Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Nameless virgins and hot box's!

I've had my lovely little, itsey, bitsey blue kiln for a few months now and besides being totally busy with other things, I have not found the 'braves' to fire it. I've been wishing desperately for someone who knows what the hell they are doing to help with its virgin firing!


As I write this I am very aware of the fact that my little blue baby doesn't have a name, OMG how could I have overlooked such an important step in bringing this little baby into the family! So, guys a name is needed. Will happily take any name suggestions under consideration.


After a week of subtle and not so subtle hints, my brother helped me, in his typical Aussie male, 'she'll be right', 'just give it a go' style, he poked the control panel, while half heartedly reading the instruction manual and whoola...she was firing!






The first fired pieces...just simple little test pieces that it seems have been fired successfully!

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Smokin hot, smokey!

Thought I'd share this little blog post from our 'A thousand Midwest flowers' of this lovely silver clay piece I started 
making while hanging out with Kate Mckinnon!

After wrecking my brand spanking new electric bead reamer, I hand drilled this lovely smokey quartz bead to fit the wide shaft of my silver clay ring to finally complete this lovely flower ring that Kate showed us, what seems a life time ago now! I particularly love the contrast of the patina and non-patina pieces together!












Thanks Kate, I love it, it hasn't left my hand since I finished it!



Sunday, December 18, 2011

A Thousand Midwest Flowers: Kate Mckinnon and Silver Metal Clay. YAH!

For those of you who didn't know....A fellow clayer and all round awesome chick, 
Debbie Crothers and I had an amazing journey planned to America to up skill 
ourselves for an upcoming Community Development Project happening next year 
in the Midwest. I unfortunately had to come home after 4 days due my father getting critically ill but.....but... I did get to have 3 amazing days with the lovely Kate Mckinnon. Here is the post from our first day with Kate....and you can check out the blog to see the rest of our time with Kate and Debbie's Polymer clay adventures with some 'shit hot' American artists!

I'm sitting here trying to think of what to tell you about today...and seriously 
I'm struggling to find the words!
Meeting Kate was like meeting up with an old friend! Kate is an amazing,funny,intelligent and clear woman who lives very admirably within her own integrity! 
She has such an incredible understanding of the Silver Clay medium and within 
the first few hours I learnt of lot of really simple and effective techniques. Kate 
has such a great way of bringing everything back to basics and I'm finding things 
that previously seemed challenging are now logical and totally accessible. Thank 
you Kate!

Kate with some of her divine pieces!






















We started the day by going over the basics and creating a basic 
palate of silver clay/fine silver components that we will use to 
create our pieces, such as bead caps and head pins. Alot of this 
info is in Kate's book, Structural Metal Clay which I would highly 
recommend!







Click here to see the rest of the blog :A thousand midwest flowers





Wednesday, December 14, 2011

bent, buckeled and basicly f@*ked, woohoo, I cant believe my luck!

Can I be a princess, for one brief moment, Please??


Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! I dont wanna play anymore...three days of work, placed carefully in the kiln with the expectations of all sorts of happiness when the kiln door is finally opened!


The song lyrics come marching into my head...'A waist of days and waist nights'...which I find myself signing with gusto to releave me from my own self imposed hell of disapointment and failure!










So as I ignoring the pile of bent and busted up silver and consoling myself with crumpets and lemon butter! seriously have you ever tried it..I am totally i love with this new discovery and the only thing I want to be making right now is a big old pot of lemon butter! Bring it on!


I found the post above, sitting in the draft section from some time ago and it has inspired me to now attempt to fix some of these busted arss pieces! So watch this space to see if we can celebrate a revival of some kind!

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Rings and Bling

Sifting through the half finished pieces from my workshops with Pam 
and I found this little ring base that just needed a polish and a stone set....so here it is! 

Friday, December 9, 2011

Recycle & reconstitute!

What a very satisfying little exercise this was......!


left overs, buggered up bits, wanna be 's, got no chance of being jewellry, 
dry crsusty clay!


Cut up any big bits, then grind them up in a morter and pessel or a coffee grinder.


Pam sift the clay particals to ensure no big bits have snuck through without 
getting a good grinding.


Slowly add distilled water and mix...I had it explained to me as the same as making a white sauce, a little at a time...unless of course your like me who just goes the whole hog, pour a bucket load of milk in and hope that after some serious simmering it will all bind itself into a lovely lump-less sauce!


You want the clay to come away form the bowl in one lovely lump...if its too wet you will need to leave it for a bit to lose a bit of moisture.


oil up two sheets of plastic...(Pam uses a plastic A4 folder) and roll out the clay and then fold it back up on itself and do this several times to get a good consistancy.


Roll the clay up in some glad wrap and let sit for several hours or overnight before you use your newly reconsitutied clay!

I've been collecting my little jar of discarded clay and sanding's for months...and in the last few days contributed several ugly attempts at hollow beads...all of this ground up and reconsituted weighed a wopping 89 grams...and for those clayers out there..you' know that is a wooping lot of clay...worth around $200. OMG!

Can I just say again how satisfying this exerscie was....Awesome...it almost like grinding up all those wasted hours and disapointing failures into somethings usable and valuable! Love it