Snow and St Valentine

 

We finally got some beautiful snow fall in the UK this week. Where we are it was just enough snow to make everything look pretty, but not enough to cause any real disruption, i.e. the perfect amount lol. The above shot is of the snow covered loveseat in the back garden, with a lovely view of my Art Nouveau style clock in the conservatory (isn't she elegant)

 

The romantic in me has been getting excited for Valentines Day this year... and I noted that I have such a range of colours represented in gemstones in the shop now, that I had to put together some luscious Garnets, Coppers and Carnelian reds as part of a Valentine's promotion. You can find them here . Below are some of the pieces featured...

This Garnet Gemstone Circle Necklace was purchased straight away, I am happy to say (below)...

 

Anyway thanks for stopping by, I hope you follow the link and see the Valentines themed pieces we have in store :)

Thanks for looking ...



Samantha Braund

The Tudor King and I

 

 

It's been a lovely week for us, the highlight being attending the hubby's official PhD Graduation ceremony! As a newly anointed Doctor of Philosophy he got to wear this fab ceremonial outfit for the day. It's very Tudor-esque, especially the hat! I felt like I was with a Tudor King or at least a member of the court lol.  Anyway, I've posted some pics of us both on the day, I hope you like them - I don't normally post personal stuff here, but I wanted to document it for virtual posterity :D

 

 

 

I also made a couple of sales this week, of some special pieces - a Steampunk inspired piece containing a Purple Glass cabochon, and my beloved Bicolour Lemon-Smokey Quartz Paisely Necklace. See the pictures below :) I have also been busy working on prototypes for my Arts shop, and have come up with some interesting ideas for combining my jewellery and mixed media work to create some Gothic, Pirate themed pieces. I am pretty excited about the prospect, so watch this space :) All in all I would say it's been a pretty fab week :)

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by :)

Thanks for looking ...



Samantha Braund

Mixed Media Books and Crab Apples

 

 

 

It's been a pretty busy time for me in the studio lately, which just proves that my shoulder rehab is coming on leaps and bounds! I made a couple of grungey mixed media books for family this week. They loved my Steampunk Seahorse illustrations and I thought turning them into books would be a good idea. I am really getting into image transfers now and managed to transfer my own work onto the mixed media backgrounds pretty well. The book covers have a leathery feel and are pretty flexible. I attached a signature of plain cartridge paper into each one, as well as embellishing them with a matching polymer clay bead  

 

I love how they turned out, and I know my cousins are excited to receive them which is a great sign. I hope I can get more efficient in making this type of project as they're proving popular with my facebook friends too, and is another item I'd love to be able to add to the future arts shop. Aside from these, I also added to my Daily Sketch Project with a watercolour-y illustration of zesty apples! (see bottom of this post). I will however be turning the project into a weekly one, and will select my favourite sketch from the week to feature here. Anyway enjoy all the photos and thanks for stopping by :) 

 

 

 

 

 the back covers....

 

Thanks for looking ...



Samantha Braund

Scooter Girl In The Rain - Daily Sketch Project

 

There was a photo of this little girl in a newspaper, looking blissfully happy riding her scooter in the rain. She looked so carefree and happy, that I felt inspired to try to capture that feeling :)

Vintage Bride and Dreamcatchers

 

I saw this vintage photo of a bride to be on Pinterest (one of favourite places in cyberspace!), and had to paint her. I drew a loose outline of her in pencil first , then went in with diluted indian ink. I think I prefer drawing/ in indian ink and a brush, it's a lot more expressive than pencil. I then overlayed washes in acrylic paint and added opaque white for the highlights - because the indian ink is so dilute it accepts glazes of overlaying paint, and takes I quite well

 

 

 

I've also posted this image of the Dreamcatcher Necklace collection onto my FB jewellery page 

These pieces are inspired by the legendary Native American artefacts, I created a protective Dreamcatcher style amulet to be worn to bring peace and dispel bad dreams, like a good luck charm

They are traditionally circular hoops containing a woven web, and adorned in feathers, to hang above the bed of the person to be protected. The Dreamcatcher is meant to dispel nightmares, catching them in the web, only allowing beautiful thoughts and dreams to pass through

These necklaces are a woven myriad of golden and silver circles encircling a beautiful luminescent AAA quality faceted gemstone at the centre. You can find them here in my shop :) I am going to periodically highlight different pieces and collections I have in the store, it's a lovely way to see the ideas behind the collections and I personally love seeing all the pieces sitting together on a page lol

 

Bird On A Branch Daily Sketch

 

My shoulder is acting up today, which could mean I have been over doing all the studio play this week, since starting my Daily sketch project lol...I may have to rest it :(

Anyway, this is the latest , which started life as a sketch in biro, then shaded with indian ink. I then got invested and embellished it a bit lol...I do love this one though, I hope you do too. I was also directed to a website where you can turn your artwork into products like Tote bags and mugs etc, so I used this image to see what a cushion would look like and I love it lol (see below)

 

Isn't that cute?!!

