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Barcelona, Gaudi and Colour

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 16:19:19 +0100

This just illustrates how a bit of colour and imagination can make even the most mundane object interesting!
I went to Barcelona earlier this Autumn with some girlfriends, and was completely bowled over. I think I must be the last person I know to go, so forgive me if you know all about Gaudi, but he has had such an impact on me that I can't stop thinking about his creations. Every time I drive past the Surrey towers in Addlestone ( ugly tower blocks) I can't help thinking what a difference Gaudi would have made!!
Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) is considered the greatest exponent of Catalan Modernism and Art Nouveau in Europe. 'Madman or genius, time will tell' according to Rogent, historical architect. Genius as far as I am concerned.
Most of you will know of his Sagrada Familia, a 'church', the size of a football field with 18 towers, that he devoted 42 years of his life to, and it is still under construction now.

This is the Natvity facade which tells the story of Jesus' childhood and adolescence. I have got many more pictures of the Sagrada Familia but I am sure you all have them too.
Gaudi was a bit Da Vinci esque in that his architecture used all sorts of ingenious techniques to use natural resources to their best advantage. The Palace Guell has an early approach to net curtains - the wrought iron gates have an intricate design which allows you to see out from inside but you cannot see in, rooms are organised in the buildings so the rooms where you spend mornings are South facing and evenings are west facing, and in the Casa Batllo the attic fulfils the function of a thermal regulator.
What has influenced me most though is his use of colour.

These show his internal courtyard in the Casa Batllo. The tiles at the bottom are light blue and as they go up they get darker to reflect the fact that the light increases as you go further up. Also the windows on each floor get smaller as you go up as they do not want to let in too much light at the top whereas more light is needed further down.
His use of colourful mosaics is amazing.

Colourful chimneys on top of Casa Batllo

Embellishment at Pala Guell

Parc Guell.

Also I just love the stained glass windows he uses in all his buildings. I picked this one in particular because he seems to use all the colours of the rainbow which I too have used in my jewellery designs.

This is one of the spectacular windows in the Sagrada Familia.

I can make a necklace and earrings to go with this design. It has proved to be one of my most popular pieces.

Barcelona has everything you could want - spectacular architecture, great weather, a beach, great shops, an olympic stadium, numerous art galleries, paella and tapas. What more do you need? I have to say though I did struggle with the fact that I cannot speak any Spanish at all. I can at least make myself understood in French. I now have a well thumbed Spanish tourist guide with essential vocabulary at the back!!
The photographs in this blog were taken by one of my companions, Karen who is a budding David Bailey. Thanks Karen.
The following are more colourful pictures from the famous food market off Las Ramblas.

Bespoke Designs

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 14:33:28 +0100

For those new customers who haven't taken advantage of my Bespoke Design service, I just wanted to let you know that I can design and make jewellery to match an outfit you have for a special occasion. All you need to do is send me a picture of the outfit by mobile phone or email and give me an idea of the style you would like, or bring the outfit to my house so we can look at styles and colours and beads together.
This is an example of a project I had this Autumn.

This picture is one of my customers looking rather glamorous in a posh new frock. She asked me to design a necklace for her to go with the dress in my new wirework style. I found it quite difficult to imagine at first, because the main colours are purple, fuschia and red, which in my mind clash a bit - well I think the red and pink do. So I just selected one of each of my beads in those colours and ordered some more in and put them all together and picked the ones that looked good together. This is the result:

I just love it - fantastically rich colours which look almost good enough to eat!

I also specialise in a complete service for weddings - I have done bride's jewellery, bridesmaid's jewellery and even mother and mother-in-law, all together. And don't forget the gifts for the bridesmaids - the little swarovski hearts are a favourite for that, with the matching earrings. Go to my home page and have a look.

Autumn and Lampworking

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 18:54:07 +0100

I had an open day last week and one of my customers said that she loved my chat pages, but I didn't update them often enough. So I am going to try and do shorter entries and do them more often!
I don't really like talking about the weather, as we do seem a bit obsessed by it as a nation, but it really does feel like summer is over and we are entering the best season - Autumn. I love all the colours in Autumn and do try and reflect them in my designs.
I have found some lovely new pendants - they are little glass acorns, and they are all individually handmade by a lampwork artisan from a studio in America.

For those of you who do not really know what lampworking is, it is the art of making glass beads using a flame torch, glass rods and a kiln. Here are just a couple of pictures to give you the idea.

Each bead takes about ten minutes to make, then they have to be annealed in a kiln so they are durable and can be used in making jewellery. So if you see a bracelet or necklace that includes lampworked beads, you will know how much time, skill, art and of course love, goes into each individual bead.
Here are a few more of my new acorn designs:

Go and look at these on my website if you need a gift or would just like to treat yourself.

