Clay Continued

New work

I’m still messing around with clay.  Yesterday I made some free-form shapes and little houses.  I’m almost ready to take a break and clean up the tools and clay dust in my studio.  Still, I feel compelled to make one more thing, mushrooms!  I want some cute little mushies to become pendants, earrings and rings.  Oh boy!

This little guy is 1" tall.

Play with Clay

Clay pendants waiting to be fired in a kiln.

 

I’ve been getting into playing with clay the past couple days.  Just experimenting.  Mostly I’ve been rolling a thin slab and stamping designs.  There are so many things to try.  My technique is getting better.  It appears that waiting is the hardest part.  That is, waiting for the clay to dry a bit before I can work with it.

I’ve been walking around the past couple days feeling completely unproductive, until I took this picture.  It doesn’t look unproductive!  For some reason, a lot is never enough with me.  Every moment in my life not spent doing something creative is wasted time.  I know this is technically not true, but it feels that way.  I sense a new years resolution somewhere in that statement. 

Okay, back to work!

The Ultimate Body Oil

Ignore the ingredients listed on top of the jar from last year, I didn't bother rewriting them.  BTW, I decorated these bottle brush trees with new and vintage buttons a couple years go.  They are my favorite holiday decoration.

 

This is the time of year when dry itchy skin seems to be part of living.  Ugh!  Over the years I’ve played around with making salves and body oils to varying degrees of success.  It’s fun to make your own.  In August 2010 I put together a juicy mixture of oils and the result was a disaster.  I think my mistake was including aloe gel.  It got moldy.  Eeew! 

A couple days ago I tried again.  This time leaving out the aloe and adding a splash of gin as a preservative.  The mixture was emulsified in a blender and was a big improvement from last years mix.  Unfortunately I got carried away with the bee’s wax and my moisturizer is more like a salve.  It is not easy to put on because I really have to dig my fingers in.  I guess if it really bothers me, I can melt everything again and add more oil. 

Here are the ingredients if you want to give it a go.  I’m not giving amounts because I really don’t know how much I used!

Body Oil Ingredients:

Shea butter

Coconut oil

Jojoba oil

Almond oil

Apricot oil

Avocado oil

Vitamin E oil

Bees Wax

Gin

Essential oils (your choice – each container of mine has a different scent)

Melt all but the gin and essential oils in a small pot, emulsify with the gin in a blender, pour into glass containers (avoid plastic, you don't want the heat of the oil releasing toxins in the plastic which are then absorbed into the skin), and mix in the essential oils last.  Let cool and enjoy!

The Learning Curve

First attempts

Lately I’ve been thinking about working in clay.  I’d like to experiment with making beads, pendants, plates, bowls, and more.  It’s been a long time since I’ve done ceramic work!  So, I bought a 25-pound bag of white clay and excitedly dug in. 

Oh dear!  It was not as easy as I imagined while lying in bed at 3 am. The clay was mushy and hard to work with.  It stuck to my fingers, cutters and molds. In fact, the “ugly” voice reared its head and repeated, “I hate clay, I hate clay”. I told it to shut up and stepped away for several hours for a trip to the movies and the mall.  I finally returned to the worktable after dinner to a brilliant surprise.  The clay had hardened some and I was able to execute a reasonable amount of control! 

Now, I have renewed faith and will take a stab at it again tomorrow.  If I had given up when it got frustrating, I would have missed out on a fantastic opportunity.  I’m always telling my students to stick with their projects and not give up.  Sometimes a time out is the best medicine. 

Christmas at Tennessee Valley

I love these shadows!

John and I took a morning stroll through Tennessee Valley to begin Christmas day.  Our first sight was two deer near the parking area, and further along, several more.  There were very few people when we started our hike, which was nice.  Today is another “Spare the Air” day, and the air quality was horrendous, about the worst I’ve ever seen (there were "God Beams" in the smog).  Still, it was good to walk off a little of that Christmas dinner and get some partly fresh air.

Cheers!

Deer in the Valley

John's "Stonehenge" on the beach

Christmas in San Francisco

Just a few photos from my holiday stroll downtown with John today.  Wishing you and yours a bright and warm Christmas and Hanukkah.

Union Square Christmas Tree

I would have given all my Christmas presents to adopt this sweet dog at Macy's.

John going up the escalator at Macy's

            

                   Santa taking a break.

A balmy Christmas eve day.

Giant ornaments at 101 California.

It looks like King Kong dropped this from the top of the building.

Ice skating at the Embarcadero.

Christmas Jewelry

I’ve been wearing a variety of Christmas jewelry since I was a kid.  And since I don’t throw anything away, I enjoy those pieces year after year. 

The present above is a pin.  I remember begging my mom to buy it for me at the 5 and Dime.  As a 6 year old, a sparkly gold present was the perfect symbol of Christmas.   The funny thing is that I still love this pin and wear it every year.  It still holds an exotic allure for me, and it is made out of plastic!

