July Seedpod Reveal & Blog Hop

July's Art Elements' Design Challenge is Seedpod, chosen by Jennifer Cameron. At first I thought 'Aye aye aye', then after perusing the big G, I kinda sorta had an idea. I wanted to tie it in with one of my interests, Celtic Folklore, and also using Wireweaving. So I went back to 'perusing' with some other key words and finally settled on .... the Coco de Mer!!

Can you guess where this is taking us?!?

This very particular palm has only one geographical habitat, which is in the Seychelles. It's become a sort of tourist attraction, as you can well imagine. Here's a Wiki article about it and if you speak/read French or are linquistically adventerous, here's one from the source. Actually, pictures can tell the story too. This palm has a male appendage also, as you'll see in these articles ... I'll hold my comments! But, by all means, please DO.

I love the shape and tied it in with a Goddess figure (one of my other interests). I worried (for about  30 15 seconds) that it would be a little too explicit, but hey, Mother Nature works in mysterious ways ... and I figured that some of my fellow artists would be thinking along the same wavelength .... so I went for it.

I again wanted to try a new technique and this month it was Repoussé, the art of dapping metal to acheive a concave and/or convex form. I first tried to do this with some tools I already had or found in my brother-in-law's various storage areas around the house 😉😉. That's part of my only-use-what's-available line of thinking. As this was not working out in my favor, I broke down and ordered a dapping set.

After drawing and outlining the design on a piece of 28gauge Copper Foil, I proceeded to dap away. Unfortunately, what with all the other things going on in my mind (daughter's wedding and reception in September, finally going home 😍 (tho only for a month), find a dress, take charge of the favors, etc etc) ... I completely forgot to get any WIP pix. So here's my finished Goddess, she makes me smile, and that's my intention.

Front

I decided to go for a naive look and not be too concerned about the proportions.You know, like Barbie's designers (lol).
An abalone bead acts as the head and a simple 3/2 weave for the wire weave. She's made up of 2 separate components and the most difficult step was figuring out how to attach the 'core' to the structural wires. A Rose Quartz bead is woven in above the point at bottom. It's very pale and barely shows up on the first image.

Back

If you've stayed with me this far, please do comment below, I like human (and non-human) interaction ...AND join the blog hop too and see what the word Seedpod inspired other artists to create. Maybe you'll be inspired to join in next month's AE Design Challenge .
Al

Guest Artists:

Tammy, Raven , Alysen (me), Anita, Cat , Kimberly, Rozantia , Sarajo , Divya, Caroline, Catherine, Kathy, Jill, Norma

Art Elements Team: 

Claire, Caroline, Lesley, Niky, Laney, Susan, Marsha, Jenny, Cathy, Jen