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Creative review of the last semester

Published by Olga NICOLAS on

I don’t take enough time to write articles in my blog. I posted a bit more on social media but I have to admit I’m not very good at communicating.

As an artist, business owner and teacher, there are inevitably times when you doubt yourself:

Of your ability to renew yourself, to be different. You ask yourself a thousand questions: will my work appeal; will this training proposal be interesting? Is it attractive enough? Is it interesting enough? And then the question that comes up most often for me: what path do I want to take?

I recently needed to look back over the last few months:

After a lot of work on the “To go further» course (which is available online), the last few months have been more about research work. I had the feeling that I was “flitting around”:

I started the year by creating some jewellery with wood and resin with glitter or mica. I’m not a glitter girl but eventually I really liked the result.

Then I spent a lot of time studying metalwork (mainly brass) with training in bocfil cutting (the jeweller’s saw), soldering (welding with a torch) and setting. I really enjoyed this exploration.

I also tried enamels. As I don’t have a kiln for enamels I melted them with my torch. I will have to continue my tests because the results I obtained are not very good.

I put aside this learning process to create jewellery in acrylic material, to which I sometimes added resin with glitter or bamboo and maple wood.

I made some earrings with polymer clay inlays and solid wood. I really like the look of these earrings. Some of them are for sale in my online shop.

I got my fingers back into the clay to work on a live training project. These earrings are made of polymer clay and are reversible thanks to a simple but clever hooking system.

In June, I worked in collaboration with Hélène Jean Claude : we both shared a surface technique in a live video on the Facebook group: Stimulez votre créativité avec Olga et Hélène. Hélène shared a technique to make a very nice faux concrete ; I shared a way to make plants imprints in polymer clay. Feel free to have a look at all the creations made with these two techniques: there are some wonderful pieces!

I made a more complete video of this tutorial called “vegetable distillation” on my YouTube channel (I dusted off my YouTube space a bit at the same time: I added English subtitles on most of my videos).

As you can see, I’ve been flitting around quite a bit, but finally listing my wanderings in this article makes me realise that all these activities are not in vain: they are a source of ideas and knowledge for the future.

For the moment I don’t know yet which way I’ll go. I am hesitating, but even if my path is a bit winding, I am making progress in my creative process.

Looking back to my creative journey every six months suits me well: it’s a way of listing my progress and even if there are adjustments to be made, it’s also a way of focusing on the positive; of being more self-compassionate.

 What about you? What do you think about it? Do you need to look back at your past work from time to time? Or are you more the type of person who just goes with the flows and have no doubts?

Categories: thoughts