Come along on Friday 5th April for our first ever Big Bead Show Beading Masterclasses. Expert tutor Melanie de Miguel tells us more about her class…
Eclectica!
As the name suggests this piece is composed of a wild collection of exciting crystal components, cleverly connected to form a bracelet or necklace. Rivolis are beaded using a fast and innovative technique that allows them to be embellished in a staggering variety of ways – so you could also use them separately as light catchers or Christmas decorations! Students will work through varieties called the Wagon Wheel, the Atom, Aurelia and the Cog, each of which can be reinterpreted by substituting different sizes or types of bead and even Rivoli, to produce startlingly different effects! As always happens each time I teach this workshop, students create unique variations of their own along the way!
An interview with Melanie…
Melanie is a bead artist inspired by her love of science, nature and history. She specialises in off-loom beadweaving and has been teaching since 1999. Melanie loves to inspire her students to push their boundaries of exploration in creativity, colour mixing and bead variation. As well as teaching privately, Melanie has taught for the Beadworkers Guild, Beaders Best in Germany and the Bead and Button show in the USA.
What are your favourite beads to work with?
It's probably not a surprise to anyone who knows me that I absolutely love size 15º Czech Charlottes. Their tiny size makes them perfect for helping to create more detailed three-dimensional beadwork, and the cut facet twinkles beautifully as the beadwork moves. The only thing I would wish is if they could be made in even more colours and finishes.
What are you inspired by?
Where do I begin? I suppose, in a nutshell, Biology, Maths, Physics and Chemistry roughly in that order, but they're all so interchangeable and overlapping like a wonderful cake mix, flavoured with a luscious sprinkling of History!
Biology: On a conscious level I know I was inspired from a very early age by the eerily beautiful illustrations of microscopic creatures in one of my mother's books on evolution and natural history. I grew up loving those fascinating shapes and drew them whenever I had the chance. That book sparked my deep love of science and the desire to probe the microscopic world.
Maths: The Golden Ratio (1.618) has got to be one of the most exciting phenomena ever. It's omnipresent, from the elegant curl of the snail shell and the precise arrangement of leaves up a stem to the pattern of seeds on a sunflower. I long to be able to express that in beadwork with as much precision and detail.
Physics: Subconsciously I think I take greatest inspiration from quantum mechanics. Whilst I try to keep abreast with what's going on at Cern, my imagination often wanders into that realm and I get lost visualising atomic and sub-atomic interactions in colourful bead form (in my opinion a great medium to express it artistically).
Chemistry: The powerful reactions and colourful explosions gripped me from my first Chemistry lesson at school. When I'm beading I relate the combining of different colours and bead sizes back to those exciting reactions as they produce new exciting creations.
History: I carry with me from childhood a love of museums, art galleries and Mediaeval and Byzantine churches from when I travelled a lot with my mother. I am still in awe of the fabulous treasures I've seen, all inspired by the world surrounding their creators at the time.
Do you have any top tips for visiting bead shows?
I laughed a lot when I read this question and my suggestions are:
- It's a good idea to go with a shopping list of the things you actually need, then when you've bought everything you need tear it up and enjoy yourself.
- Be resigned to the fact that you will see things that fire up your creative juices and therefore will want to spend lots of money.
- Be prepared to spend lots of time bumping into old beading buddies (and new ones), and everyone staring at each other's chests while talking.
- Wear your own beadwork so that people can stare at your chest too.
- After you've spent some money, sit down in the cafe area and get out all the goodies you've bought. It won't be long before others join you and do the same, then you can see the things you've missed, and go and buy those too.
- Work your way around the show for a third time, just in case you missed something the second time.
- As the show is about to close, rush like a maniac back and forth to those stands where you were dithering and buy the damn beads!
- Actually enjoy the fact that beady purchases tend to be quite small and store easily in your handbag, so that when you get home and he enquires as to what you bought, you can just shrug, smile sweetly, hold up your bag and say "Not much really".
You can book your place on Melanie's Eclectica masterclass here: www.thebigbeadshow.co.uk
To find out more about Melanie's work visit her website http://beadschool.co.uk
