Indie-pendant #0004 - "N'goa"

Here's the fruit of today's effort. In the end I decided to finish up the accent piece for my latest Indie-pendant, this design is called N'goa



















I'm considering keeping this one for myself. It's a nice size (5.5 x 5.5cm) and it feels good when it's on.

Whilst visiting the Pre-columbian gold museum(!) the last time I was in San Jose, I found and fell in love with this...















... and decided that I would use the color combination myself. Simple inspiration!

You can some of my other Indie-pendant designs here.

Artifacts

Cutting the reverse applique.



















First part cut.



















This is where the idea came from. A Pre-Columbian gold alloy ornament from the Central Bank's gold museum.

I don't think this first piece will go anywhere, since it was more about experimenting with a technique, to see if the idea might work as I wanted it to. Now that I know it can work, I can spend more time on the initial design stage ('coz this first little figure was not well plotted). I'm happy with the effect, the primitiveness. I'm surprised at what can be achieved with just a simple buttonhole stitch. I'm also thinking this "same color on same color" idea is probably going to feature alot in this year's adventures. Still wild about texture!

Shining through

We are still away, up here in Cerro Osa, with our friends Kory and Saima of Friends of the Osa, a local conservation NGO, that we often collaborate with. I was taking some photos of the work they've been doing here renovating one of the visitors houses, when I spotted this...



















The afternoon sun, forming pools of gold on the walls of one room. I had to explore and this is what I saw. Ok, so not the best quality images... but just look at that light and those fluid forms!























































Following on here with other glimpses of gold, today I finished stitching the basic outline I've been working on - the black on black piece - and I've now cut the reverse applique...















... allowing the black and gold cloth to show through.

Tomorrow I will upload more images. It's only 8:00pm, but everyone else here is already in bed. Hot days and lots of hard work. That'll do it!

Going for Gold

I have started to upload some of the images I took at the Central Bank's Pre-Columbian Gold Museum, in downtown San Jose, Costa Rica. Feel free to browse the album here















Here are some butterflies. The accommpanying text of this particular exhibit is here on my blog, over in the right-hand column. Interesting!

I am interested in the technique known as repossé (in metal work that is) and just happened to come across this while googling the term. I quite like some of these pieces.