Wednesday, September 10, 2014

On Inspiration and Making It Your Own

You couldn't attend the IPCA Arches Retreat and not be aware of our scholarship recipient, Eva Haskova. Her unique designs and her engaging personality captured our hearts. As her room mate, I was especially lucky!

Her demo showing how she creates the wonderful wrapped effect evident in the neckwear, brooches and earrings that everyone was snapping up set off one of those magical clicks in my own brain...

I've done some work with cut strips, but I always laid them flat. What if I did as Eva does, and turned them on end? And made them thicker (BOLDER)? And perhaps polished them in typical 11BOLDstreet layered fashion? AND, what if I combined them with gauze and liquid polymer?

These five pieces are the first results of some experimentation. (More photos will be included in the Etsy listings in the next few days.)

The black and jewel tone brooch group colors grew from a favorite piece of alcohol ink-stained gauze. With some liquid polymer to add stiffness and shape, I used pieces as interior focals for three brooches.


I cut strips of coordination polymer, wrapped it around cutters and cured, then sanded and sanded and sanded... After buffing, I attached the gauze centers. Plus, some silvery wire and paint accents.




The fourth brooch and the valet featured a totally different color scheme - black with mixed metallics. I chose to leave the brooch unsanded matte, but employed texture in holes filled with mica-tinted liquid polymer.



The cut strip portion of the valet was built around a cured piece of gauze, and the supporting back finished similarly to the brooch. I also chose not to sand down the polymer portion of the top - just a good buffing to bring up a nice luster.




The last photo shows two of my brooches, and a brooch gift from Eva on the far right. A similar basic technique inspired these pieces, but from that point on, there is really no resemblance.


This is one example of taking what is learned from this Retreat, or any learning/sharing event, going home and making it your own!