I know it's not really spring yet, but this week has brought blue skies and at least one 70 degree day, and all the bulb flowers are sending up shoots. I'm even seeing a few blooms. I've been getting outside more, taking Maddy for walks and to the park when it was warm enough.
I finally finished painting the backs of all 4 pendants. I gotta get faster at these! I just procrastinate so much when it comes to painting surfaces. I doubt myself. I know that the more I paint, the better I'll be, but when I know I'm sending something to someone, I want it to come out perfect, and I always feel like I could have done better. Oh well. I am pretty happy with these over all.
I bought a respirator, and I did a second shellac resist bottle on Wednesday, then painted it with blue engobe. Wish it luck!
Finally, one more altered bowl. It still needs handles, but I did a split scalloped rim on this one taken from Gary Jackson's blog. He does lovely things to finish his forms. *sigh*
My husband joined a weight loss challenge at work, and I've been wanting to eat healthier, so I'm joining him in trying to eat better and exercise more. The nice weather outside has given me a nice boost, so I'm kind of excited about it. Plus, I have an iPhone, so I got two nifty apps to spur me on - Endomondo, which is a GPS fitness tracker I use to track my walks, and The Eatery, which is a social food diary app. I take pictures of everything I eat and drink, without counting calories, and people can rate how healthy my meals are. It definitely makes me think about what I eat, and I'm less likely to grab quick junk knowing it's going on my permanent record;) I'm only on my third day, but it's been nice eating regularly, and making food for myself that I can share with maddy because it's healthy. I sit down with her in the morning and we share breakfast, which is really nice.
Tonight is Stephen Wolochowicz's closing reception, so pics to come! I'm looking forward to his slide lecture tonight, and his workshop tomorrow. Gotta see how he makes those forms!
I have a dear friend from back home who recently asked me if I'd be willing to create some jewelry to sell in her Aunt's shop. I had been toying with the idea of making some porcelain jewelry, but I wasn't sure how to go about it. I wasn't sure what kind of things she'd want for the shop, but happily she asked me to run with it and make things similar to my drawings and sculptures and things.
I decided to start simple, just to get my feet wet. I made 4 little circles to use as mini canvases, and painted some faces on them. I was really inspired by a video on Ceramic Arts Daily about monoprint transfer on clay. Even though it's meant to be a process for clay slabs, it was a really good painting tutorial too, because you get to see her build up her colors and highlights. She started with a red and a yellow color background, and I loved seeing the way the painting build-up was affected by the different colored base. Definitely worth a watch. I started each of my four faces with a different color to build up from, and then played with color based on the background.
I had a lot of fun with these, and I'm really happy with how they turned out. Making mini paintings lets me play with design and color on a small scale, and fully develop the painting in a short amount of time (like a couple of baby naps!) It's really lovely to sit down in the morning and have a cup of coffee and paint. I'll definitely be experimenting more with jewelry designs, and figuring out ways to make cool things that still look like something I would make. I hope you enjoyed seeing the painting process on these. To be continued!
I'm juggling so many different things in the studio, I'm just chomping at the bit to get them all finished!
My paper clay vase came out of the kiln yesterday. I'm really pleased with the thinness and translucency of it. It was made with Laguna's Frost cone 6 porcelain and toilet paper. I should have a picture for you tomorrow with it all lit up. It glows:)
Hoping I can make a better form next time, but at least now I know that this stuff works.
You may remember a while back (though probably not - who reads this thing, anyway) that I posted a link to Jeanette Zeis's spoon tutorial, and that I tried making some spoons of my own. Those spoons did not turn out well, but I made some more, and I just got them out of the kiln this past weekend. I must say, I'm pretty pleased with them.
I did a little bowl, too. I did a couple, actually, but the other one cracked, unfortunately. Maybe I'll take a pic of it later, as the drawing is pretty awesome. At least I get to keep it now:)
Has anyone else tried making ceramic spoons? I'm dying to see more of them! I think this could become an obsession...
Here's some crappy cell phone pics. Real, honest to god pics to come. Honest.
I'm pretty pleased with my test tile birds. I may continue to use bird forms for testing glazes. They're quick and easy to make, have nice texture from the serrated rib, and now I have extra quick sell things for upcoming art fairs.
(Ceramic tech geek stuff to follow. If you're not a ceramicist, this is the boring part. You can skip it.)
All the pink glazed stuff got messed up. The glaze crawled like crazy on the inside. I wonder why that keeps happening? I applied the glazes all the same way, pouring them on the inside of the cup, and brushing the outside. The blue and aqua glazes are fine, but the pink keeps crawling. I'm thinking I either need to thin the glaze, or just brush on the interior from now on. I also read that tin and zinc oxide in a glaze can make it more likely to crawl. I wonder whether the Amaco Pink has either in it? Don't both act as opacifiers and whiteners? I'm guessing they needed some sort of white to make that particular pink shade. (Just looked up glaze colorants, and tin oxide is used in chrome tin pink stains. Aha!)
Does anyone know whether there's anyway to fix a glaze that's crawled? I'm debating whether to sell them as seconds, or to put a layer of clear on and refire them, in the hopes that the glaze with settle down. Any advice would be appreciated.
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