Cloisonné and Fashion

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:03:09 +0100

I was intrigued the other day when my daughter showed me an article in Vogue about an up and coming clothes designer called Mary Katrantzou. Here are some of her designs:

The reason it caught my eye was the obvious influence of cloisonné enamels on the prints that she has used.
Look at a these cloisonné objects which illustrate classic cloisonné designs:

Cloisonné is the technique for creating designs on metal with coloured glass paste within wires of copper that have been bent into a design often of animals such as birds or fish or just an elaborate floral pattern, and soldered on. These wires are called 'cloisons' and are French for partitions. The whole thing is then fired and the process is repeated numerous times until all the gaps between the wires are filled.
Apparently it is a Chinese art form that dates back to the 1400's - exactly when seems to be a bit of a debate, but there is general consensus that there is a Muslim influence. The items were generally used to decorate palaces and temples and occasionally thought to be suited to 'ladies chambers' and not a scholarly environment!

What has this got to do with Rohanna jewellery? Well I have been using cloisonné beads for about 8 years now in my designs and they have always been popular. Here are just two examples of the designs I have created. The jewellery designs are simple because the beads themselves are the attraction.

So if you would like to be right up there with the latest from Vogue, go to my home page and have a closer look!

Paris

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 11:43:11 +0100

The girls in front of Musee Du Louvre

We have just come back from a cultural trip to Paris. I realised that I have driven through it many times, but never visited. So we did all the things that a good tourist does - Musee Du Louvre, Musee D'Orsay, Eiffel Tower, Place de la Concorde, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur and we even paid £40 for two beers and two cokes in Montmartre! However the one place that left a lasting impression on me was the Musee de l'Orangerie.

For those who are not familiar with it, it is a small museum chosen and arranged by Claude Monet to showcase his Nympheas. There are two large oval rooms showing 8 different Monet paintings of his Water Lilly Gardens. The pictures are huge, the largest being over 12 metres wide and 2 metres high!

Les Deux Saules (detail)

Soleil Couchant

Le Matin Clair aux Saules

What amazed me were the colours. Unless you see the pictures in real life you do not see the beauty of all the colour combinations. We have a very lack lustre version in our downstairs loo and although I have admired it, I have not been inspired. Many craft workers in all different media have produced work inspired by Monet; scarves, stationery, and all manner of art, even these beads from one of my suppliers!

So, I have spent some time putting together different shades of Swarovski crystals and Swarovski crystal pearls which best reflect the colours in my two favourite pictures; the first two above.

These two bracelets were inspired by the Soleil Couchant. I can also make a necklace in either design to go with them.

These two were inspired by Les Deux Saules. Again I can make necklaces to go with them.

I should mention that The Orangerie also offers a fabulous collection of masterpieces from the Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume Collection, and modern art including Cézanne, Renoir, Picasso, Rousseau, Matisse, Derain, Modigliani, Soutine, Utrillo and Laurencin.

One more place we visited was Disneyland! You are never too old to visit Disneyland although when in the queue for the Space Mountain ride they were listing all the ailments you should not have to go on the ride, between us we had at least three! We went on the 'Pirates of the Carribean' ride (the vision of Johnny Depp kept me going), Temple of Doom, Star Tours, and the best of all was the Peter Pan ride - we did that one twice. I have never been one for Theme Parks and as we live halfway between Chessington World of Adventures and Thorpe Park I have experienced a few, but Disneyland is different. It is truly MAGICAL!

The Kazuri Bead Story

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 17:17:06 +0100

One of the things I feel quite passionate about is using Fairtrade 'ingredients' wherever I can. I spend time finding Fairtrade beads that I can use in my designs and the first ones I found were Kazuri beads.
Kazuri was founded in 1975 by Lady Susan Wood a daughter of English missionaries. She and her husband set up the East African Flying Doctor Service in Kenya. Lady Susan hired two disadvantaged women to create beads in her shed in Nairobi, Kenya. She quickly realised the potential - there were so many single mothers who needed a steady income to support their children with basic needs such as money for food and the fees to send them to school.
The business was opened up to many more women and by 1988 the Kazuri factory was officially formed and uses clay from Mount Kenya to make these beautiful unique beads.
The company now employs more that 400 men and women and with local unemployment reaching 90% at times, one employee will often be supporting up to 15 extended family members.
SO, go back to my designs and look out especially for the Kazuri designs and know that not only are they unique, they are beautiful and are Fairly traded.

Painting the beads Displaying the beads