My 3rd grade room mother gave this Santa pin to me!  Every student in class got one.  I think this was the same year we also received crocheted ghosts and pumpkins.  So cute!  I love explaining where it came from.  I don’t remember who made it, and wish I could thank them for all these years of enjoyment.  

The item above came from Cost Plus over 30 years go.  It’s a pretty cute little item.  It is a Christmas tree box; the lid is a pin, inside is a tree necklace and there are two earrings attached to the pin/lid.  I don’t wear it so much but love the novelty.  How come I don’t see these everywhere?

I make these snowman and snowflake pins.  When I was a classroom teacher I’d have the kids make an ornament out of Wonder Bread dough every year (Wonder Bread mixed with Elmer’s Glue).  One year I had a lot of leftover white dough, so I got crafty and made these pieces.  On occasion I wear them, but I don’t’ like being poked by those stick arms!

I made the snowmen and tree earrings about 12 years ago when I just started to get into making jewelry.  The snowmen are lamp worked glass, and the trees are made from Swarovwski crystal beads.  I love the trees, small, light, playful and sparkly.

This is the rest of my holiday stuff; a necklace of tree lights that glow with the help of a battery, other non-glowing tree lights, and more.  Wearing these makes me feel like a kid again.  What I love most about Christmas is the lights, and feeling connected to family through following old traditions. 

Moving Along

Glamour Girl Earring

Well, I did it!  I processed all my photos.  It took a day and a half of pretty much working non-stop.  I feel pretty satisfied.  Most of the photos were pretty easy to adjust.  The challenging ones were the earrings.  Most of the photos had a few strands of hair covering the earring that I had to clone out.  I’ll want to redo a few photos at some point, but I think what I have is fine to get me started.  Thank goodness for vacation time so I could sit down and work uninterrupted. 

The next steps are to write descriptions of each piece and an artist’s statement.  If I can do that by the end of the month I’ll be very satisfied.  For the next few days I’ll take a break and work on other creative projects. 

Processing

Choosing photos from iPhoto

I thought I’d go into a little detail about the process of putting photos of my jewelry on the web for those of you considering creating an Etsy store of your own.  It is a longer process than you might think, and requires a substantial time commitment. 

1. I went through all 833 of my jewelry photos in iPhoto, picking out 5-7 for each piece.  A variety of views are ideal, so the shopper has a strong idea of what they are buying.
2. I listed the file names in a notebook.
3. Each file was opened in Photoshop and saved with a descriptive file name.
4. The photos were then organized into files: The Collection Name > Type (Ring, Necklace, etc) > Name of Design > Individual Photos

Recording file names to keep track

The next step is to go into each photo using Photoshop to crop and clean up the image. 

If I don’t post much about my progress, know that I am working on this.  It is hard for my back and neck to sit at the computer for hours on end, so I’ll be doing a little at a time, taking lots of breaks along the way.  Once I have my store up and running, this will be easier.  I’ll just post a few new pieces at a time.

Organizing photos into computer files

Winter Solstice

Solstice in the studio

 

My intent was to walk on the beach, meditate, and do some sort of solstice ritual today, but it didn’t happen.  Instead I worked at my computer, preparing photos for the web.  At first I felt disappointed with my choice, but as I lit my candles in honor of the returning light I realized that what I’m doing is perfect.  I’m filling a long dark winter night with creative work, that when finished may bring brightness to my life for the rest of the year and beyond.  I’m planting spring seeds.  May you all embrace the darkness in your own way, and plant some seeds in the fertile soil of 2012.  (Oh oh, I’m starting to sound like Chance Gardner in “Being There”)

Happy Solstice!

"As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.”  - Chance Gardner in “Being There”

“I like to watch TV.” -  Chance Gardner in “Being There”

Holiday Crazies

I’ve been away from the blog for a couple weeks and don’t have a good excuse.  I could say I got caught up in the holiday crazies (shopping, decorating, partying, baking), but that just isn’t true.  I did partake in a few of those things, but not to the degree I suspect most people imbibe.  I can only blame procrastination.  I wanted to blog about how I was making progress towards my December goals, when in fact I was making no progress.  I had nothing to write about. 

The good news is that is changing.  For the past several days I’ve gotten myself back on track.  I have about 200 photos to process for my upcoming Etsy store.  Each picture needs to be handpicked out of hundreds, titled, filed, cropped, spot corrected, and adjusted.  I’m on my way.  This is the drudgery of opening an online store.  Five photos for each item, and I have about 30 pieces.  You do the math.  I’ll need to retake a few along the way, but it is all progress.  I was gifted with the perfectionist gene, so what you see is my absolute best. 

Rollover

December Goals

Ah, my goals for November were too lofty.  I finished the month with many items on my to-do list un-done.  I couldn’t have known that it would take so long sketch each piece, and even longer to photograph them.  It has been challenging. It has been work.  So, the unchecked items get rolled over to the December list.

November Goals - Incomplete

“People are most creative when they care about their work and they’re stretching their skills.”  - Teresa Amabile

“One must work and dare if one really wants to live.” – Vincent van Gogh