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Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Summer Solstice Challenge ~ My Creative Process

By now, you all read my earlier post about our current Metaphysical Team challenge. There I shared with you Krystal's Magickal cabinet and the inspiration for my art piece.  Well, today you get to step into my world and follow me along as I create my art.

Recently, we moved to a new home and my studio is now a small corner of our family room, but my studio all the same.  There you will find a desk I use as my workbench and all of my supplies tucked away in drawers.  Here's a photo of my wonderful little alter that sits on a raised shelf on my workbench.


Here, I have little treasures inviting my Guides, Angels and of course my muse to join me daily as I create.  Usually, I burn some incense, Sandalwood mostly, but last year a found a wonderful Tibetan shop downtown, that carried Song of India, India Temple incense and has since become my favorite.  But, way in the background there you will see my Jasmine plant, which I've had for 8 years now, and during that time has only bloomed 3 times.  This past January it decided it would bless my home with daily blooms...yes, daily.  My family room is graced by it's exotic, alluring and sensual scent, it's just heavenly.  You can see a close up of this beautiful 8-10 petal beauty in my 365 Project collection.

So, as with all my jewelry projects I start out with prepping my wires, I use 3 sizes, small, medium and long.  Each serves it's purpose as does the different gauges I use.  I ball one end of the wire so the beads stay secure on my pieces.  As they are balled they are dropped into a pickle bath, rinsed, dried and ready to go.



 See the difference? See how shinny they become once pickled, no more fire scale on them.

Then it's creation time, I love to listen to my collection of Goddessie music, featuring my favorite Laura Powers, as well as others, like Libana, Kellianne, Pia, Celtic Women and other wonderful artists.  I move along setting out the beads in the combination that speaks to me, now that's not to say that during the beading process I don't change things around but it does give me a starting point.  During this time, sometimes new beads join in that hadn't occurred to me to use, it's all good cos' it helps the piece become richer and juicier.


So...what will I create?  How about a Forest Faerie circlet to honor the upcoming Magickal Midsummer night!


During the process I model it often, making sure the chain sits right and it's the feel I want. You'd be surprise how much math and measurements are used in creating my art...I was.

Yep, I'm happy with it, it's perfect, now on to the beading.  Each bead gets a little loop on it and twisted usually 3 times on the the various chains I use, and the ends are then tucked in tight.



This is one of the little dangles that will hang from another bead and wire loop.



Okay, almost there... I can see it coming together!


Here is it, my Forest Faerie Circlet!





I'll finish taking my shop photos, branding them with my faerie dust, then it's off to give the piece a sonic bath, to remove any residual oils and then I'll post it in my Etsy and Artfire shop.  You can also check out the Treasury I created around my Summer Solstice piece "Midsummer's Dream"




During my creative process, each piece is touched by all the elements during it's creation.  Both beads and metal coming from our beautiful Mother Earth, kissed by fire, blessed by the aromatic air from my Jasmine plant and bathed in water at the end to bring out their shine and beauty.

So, there you have it.  I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, for it was definitely an adventure for me; as I have never broken down the process of my creations before!

Creative Blessings!                                

7 comments:

  1. You are beautiful and so is your art work. I love this headdress!

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  2. absolutely stunning!
    Kalypsokrystal

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  3. I love that your pieces are created with each of the sacred elements. Lovely post!

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  4. love this post! my last post was kinda on this same mindset, deciding to post about my creative processes! Love your artwork! I'm gonna have to check out your jewelry! thanks for inspiring me to get busy today and create!

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  5. Thank you for sharing with us. Very pretty, you and the headdress.

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