyed the different challenges that this presented combining the unlikely materials together.

From a small seed a mighty trunk may grow

                                                        Aeschylus

I also used the actual pinecone seed as part of one of the products by incorporating this with a tracing paper envelope and a quote which tied into the seed. This represents the seed packets that comes with buying seeds.

Pinecone Seed and Envelope Necklace




Silver Pinecone Seed Necklace Detail

The plain silver pinecone seed pendants are as unique as the seeds produced by the pinecone, the effect can never be replicated on another piece, like that of no two seeds will not create the same tree.



Silver Pinecone Seed Necklace

So now that it's all handed in, it's time to turn my attention to researching my dissertation and to get the Summer Project started ready for September!!






Garden Treasures

SOOOOO, here are some of my textile samples, hung up in my work bay at college, these have all been inpired by a treasure hunt around the garden, looking for some usual and unusual objects that were lurking in secret places.

The pieces on the right of the picture were inspired by a Snowdrop walk, through Guisborough Priory, were the main area was covered by a carpet of snowdrops, the bark on the trees surrounding the area had wonderful textures, which I could have spent a very long time photographing and drawing.

During this project, I visited the Botanical Gardens at Durham which has also proved an inspirational source and again the bark textures took centre stage (especially the peeling bark).

Anyway, time to get back to work!!!

Jeni

Update needed!!!

Whoops sorry, this post has been long been waiting to be published, and now I have finally got round to writing it!



Expandable bag, small version

Well the Coast brief has been submitted and gone, so first things first, images of the outcomes:

The expandable bag was initially a beach bag inspired and was centred around calico work in neutral colours.

The final bag, although on the same theme, was made with evening wear in mind. Using a mixture of velvet and silk as the main bag.




Expandable bag, detail pocket

The embellishment on the rocks was achieved using a mixture of French Knots and beads to get the texture of the rocks, the main rocks were made from a mixture of silver silk shot taffeta and silver satin, using both sides of the material, the different shades were present.


Candle Snuff detail

For the candle snuffer, I used limpets as the source of inspiration, by creating the 3D form for the limpet shell, in copper, then silver plating the piece, with a matt finish.








So now, I'm well into the new brief, this one is for Design Event in the North East England, which helps those just graduated or just starting in their business adventure to thrive.

This brief has taken inspiration from finding your Happy Place. I have focused on nature and gardens for this project, so we will see where this adventure will take me!

For more information on the Design Event and their events please look at their website: http://www.design-event.co.uk/

Untill next time!

Jeni

Samples Galore!!!

Happy New Year!!!

Apologies for not posting sooner, deadline is nigh and stress levels are high!


I thought I would share my samples with you, as I have finally spread them out to see them together for the first time!

From left to right: Jewellery Samples, Textiles Samples, Combined Samples and Ceramic Samples, freshly labelled this morning.

An update with my final pieces, the candle snuffer that I made as part of my Jewellery/Metal section is away getting silver plated. For my Textiles I am in the middle of making a Expandable Bag, originally a Beach/Shopping Bag idea, I have developed it further into an Occasion Wear Bag. And for Ceramics I am making a candle holder, that resembles rocks that are found on beaches. Currently, my Ceramic piece is in half, as it cracked during the firing process.

Anyway, back to the final push before deadline.

Jeni