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.

Fire = Gratification & Focus

Today I'm going to go with 1 small win. Very small.

The flower focal for the ring is fired.

Yeah, that's it.

At least the flower won't have any accidents sitting on my desk! ><

The coiled swirls for the shanks has proven to be a bit more challenging than expected. Or at gravity's effect on them, as they tend to slide of the mandrel. Between the open design of swirls for the shank & the rather top heavy focal, I guess it was a good thing that they broke before the flower could be attached. Assembling the whole piece then firing would be ideal, though this ring is larger than the neuron ring & making sure the piece is heated evenly for full scintering would be a challenge with a torch.

Could this have been finished hours ago? Yeah, most likely. Thinking about this project over & over is causing more second guessing about the design, which at the moment is a frustrating challenge, but not impossible!

There's always tomorrow to try again.

Challenge pieces for July

Ah, that title sounds so much more productive than it really is! "Challenge pieces" = the pieces for my challenge project. It is almost July, & once again not much seems to have come from my sketchbook. But, the purpose of having a journal is to record the journey, up or down, right?

The challenge theme for for July's Art Clay Society meeting is "Holes." Most of the pieces for the ring are there pic, they just aren't put together yet (gotta love gravity!).


Playing with the fat coiled filigree look of the Neuron ring's shank, I'd like this one to wrap around 2 fingers like a W with the flower in the center. Each finger's shank is being constructed individually, & hopefully I'll be able to mold the coil ends to curve around the base of the flower.

One thing that has distracted me from sitting down to work on the 2nd finger's shank & assembling everything is the urge to scrap the whole project as a silly waste of clay because this sucka is gonna be huuge!

Do you doodle?

Poor old sketchbook stuffed full of notes & doodles waiting for their turn to hop out & try to make it in the 3D world.

So it's been a bit quiet on the blog-front, but doesn't mean my sketchbook hasn't been getting a workout! I admit I'm a planner & draw to try to work technicalities out on paper before reaching for clay, wire, or pliers. I'm also trying to get into the habit of taking notes while working on projects to make it easier to create/recreate variations of something & organize my tangential thoughts.

Last night I just needed paper to write some notes on for a project & found only the back cover of my sketchbook was left, whoops! As I'd picked up a replacement earlier (I like the size & how it has spiral binding) this sketchbook sadly has a rather flimsy cover. The plan was to quickly reinforce it with scrapbooking paper & go back to my clay. As with many of my "simple" sounding ideas, this one became a doozie!

Cover with ribbon tie closure - Oh So Girly, I don't know whether to cringe or giggle at the excessively pink & fluffy-ness!

The front cover is a pocket & has a "If lost please return" tag.

Why is the back always considered the dark side?

Happy Birthday Sketchbook!
A couple hours of paper, ink, & glue - crazy makeover is complete & waiting for more doodles to be added!

Crafty Surprise - Ponte Amour

Crafty Surprise - Ponte wine cork set in Art Clay silver bezel with the couple's names, wedding date & a heart on the back.

Crafty Surprise was a chain-note, going through Facebook (see end of post for the text). Based on the concept of Paying it forward, you make something for a couple people & they do the same for others.

I looove stories, if they involve friends being happy, even better! Last year, a couple friends from work invited me & another friend to the annual grape stomping event held at Ponte winery in Temecula. As fun as the event was watching people run around covered in grape pulp, Ponte winery is a special for them because they were married there May 12, 2006. As they have just celebrated another wedding anniversary, I wish them many more! :)

If you want to take part in your own crafty surprise, here's a start:

Crafty Surprise

The first five (5) people to respond to this post will get something made by me.
This offer does have some restrictions and limitations so please read carefully:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make. Whatcha get is whatcha get.
2. What I create will be just for you, with love.
3. It'll be done this year (2009).
4. I will not give you any clue what it's going to be. It will be something made in the real world and not something cyber. It may be weird or beautiful. Heck, I might bake something for you and mail it to you when you least expect it. I may even create something totally unbelievable and surprise you at work!! Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange. Or extremely boring.
6. In return, all you need to do is post this text into a note of your own and make 5 things for the first 5 to respond to your note.
7. Send your mailing address if you don't live close to me!

IMPORTANT: This offer is null and void if I do not see you post your own note to pay this forward. ( well, not really..)

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.....

Glass fused Pokemon!!!

My brother expressed interest in glass fusing, so we both gave it a shot. I think he's pretty good at it!



Steven's pieces assembled, tacked, & ready to fuse.



Can you tell who they are? Eevee is on the left (I love how it's cheek fuzz sticks out & the dichro is perfect for the face!) & Giratina is on the right (SO much work went into that one!)