Shirley Vauville Mixed Media Artist

Shirley works from her sky lit studio on the East Coast of Yorkshire and overlooks her garden on all sides, which is full of interesting textures and colour combinations and living just a mile from the sea makes it very handy for her beach hunting. I found Shirley's page yesterday and fell in love with her beautiful work. Lovingly handmade, and no two pieces the same, each and every item she creates is a delight to look at. Texture and patterns are embossed into the surface of her clay, Bisque fired, then coloured with under glazes and oxide then re-fired. Shirley finishes her objects with feathers, wave worn finds and vintage buttons.  Here's a few examples of Shirley's work and you can see more  on both her Facebook and her website. So go feast your eyes.

Inspiration... Can Hit You When You Least Expect it!!!

I don't know about you but often I find myself with moments of "I don't know what I will make today" and if I have a day like that I end up making nothing, starting and stopping with a variety of things but never quite finishing and that used to frustrate me. Now, if I start something and don't finish it's because I don't see the finished item and so I have to walk away and that's fine, and probably how I manage to cook, clean and get a few household chores done!!!  But I thought I would tell you about how the items below came  to me.

 

Today I went to visit a friend and she was showing me her wedding outfit for her son's wedding in  Oct 2013! (now that's what I call forward planning). Her hat was gorgeous and I am not going to describe it in detail (in fear of letting the cat out of the bag to a certain person) but suffice to say that I came home and the hat must have provoked a childhood memory where my mother showed me how to make these lavender pin cushion hats.

I read a book a while back and one paragraph stayed with me, it described a girl walking along an avenue of wisteria which was drooping over an arch and swaying over a lollipop fence, as she looked at the point where the sky met the arch and fence she saw a heart shape. Now, I have had a heart shaped pendant for a long time and until the other day never quite worked out what to do with it and I guess the comb is now my lollipop fence:)

 These lace cuffs are another example, as I was finishing a silk hair bow for a wedding and had some lace on my work table. I placed the finished bow on top of the lace and  that's when I saw the cuffs. I did finish the bows first though and then set off to make a few sets of cuffs and now so far 3 brides have walked down the aisle with them.

This hair stick, if you read my one of my previous posts, came direct from the garden where I was weeding one day and a small branch fell onto a sage bush and I saw a hair stick, of course I immediately downed tools and made several in one sitting.

So that's me for the day and would love to hear what inspires you and what you made.