Studio News

 

For the last 12 hours of studio time I’ve been working at forming new clay pieces to become future pendants.  It’s more time consuming than I thought.  I’m making many more than I did in my first batch.  I roll out the clay, let it sit and dry for hours, cut out shapes, smooth and form them with my fingers, then set them to dry again.  When they are completely dry I’ll lightly sand them so I have a smooth side to draw on, and so they feel good against the skin.  Then they will be ready for the kiln.  It’s not the most exciting work; I like doing the drawing better.  But, I’m excited to have at least 130 tiny canvases.  

 

Clay Update

I got my myco-ceramic-mini-drawing-pendants out of the kiln today.  Most of them look pretty good, a few, not so much.  The under-glaze pencil got lighter in the kiln, and they smeared a tad.  I’ll have to take that into account next time.  Overall I think they are really cool.  I’m planning to put them on a simple black cord with a clasp and post them in my Etsy shop.  It will be a while though.  The muse is keeping me busy!

You Win Some, You Loose Some

The Keepers

A while back I was playing around with making clay pendants.  I bisque fired everything and they came out great!  Then I ordered some special glazes and fired them again a few days ago.  (I didn’t glaze everything).  Some of my creations came out beautifully others were a disaster.  Without going into detail, some of the pieces ended up touching each other in the kiln.  Ooops!  I had them on a bead tree (kiln furniture) on a thin wire, the wire bent and they touched things they weren’t supposed to touch. Also, I may have overloaded my bead tree because I couldn’t wait for another firing.  At least I know what my glazes look like.

What you see in my photos will not end up on my Etsy shop; I’m just playing around, trying to get to know the medium.  Tomorrow I plan to break out the clay again for round 2!  I can’t wait!

The Losers