Wildlife Photographer Of The Year

I had a look around the Wildlife Photographer of The Year exhibition at Brighton Museum recently, the photos are absolutely amazing and I would highly recommend going and having a look around if you're visiting Brighton at any time. 

There's also a section taxidermy and animal skulls on show which I took some photos of. The skull is from a Fennec Fox, which is also in the photo below from the exhibition, by Bruno D'Amicis. It was one of the saddest one's I saw there telling the story of poachers illegally selling them as pets to people in the West as there's a demand for them because they're so cute. On a side note the wonderful hand model in the photo is also wearing a couple of personalised rings I made (Thanks again for showing me around Kerrie Curzon! :D)

 

I also really love this chair display as you walk into the museum:

You can find out more about the exhibition at Brighton Museum here: Wildlife Photographer of The Year

My Favourite Commisson: April/ May

I made this necklace and swapped it for a 12" single by Residence La Revolution called This Is Paint. It comes with a hand painted sleeve by Lee 'Scratch' Perry. It's made from thick hand cut and hand stamped brass and hangs on mint coloured vegetarian suede with a handmade red tassel.

You can only get this record by bartering with something you've made. It's such a great idea, being able to do trades is one of my favourite parts of having a creative business!

You can find out more about the project here: Residence La Revolution

April/ May Playlist

Oops haven't posted on here for a while! Let's get this blog back on track with some music I've been listening to over the last couple of months. This track is from the new This Is The Kit album, Bashed Out, which is really great!

Can't wait for the new Tame Impala album! Every new track I hear from themis better than the last

Love this song Wrong Hand by Jessica Pratt, I think her voice is really interesting

A bit of funk by Van Hunt

Patrick Watson - Places You Will Go

Billie Marten - Heavy Weather

My Favourite Commissions: March

I couldn't decide which was my favourite out of these two silver necklace commissions from March so I thought I'd share both! If you've got an idea for a piece of jewellery you'd like feel free to get in contact :)

March Playlist

I'm posting videos this week as I can't get my spotify playlist to work! I never watch music videos anymore, used to spend hours when I was younger with MTV2 on checking out the latest ones...

Yay to new Tame Impala music, can't wait for their new album to come out!

Sharon Van Etten's got new music out too, her last album was one of my favourites from last year

Quite a few new ones from other old favourites this month too, including The Maccabees, Warpaint and The Cribs (who will always have a soft spot in my heart)

And a band I've only just found out about, RONiiA - Last Words

Oh Someday Is Three!

Oh Someday is three today! To celebrate I'm offering 20% off all orders in my Etsy Shop until the 5th of April

Engraving Weekend

Last weekend I went on an engraving course at the wonderful West Dean College. In case you've never heard of West Dean College before it's a pretty amazing place, it was set up by Edward James in his family mansion on the South Downs as a centre for the study of conservation, arts, crafts, writing, gardening and music. They put on lots of short courses, as well as some full time ones, every year including specialised jewellery and silversmithing ones.The house itself is so interesting to explore as Edward James was a surrealist art collector who was friends with Salvador Dali, the college has one of the famous lobster telephones and a Mae West Lips sofa in one of the hallways which they collaborated on together. There's art and extravagant taxidermy down every corridor.

 

The engraving course was taught by Wayne Parrott who is an excellent teacher and so knowledgable and helpful, if you're interested in learning about engraving I would highly recommend taking a course with him. Here's some examples that Wayne brought in to show us:

We were shown how to transfer designs onto metal, told all about the different tools and equipment you can use, including being shown how to make our own gravers and punches, and taught the basics of how to get started with engraving.

I learnt so much over the three days but it's a skill that takes a lot of practise. I'm going to carry on doing it now I'm home and hopefully be able to include it in my work in the future. Here's one of my finished pieces:

You can find out more about West Dean College and the courses available HERE