New direction

I just returned from Detroit and the ICON 10 Illustration Conference. Detroit held up to the hype as an up and coming art city and ICON was an inspirational shot in the arm. I've been creating a lot of new art in the last few months; both digitally and with a paintbrush and watercolors. I will be selling on Spoonflower if you want fabric, giftwrap or wallpaper with one of my designs. You can visit me on Instagram to get a taste of what I've been up to. I will announce it here when the Spoonflower designs are up and running.

Makers gotta make

It's been almost a year since I posted so I don't know if anyone will care but here are a few of the things I've been making this year. There was felt, polymer clay, sterling silver, copper enamel and collage. I tried laser cutting, beading and knitting hand warmers. I still have a love affair with paper, printing and linoleum prints. So many ideas and so little time.

Japanese seed beads, with brass and gold highlights.

 Detail of a beaded necklace

African glass, brass and leather necklace 

 Textured enamel earrings

 needle felted brooch

Two needle felted, beaded and embroidered brooches.

 Polymer clay beads

Sterling silver forged cuff

Paint on Paper

I've been doing some freeform painting with black gesso and watercolor. I learned this particular technique at a workshop I too with Laura Wait at Penland. We used all kinds of twigs, rocks and other found brushes to make marks on paper. It was one of the most freeing classes I have ever done.

I made some papers last night and then folded them into signature and made a little artist book. I still need to sew it together but wanted to show you my process.

Painted papers:

Felt Flower on Cardboard

Coffee Filter flower

7/366 Make a Day Challenge - Coffee Filter flower (dyed in coffee and dipped in black gesso). Working with what I've got around the house.

Collage

I used to do a lot of collage. I've been doing more jewelry making and have gotten away from paper and glue. With the new year I am going to make one thing a day... nothing fancy and using whatever is around. I've made two new collages and I'm excited to get back into this medium.

Take a look .https://www.flickr.com/photos/picturegirl/23559861873/in/dateposted-public/

 https://www.flickr.com/photos/picturegirl/24186629045/in/dateposted-public/

Playing with enamel in the jewelry studio

With some time off from my day job I've been able to get back into the studio and play with enamels. I'm using a little kiln that my studio mate bought and it is small but mighty. Here are some of my results with enamel and texture.  All of these are for sale on my Etsy webpage.https://www.etsy.com/shop/artnestbydiane