The Devil’s in my Baubles!

I said I didn’t have time to do Christmas baubles this year, but they were fun last year and quite popular and it seemed a great shame not to have them, so at the last minute… Here are some of a delivery of around 95 empty baubles, all ready to be ‘done’:

95 empty baubles!

The calendars are at the printers, the Christmas card has been painted and has gone the same way, I have completed a commission, and the first 3 etchings of this term are all underway. At this point, even though I’m actually on holiday, I am feeling pretty efficient and even slightly confident that I will have some baubles ready for the couple of Christmas markets I have coming up.

Here were some of last year’s baubles which I don’t think ever got onto the blog:

the baubles of 2011: glass balls and drawings on mylar

When I first thought I would do baubles for last year I intended that I would draw on the outside of them with felt pens designed for glass, but I didn’t like the pens at all, and so, finding myself last year with around 80 glass baubles with no means of decorating them I had to improvise. I had a cunning idea and filled them all with little drawings, drawn on strips of Mylar with Indian ink and decorated with a little colour and gold paint. The Mylar strips I rolled up and poked through the top of each bauble, whereupon it pleasingly uncurled to fill the whole bauble (assuming one had got the length and width of the Mylar about right).

Naturally I feel that demons are a very Christmassy subject, having to do with religion and suchlike, so my baubles are full of demons, fairies, the occasional angel and, by special commission, cats and wine… I don’t have a photo of those though, so here’s a common-or-garden demon:

a devil is for christmas

And on to this year’s… which are still very much in production, here is a photo of work so far: A strip of Mylar with drawing on, ready for rolling…

a bauble in the making…

The first of this year’s baubles: this year they are in fact plastic, but they look very much like glass and will be better for those who broke theirs last year…

The first of this year’s batch of baubles

So, if you happen to be local, I will have these for sale at our ‘Christmas at Spring Farm’ event on 30^th November – 2^nd December, and also at the Christmas fair at Ilminster Arts Centre at the Meeting House on December 8^th. If you’re not local and can’t live without the baubles, send me an email and I’ll see what I can do!

So, it’s going to be a busy six weeks… again…