Tuesday 20 March 2012

Madrid and Jean Power's Faux Cro

It's been a month since I last posted because I have been so busy!  I went on a trip to Madrid to see my baby brother and his lovely girlfriend which was utterly fabulous.  I spent a lot of time in The Prado, mainly gasping at delight over the deliciousness that is Heironymus Bosch's The Garden Of Earthly Delights and enjoyed the newly restored Mona Lisa copy (although I don't really like it!).  However, it was at Reina Sofia that my imagination was truly captured.  I could have spent a whole week just wandering around and drinking in the amazing art on offer.  I fell in love with Hans Hartung and Oskar Schlemmer (especially this and this).  I loved seeing the Man Ray works, especially the original of this, a poster of which was on my bedroom wall for pretty much my entire teenage years!  I saw Guernica, and all sorts of other Picasso works, lots of Miro and countless other awe inspiring works. 

So you see, I have been so busy that to be honest I have only made one piece of jewellery since then - a Faux Cro bangle by Jean Power.  I made it as a leaving present for my temp staff and I cannot begin to tell you how wonderful this pattern is to make up.  Absolutely dreamy and you can do it whilst watching telly or listening to music and not really concentrating.  Well, apart from when you get to the invisible join and then it's a little fiddly, but not overly so. 

As you can only just see, it's in a very pale pink with a silver lined grey spiralling round endlessly.  She is a pale, blue-eyed blonde so she wears lots of delicate colours like this, although I had to get lots of second opinions as I hardly ever use pastels or muted colours!

This picture is hardly any better but you can see that it's an actual proper bangle!

I am teaching Kathy tonight and I have so many ideas jotted down that I really ought to get myself in gear to make something blog-worthy!