Spring is in the air

Its creeping in slowly but surely, sometimes in a one-step-forwards, two-steps-back kind of way. but you can feel it in the air. The sun is shining, the bulbs in my garden are starting to poke their shoots through the ground, even the kitties are starting to go outside more frequently to play, Spring is on its way.

Spring, like Autumn is one of the seasons that I find has a tangible effect on my work, its not a deliberate "oh, I must make spring like things" but a hankering to use brighter colours, designs that remind me of warmer days, things blooming and a general feeling of freshness.

I have been thinking about this for a few days as I have been working on a new framed piece, so far im really pleased with how it is coming together, and to me it feels very much like spring. Want to see a sneak-peek teaser ? Just a little detail ? Ok, here goes - 

Do you find the seasons have a direct influence on what you make ? I would love to hear if it affects you, how it affects your work ? Do you find you  use different colours ? Or even a different technique or media ?

And the winer is

Sarah, of La-De-Dah. Congratulations Sarah ! 

Huge thank you to everyone taking part in OWOH, it has been great to visit lots of new blogs and "meet" new people I have thoroughly enjoyed it. A particularly special thank you to everyone who took time to comment on my post too !

Lonely Hearts

I hope that you are having a  lovely day and the sun is shining where you are as it is here, after the grotty overcast and rainy day we had yesterday its so lovely to have bright sunshine today. I decided that it would be fun to do something for valentines and this appealed so I hope you will go and take a look at the Chameleon Designs Lonely Hearts Page and say hello to Lola, Betty, Ginny and company and help to make them feel loved.

Its over a year now since I went on the class with Claudia Trimbur Pagel and I had lots of ideas following the class for beads that  I wanted to make, amongst which was a manga style girl and, well, as you can see its take a year to get there but then last week I finally got round to attempting it and I was quite pleased with the results of my first goes, despite there being some obvious room for improvement !!

Beads in order that they were made - top first

While I was making them something clicked in my brain, a switch somewhere flipped or something and I remembered a souvenir my mum bought me back from a holiday in Greece, a plaster ladies head, very pretty, in a 1920's style, all black and white, and we called her Tallulah after one of the characters in Bugsy Mallone.  So I decided to make some 1920's (ish) ladies, bobbed hair, big flowers in their hair or hair bands, and "all that jazz". Meet "Lola" - 

You can see the other ladies on their page on my website or on my flickr.

One World One Heart 2011

Hello and Welcome to Chameleon Designs, I am Becky Fairclough, a lampwork glass artist based in the beautiful Surrey Hills, UK.  My passion is working with hot glass, finding inspiration in the things around me. I also enjoy photography and have a fascination for patterns. I live with my wonderful Man and our 3 kittie-monsters.

Im very excited to be participating in OWOH and along with so many other bloggers worldwide, and very thankful to my Bead Soup partner Niky, whose blog introduced me to OWOH.

For a chance to win one of my heart pendants like the ones below, please just leave me a comment on this post and I will draw a winner on 17th Feb 2011.

A new adventure

I have been fascinated by surface pattern for a long time. Im not sure where the fascination came from but I had a brief brush with Surface Pattern Design at my first uni and have had a nagging itch to get back to it ever since. 

Card by Rachael Taylor, Website, Folksy

So I have decided to have a little adventure and try to teach myself more about designing patterns and hopefully make some exciting patterns of my own along the way. I thought it would be fun to treat it like one of the extended projects we did at college so Im starting at the very beginning, Im doing research. 

"Flora" pattern by Julia Rothman, Website Flickr

Research ? Yes, research. I know I love patterns, but exactly what is it about patterns that I love ? Is it the big bold patterns, lots of colour and simple block shapes ? Or maybe the really intricate ones with subtle colours ? When I say pattern am I meaning "wallpaper" pattern, something that repeats over and over or am I meaning simply any decoration of a surface ? I need to work out what style and elements of patterns are the things that make me go "Oooo".

Pattern by Amanda Dilworth, Website

So, my first stop is Bowie Style's book "Print & Pattern". (Which immediately gets a big "oooo" !!) The book is a collection of wonderful surface pattern designs from some amazing artists and just flicking thorough it Im already excited about this project. (All the images in this post are by artists whose work are in the book whose work I admire) I have already some seedling ideas what I like and what sort of work I want to produce so look out, there may be some tentative shoots of patterns sprouting round here soon...