 

 

Armoured Heart - Daily Sketch Project

 

I sat in front of the movie "The Imitation Game" based on Alan Turing, while drawing this...I think I cried throughout most of it lol. I just wanted to protect and cherish this amazing person which I guess translated into creating this armoured heart. Sometime we could all do with a bit of armour to protect our hearts couldn't we?

 

I outlined the main heart shape in pencil and selected areas for the heart to show through the armour. Then I went about "doodling" the armour in biro, adding shading with pencil over the top. I used acrylics for the paint effects  

Mixed Media White Flowers

 

Another daily sketch entry - really not one of my favourites. I layered so many bits of paper ephemera from a pile of scraps I had in my stash, and added some Tim Holts tissue tape strips. I applied clear gesso, and found that when I used my dylusions inks, they kept smudging even after drying with a heat gun. I eventually worked out that the inks seemed to need a porous paper surface to bleed into to fix properly....so lesson learnt. I glazed the whole thing and used white gesso to colour the flower illustration. It turned out OK, but I still find that layering in collage does not come that naturally to me. Hopefully with practice I will improve :)

Cafe Parisien Collage

 

A crop from my latest collage made using stamped layers of tissue paper, and acrylic paints

Smile Even When The Rain Pours

 

Daily Sketch Project - More of an art journal entry than a quick sketch today. I have really gotten into using those beautiful papers you get in Prima paper pads and the like... and the sentiment seemed so apt for a gloomy, rainy grey day here in the UK :)

The Jewellery Shop Has Been Reopened!!

 

https://www.etsy.com/shop/SamBraundJewellery

 

I do believe that I have virtually every colour in the rainbow represented in gemstones now!! I am such a colour fiend, must be those ancestral roots calling ( The Holi Festival in particular is something I would love to witness)

Blue Steampunk Barnacled Seahorse

This is the second Steampunk Barnacled Seahorse in the series. I have felt very inspired by these two precious babies (lol) ...I think I will taking elements from these pieces and incorporating them into a metal clay piece. Anyway, the jewellery shop is reopening tomorrow, so this serves a sa gentle reminder :)

Steampunk Seahorse Illustration

 

A doodle of a seahorse, embellished in my style with stylised barnacles and steampunk elements. This was not a 15 minute sketch by any means for my Daily Sketch project, but it is something I am thinking of doing for my future online arts shop

Abstract Wintery Dried Leaves

I have come to love Winter over recent years. I am especially enthralled by the way frost affects the flora and fauna around the house. I find I take more photos of bare twigs and branches than I do of the flush green display of Summer. I was using my camera as kind of view finder and noted the abstract geometrical shapes formed by interwoven dried leaves and branches...this illustration is a quick study in acrylic inks to capture those gnarly jagged forms





Thanks for stopping by




Samantha Braund

Daily Sketch - Tribal Girl

 

Mixed Media Daily Sketch of a model wearing tribal make up...I liked the magazine spread and thought I'd do a grungy version :)

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Samantha Braund

Daily Sketch Resolution

 

I am going to try to stick to my own creative New Year's resolution to do a daily sketch/ illustration of some kind at the end of a day. I find the practice meditative and one of my fave mixed media artists Ann Bagby suggested carrying out this method for sharpening your drawing skills. I also find I can incorporate them into journals and other artwork at any point in time too, so nothing goes to waste lol. I have put this up on my FB page too as a way of documenting my progress and also in the hope that it may force me to keep it going (I can dream right? lol)

 

 

Thanks for stopping by




Samantha Braund

Mixed Media Soft Bound Book Experiments

Happy New Year 2015! (Image heavy post by the way....)

I am still rehabbing my shoulder, which still means no jewellery making for the time being, so I have had to be creative about being creative lol. I have been really getting into my painting as you may recall from my last couple of posts, and really felt a strong urge to transfigure my 2D art form into a 3D artform. I loved the idea of book covers incorporating my work in a grungy style and did some research and found a lot of interesting ideas (on Pinterest of course) and online courses about how to proceed

I am still in an experimental phase, especially with regard to getting decent image transfers of my work onto irregular fabric like surfaces, but it is looking promising overall. The books will be soft bound eventually, and the covers have a wonderful, flexible, leather like feel to them (see the image below). The edges are satisfyingly grungy and it reeks of old world charm, like undiscovered pirate maps found on a shipwreck !

My first attempt went "wrong", my image transfers didn't work and left strange marks on the surface and I went overboard trying to correct the composition, but I found that I can get very satisfying cropped images (see the end of the post) which I can use as transfers themselves or incorporate them into other work...nothing is ever wrong really in expressive work - that's the moral for me at least lol)

Anyway it has been a wonderful start to the year, and I hope my health improves further too, so that I can become my normal studio obsessed self  again lol. I hope to create some wonderful books and paintings for an arts shop , so this is a nice first step . I have embedded a slideshow video of the experiments so far


































Mixed Media Book Cover Experiments