Meet The Maker
Across The Pond With...
Natalie McKenna Interview by Cynthia Machata
Have you always been creative?
Yeah I have! I studied art at school and col
lege. I love drawing and painting! My favourite medium was gouache paint and I would
spend hours mixing new colours and browsing tubes of paint at my local supplies store. I
did life classes at college which I adored, my
favourite subject to draw is the human form…
it’s a little difficult to find naked people to
draw these days so I tend to just stick to faces
now or sometimes use stock images from the
internet…not that I get much time to draw
anymore, but for a long time I drew portraits
for a living, both in pencil/paper and with a
graphics tablet. I got my first graphics tablet
about 10 years ago and a copy of Photoshop
and I was thoroughly hooked! Nowadays I use
a mixture of Corel Painter (amazing program)
and Photoshop and I have a very fancy tablet
but I still revert to pencil and paper on occasion, more so for sketching out bead ideas now
though! I get bored quite easily if I’m honest,
and find I can turn my hand to almost anything
that is creative in nature, I can knit and crochet
and embroider, although not done any of that
for years, I studied textiles at college too and
I’m a whizz on a sewing machine. I always need
something to do with my hands and when I’m
not being creative, I feel restless…like I should
be doing something. Drives me crazy!
What got you started in making jewelry?
It was quite by accident really, I saw a beautiful
pair of earrings whilst looking for a present for
my mum, but they were WELL out of my price
range, and I figured I could make something
myself that I could tailor to my mums taste,
she’s very specific when it comes to jewellery.
So I went off and bought some wire and some
seed beads and away I went. The earrings
weren’t very successful but the bug had bitten
and I began buying LOTS of bead and findings.
It was quite overwhelming at first, all the teeny
little parts you need to make things, crimps,
crimp covers, wire guardians, jump rings…
the list is endless really, but great fun learning
and putting it into practice! I also really enjoy
buying new craft supplies, so searching for the
perfect beads or findings for something I have
in mind is half the fun!
When did your passion for making beads start?
I guess I had two inspirations when I first
started making beads. I began making beads
with polymer clay, must be about 4 or 5 years
ago now. I saw a picture of a set of polymer
creativebeadchat.com