Dream's Unicycle

Flying high on the trapeze with no net below
Challenging the stars with balls of flame
Knives sharper than claws
Paws that show no mercy
Sometimes dreams turn into nightmares,
What started as Dream now looks like Death.



Comic con was this past weekend, & I think Neil Gaiman's Sandman kind of rubbed off on me! The wires for the juggling stars seems to form the outline of a skull with a bow ...what do you think?

Deconstructing the "magic"

Torching where no torch has gone before!

Ok, maybe not really but seeing how complex of a piece I can torch fire is an interesting challenge & I'm totally tickled (chuffed?) that this piece held together!

It was fired before MCWC & I took it with me, but since then it has had a bit of a face lift with some polishing "wheelie bobbers" to give the flower a satin finish to contrast the band & decorative spikes.


The flower was made & fired as 1 piece with cz already set in place; the shank as 1 piece, the flower & shank joined, then a couple more times to patch some small cracks .


As the ring wraps around 2 fingers & is on the poky side if you're on the receiving end, it's girly brass knuckles!

Midnight musing

Ok, took a bit of a break from the flower ring & tried putting together this little unicycle dude that's been bouncing around my desk. Well, mostly figuring out the cycle part, as the unicyclist has been chilling on my desk for a while.

One side of the wheel says "dream" & is decorated with silver flakes.

The other side has a pattern with the silver flakes.

The unicyclist is a paste person with a fine silver skeleton (armature) & he's still nekked, but I haven't quite figured out how I want to dress him.

Neuron neurosis: Sketch to Completion

Funny the Metal Clay gallery on Yahoo Groups has a sketch to completion themed challenge this month as that is the whole point of my blog-venture, well here goes: Neuron-ic as the Next Guy.

This doodle has been bidding it's time in the sketchbook since my birthday in February, & the amethyst cab was one of my gifts. The design for the ring is based on a neuron twining itself around 2 fingers. The ring turned out close to my original sketch, though it evolved a bit to accommodate for functionality & structural support.


I first started building the ring shank with 1 thick coil laid out over a S shaped pattern. After it dried, the tentacle & bezel setting "cup" perched on one side & decorative coils tacked onto the others with syringe. (I do <3 class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Humpty Dumpty proportions, & never got put back together the same again. (The nice way of summarizing a couple hr long ordeal!) A messy blessing in disguise, as the final ring band with 3 layers of thinner coils is lighter & more proportional looking than the original band.
As I don't have a kiln, the secret to building larger & more abstract things seems to be Overlay paste & repeated torch firings. Fire small pieces, cement them together with overlay paste, dry/sand/fire, & repeat. So the 3 swirls on the dendrite tail (swirly end) were formed & fired together, before being pasted to the previously fired setting (yay for salvage!). One thing I found about overlay paste is that it doesn't particularly appreciate sand paper or files. Smoothing blemishes with a rotary tool after firing still remains to be seen, but I'm psyched everything is holding together nicely!

The final challenge for this ring was to set the amethyst in the bezel setting, which I haven't tried before but it didn't seem that difficult. The stone was easy enough to get into the setting, & though it isn't technically the right tool, I used the scoop/burnisher to push the bezel walls in. It is the tiniest bit loose still, but the stone doesn't seem like it will fall out. I tried putting the ring in the tumbler with stainless steel shot to hopefully work harden the ring & bezel, though the bezel seems unaffected. Probably the shot was too big to get into the little nooks & crannies.

So here's one that's hopped off my sketchbook. Going from theory & asking for advice to actually doing has resulted in some "oh duh" moments, & even better - more ideas, including 1 with the original attempted ring shank, hmmm.....

Tsuru crane carving

Has it really been a week since Breabeadworks' Bead Away in Las Vegas? Well, obviously there's been too much fun (& tool unpacking) to be had!

I took a carving workshop with Gordon Uyehara, & learned how scrape/carve a tsuru out of a flat piece of clay. It was challenging, fun when you get into the groove of it (haha), & something I want to keep playing with. Besides learning the techniques highlighted in the projet & being able to hang out with clay buddies, I also get the reminder to have patience & be gentle with my pieces. Common sense, but still a good reminder!

So it seems my claying has also spread to some of my friends, though in polymer. I <3 getting other people into crafts, don't you? :D