Spikes!

Well my first full week at my new job went well though it was a busy week as usual. I’ve been working on my Silver spike creation and have finished the second layer after a few hiccups. My computer also had a hiss fit and would not let me airdrop photos las week so I had no photos to do a post with when I had time last week.

Ok so about my lates project has currently used about 9,057 beads, 12 metal skewers a lot of thread and one set of lights. its all in size 11 delica beads and is so far made with three shades of silver.

I’m not super happy with how the lights turned out but that is something I’ll have to work on the next time I use lights in a sculpture. The first and second layer are not joined in any way, nor are the spike actually attached to anything, I just sloted them into place and folding over the second layer pulled them mostly into place. The third layer should tighten up their placement even more hopefully. It is roughly 16 inches tall and 16 inches wide so it is already my biggest sculpture to-date if not the one with the most beads yet.

My cousin Kea and I went on an adventure yesterday to find the six giant

Gouldian Finches that are currently hanging out around Mackay’s city centre. My fave one was on the Artspace roof as it was so close and was peering down at us. They were previously installed across Queensland’s capital city as Messengers of Brisbane, and were created by internationally renowned artist Florentijn Hofman.

Each finch had slightly different colouring and some were near other artworks along the blue water trail. I’ve also seen some of them at night as they are set up with lights but my phone is not that great at photos.

This other one was at the Bluewater lagoon and was close to the one at Canelands as well. it was also fairly close to the ground so easy to get a decent photo of.

I also ended up tidying up my room with the help of moveable trolly tray organisers and while my room still need a little work it is so much better than it was. There is also some workshops at the moment making birds from recycled plastic for a large installation which I will try to take part in maybe this week or next week, as it seems like fun.

I don’t share a lot of photos of me actually beading as it really takes both hands and a fair amount of concentration but I felt the need to capture working on this on so you could see just how tricky it was. I had holes in my shirt from where the skews poked through, lucky I picked a shirt with a loss weave so that I could smooth out the holes. Kea pointed out that it was probs a good thing that I wear glasses or I could have ended up poking my eye out. I don’t know whats going on with my eyes but to be fair this was late at night or after a late night.

I did pull it apart at one stage to fix the spikes as I had joined them together with zip ties but they were difficult to get in place and I was worried about breaking something trying to move them so ended up pulling it a part and taking the zip ties off so that things went more smoothly. Thankfully it didn’t take much of an opening to get it done and was easy enough to stitch back together. Though one of the spikes had moved out of place when I was stitching it back together so I also had to cut open the second layer and fix that as well, before adding in the final parts of the second layer.

I also started adding to my tower base again and I fell like I was faster than I was before but it is still going to be an in between projects job because it is very time consuming still. I think I’ll be working on the fairy garland after writing today and then I’ll work on finishing the two original design dresses I’ve started and had sitting around for months.

Hum other than that I don’t really know but I will try very hard to get out another post this week to make up for the lack of a post last week.

Here is a photo of Millie pretending to be. a meek lap cat and not the monster who has been tearing up the house of late and bullying the other cats. Oh well some times she’s sweet.

Lou.