Latest Commision...

As well as the jewellery I make for Deviant Panda I also take on commissions. My latest commission was a charm bracelet for a Christmas present. The brief was to create a charm bracelet with a Chinese influence incorporating the Chinese Zodiac symbol of the monkey.

I started by painting wooden beads with a black base with red Chinese lettering on top representing the words Happy, Joy, Love, Luck, Money and 'Have Fun'. I painted two more wooden beads with a black base followed by small flowers on one and gold and red trellis on the other. I varnished them all with a glossy varnish and threaded them onto silver wire finishing with red glass cubes and jade effect beads.

Then I upcycled some charms I had from an old bracelet I was given years ago and created a new charm from a Chinese coin I obtained from a trip to China earlier this year.

The last task was create a jade effect monkey charm so using a mixture of greens, white, black and translucent polymer clay I set to work creating jade. This was something I have never tried before but I loosely followed the instructions given in Donna Kato's The Art of Polymer Clay until I managed to get a consistency I was happy with. I flattened the blob of clay and started to carve out the basic shape of the monkey, continuing to sculpt the finer details. Once I was happy with the monkey I added some detailing, said a quick prayer and popped it in the oven. I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome which goes to show that following a recipe seems to pay off! :) I varnished the monkey once it had cooled, attached all the charms to the bracelet and proudly presented it to my very happy customer.

I'm always happy to take on commissions so if you have something in mind just get in touch either via folksy, facebook or twitter (the links to my sites are all around the page) or leave a comment for me on this blog. I hoped you liked the pictures of the bracelet as much as I enjoyed creating it! :)

Til next time,

DP

Sugar Skulls and other inspirations... pt 2

I have recently found some time on my hands (at last) to write the concluding part of my inspirations for my Dia de los Meurtos Collection. This has come at a price as I have a nasty little ulcer on my right cornea, a result of a speck of dirt wriggling it's way under my contact lens and becoming rather bothersome. A trip to A&E and 2 types of eye drops should hopefully clear the little bugger up soon. I wear contacts for vanity reasons and vanity, my friends, always seems to come at a price. So between hourly eye drops and several breaks away from the screen (my eye still isn't quite up to staring at a computer screen for hours on end just yet) here we go...

Since I was very small I remember being enthralled by manga and anime. I remember a trip to Brittany when I was about 5 where I was first introduced to anime by way of a french-dubbed cartoon. I couldn't tell you want the cartoon was but the style of drawing was something that I'd never seen before and I was fascinated by it.

Skip forward 6 years and to a slumber party at my best friends house where her older brother introduced me to Akira, a groundbreaking film which pulled anime over into the western mainstream. From that moment on I was obsessed. As a teenager growing up in London I would take myself off to Chinatown to buy Hello Kitty keyrings (this was before it was widely available in every high street shop on everything from bubblegum to children's underwear) and My Melody stationery. I still have some of those original purchases with their original Japanese packaging!

I'd go to Forbidden Planet to buy Sailor Moon and Urusei Yatsura manga. I loved Chibi Moon and the kawaii-ness of it all. Whilst at university I even wrote my dissertation on the shift of influence between the East and West focusing on anime and manga to argue my point. Let's just say that some of my predictions from 2002 have materialised, you can call me Pythia if you like! :)

As a result of being a fully paid up fangirl from an early age these influences have crept into my work. I've always leaned more towards the abstract but in the last few years I have become more and more influenced by Japanese art and design. One of my big inspirations is vinyl figures - designer toys if you will. One of my favorite books on the subject is Full Vinyl by Ivan Vartanian, a look at the history of the vinyl toy phenomenon featuring some of the most exciting pieces of subversive toy culture. One of my favorite designers is Junko Mizuno (her manga are pretty cool too) although KAWS is a pretty big influence as well.

Another recommended read is RackGaki - Japanese Graffiti by Ryo Sanada and Suridh Hassan. I am a big fan of Esow, Sasu and Tenga featured in this book.

I don't know what it is exactly that I love about all of these designers, artists and images. As a visual person I find it hard to describe exactly what bit I like and where in my work you can see the influence. Instead I'd rather give you the starting points and images to look at and make up your own minds.

Although this is focused at trying to explain the influences behind the Dia de los Muertos collection to be honest these influences will stay with me in all my work, I love them too much to abandon them in pursuit of the next big thing. So expect more tales of weird toys and pretty graphics to feature as time goes by!

Until the next time, sayonara!

DP