AMACO Friendly Plastic Butterfly Design Challenge

Today I posted off my butterfly design for the AMACO Friendly Plastic Butterfly Design Challenge. It is called "Rainbow Shimmer". This was made very quickly at the weekend, to take advantage of the extended deadline for entries.

This butterfly was made by pressing FP from behind through a preformed metal butterfly shape. Next I need to try making some butterflies, just from FP, using the marbling technique. I have a commission for a butterfly brooch and said I would have a few to choose from at the next St Heliers Art & Craft Market.

Successful first event

The first public showing of my Art-Brooch designs took place at the St Heliers Art & Craft Market on Sunday 1 November. This was also my first craft fair in New Zealand. I believe this first event was quite successful considering that visitor numbers to the market on this particular Sunday were extremely low, due to other events going on in Auckland on the same day. This included the Auckland Marathon, which resulted in one of the main roads from the city to St Heliers (and the Harbour Bridge) being closed to traffic.

I was pleased to hear most people say what a great idea the Art-Brooch concept is and that they have not seen anything else like it before. I have been fairly limited in the amount of time I have had available to build the collection of Art-Brooches for this first event. However, I am inspired with ideas which need to be developed to refine the concept and also for new designs to add to the collection.

Feature Artist on The Art of Friendly Plastic

Today, I was the 'feature artist' on The Art of Friendly Plastic blog.

A mention in the local paper

Newspaper cutting from the East & Bays Courier - Friday 30 October 2009

A Review of October 2009

I am writing this early, as we are going away, to Tauranga, for Labour weekend – a much deserved break! I have worked really hard this month to complete my first 20 Art-Brooches (in addition to the first one, which I am keeping for myself) for my first New Zealand craft fair on 1st November. I have had to use bought frames for displaying my brooches, due to time time constraints, but I intend to work on the idea of designing and casting my own display frames in the future.

CF001 - I will keep this one for myself

To save space, the following photos have been cropped, so the frames are not shown, but hopefully they give an idea of what my Art-Brooches look like.

Art-Brooch Designs CF002 - CF021

It is now seven months since we emigrated from the UK and one month until my first craft fair in New Zealand (St Heliers Art and Craft Market), which is booked for Sunday 1st November. This will be the first showing of my Art-Brooches, to gauge public reaction to my idea for a new concept in jewellery. When I left home this morning, there was a rainbow – so I hope this is a good omen for things to come.

I have bought the domain name www.clairefairweather.co.nz, so I can develop a website to start off my Art-Brooch venture here in New Zealand. Looking to the future, with a view to selling internationally, I have also bought www.art-brooches.com.

I really need to stay positive and focused – and hopefully, my determination to succeed will make my Art-Brooch idea a success.

A Review of September 2009

I have enjoyed playing around and experimenting with the Friendly Plastic this month. It really is quite addictive, if a little uncontrollable for my liking. Sometimes it is difficult to know when to stop – or you realise you should have stopped when it is too late.

I am really excited about my idea for Art-Brooches, as I think this is something different and hopefully unique. I have searched on Google and have not come across anyone else with a similar idea. So many people seem to sell jewellery at craft fairs, I have never considered it before as I like to be different, but on looking round very few seem to have brooches. This may be because brooches are considered a bit ‘old-fashioned’ but I hope my ideas for presentation will make the brooches quite contemporary. Also, the Art-Brooch concept is a good transition for me from ‘art’ to ‘jewellery’.

Working at such a small scale, creating the brooches, is something I am not used to. However, it should be much better for my neck (years of bad posture, leaning over large pieces of art/craftwork, have given me permanent neck discomfort) and I am currently seeing a chiropractor to try and help with the neck problem. Other advantages of working small scale are that it does not take so long to complete a finished piece (which is good as I am currently working full-time) and, when I come to pack up all my sales items for my first craft fair, everything should fit in one, light box. The latter is fantastic – no more lugging back-breaking boxes in and out of cars, etc.

Surf & Sand Design Challenge - entry

Tonight I submitted my card design for the 'Surf & Sand Design Challenge', on the Friendly Plastic Blogpsot.

A Happy Accident

Today, I believe I have hit on a really unique style for my Art-Brooch designs – and it was all a ‘happy accident’. This morning, I was really excited about making my first ‘Art-Brooch’. I had drawn out the design, made up of overlapping triangular shapes of different sizes, and chosen some of my favourite colours of FP, as I thought I would keep the very first Art-Brooch for myself.

I am still learning and my first attempt at fusing the different layers did not work perfectly, as some of the triangular shapes sagged when I built up the layers. Thinking about how I could overcome this problem, I came up with an idea. So I made another one, using exactly the same coloured pieces. It still was not perfect (although the idea was simple, it was actually not so simple to construct) but it was technically better than the first one.

Just for fun, I thought I would put the first piece on the griddle pan and swirl it about when molten with the needle tool. This I did and it ended up looking fantastic. It was so satisfying creating the piece, as it was similar to ‘marbling’ (which I find fascinating and love doing) but more ‘free-form’. The flow of the swirling lines and colours really brought it to life, it looked so much more interesting than the stilted ‘angular’ design I had originally planned. It is also totally unique – I could never create another one exactly the same, even if I used the same coloured shapes to start with.

I then made a third piece (using exactly the same coloured pieces again) and worked it even more. By chance, the original triangular shapes, which I had randomly drawn, ended up looking almost flower-like. The photograph below shows the three pieces and the transition from angular to freeform design. They have all been sealed with a coat of Envirotex Lite.



It would take some thought, trial and error to work out what a finished piece might look like, depending on the starting shapes and the swirl lines made with the needle tool but I suddenly feel inspired to create pieces reminiscent of flowers, leaves, waves, landscapes, in fact anything natural - as there are ‘no straight lines in nature’. Due to the free-form nature, the end result may not be that predictable but I can always add some embellishments or paint in some additional detail, if required, to enhance the design.

So, I think this ‘happy accident’ has transformed my design ideas for the Art-Brooches, resulting in a technique that is so enjoyable to do and will create totally unique pieces – I just cannot wait to do more.

Six months on ...

We have now been living in New Zealand for six months and I cannot believe how quickly the time has gone by. After some initial experimenting, I now know where I want to go with Friendly Plastic, so I must get on with some serious designs, focusing on developing my idea for Art-Brooches – a unique piece of ‘art’ you can wear.