Social Distancing

The mandate for social distancing to help contain the spread of Covid19 means I am adjusting to working from home, and getting two more hours each day that I used to have to devote to commuting to and from work. Now I can start my day an hour earlier, and end an hour earlier, so that gives me two hours to paint or take care of household chores. I managed to get some time last week to create these abstracts. These are all alcohol ink on clayboard.

Gwen's Goblin WIP

This is a work in progress. Gwen made the head last Christmas (or was it the year before?) and we finally put together the body, made feet and hands, and gave the goblin a leaf to munch on. The blue hair nicely matches the facial colors. The next step is put put on some underwear and clothes. I think she is doing an amazing job!

 

Encaustic 9x12

Silver Clay Certification

I completed these projects to get certified to teach At Clay silver techniques. I learned so much about both silver jewelry creation and silver clay manipulation.

 

new paintings

I have been experimenting with Open Acrylics, which are workable for a very long time like oils, but clean up with water and dry like acrylics. They are really nice to work with. The first painting is a portrait of a cocker spaniel named Gracie, and was painted as a gift for my friend and sister.

The second is a painting of Tiara walking in the deep snow. I'm not sure about this one - it is still a work in progress and may need a significant overhaul before I can consider it done.

Felted Borzoi

I finally got around to trying my hand at felting a borzoi. This is about three inches tall. I spent the whole afternoon on it, and left it on the table for two minutes while I went to find some beads for eyes, and Tiara managed to steal it off the table and started chewing on it. Then I got it a bit wet, hoping for soft curls, and I ended up with frizz. How frustrating! I think it turned out OK, though. Still needs eyes - the beads weren't the right size.

right side

left side

new work

I have been playing with the new Open Acrylics by Golden, and thought it was about time I shared some of my attempts. The Open acrylics are lovely to work with - they are designed to allow more fluid working, and feel more like oil paints. I have been trying to work more impasto, although it is hard to let go and nto strive for realism. The first is a generic 'zoi image I found on the web. I apologise to the owner who took the gorgeous original that I found so inspiring - I forgot to record whose dog it was.

This one is of Tiara. Both paintings are small (8x10 on canvas).

I have also been playing with encaustics again, and finished this landscape (8x10 on 2" cradled wood).
 

Thansk for looking!

How cool is this!

I finally tried to fuse some glass this weekend. It was so simple to do. I used a schedule I found online, and it took 14 hours! Rio Grande says I can shorten it significantly, so I will try the easier way next time. There are just so many fun possibilities with fused glass!

Although I haven't posted in a while, I have been doing a variety of different creative ventures. I finally signed up for the introduction to silversmithing through Bedrock, and absolutely LOVED the course. We learned how to solder, make rings, two kinds of settings (bezel and tube), and pierced metal. It was so great and so inspiring. I signed up for an on-line newsletter called Jewelry Making Daily, and won this book!

http://www.interweavestore.com/Jewelry/Books/Silversmithing-for-Jewelry-Makers.html

This is an absolutely fabulous book. Before I took the course, it would have all seemed quite daunting and mysterious, but now that I understand some of the terms, I can see that this book has such a wealth of information that it will become one of my main references from now on. Each technique has a section providing details about what it is and what it does, and then there are little projects to follow along and try the technique. It seemed small (190 pages in soft binding), but it has an encyclopedia worth of information packed into the pages.

Definitely worth the investment at twice the price.

Fox

This little fox was in our back yard the other day. Robert looked out the back door, and there she was, lying in the sun looking perfectly content. By the time he got the camera out, she was headed off to look for food, but stopped and posed in this perfectly stacked position, so he could get a nice shot of her structure. Such a beautiful little creature!

encaustics

Now that my drawing course is done, I finally feel like I can play again, so I dug out my encaustics and painted a couple of pictures of trees. The one above is small - about 8 inches square, and the one below is about 12 inches square. Both are done on claybord.

update

I have been taking a drawing class lately, so my artwork hasn't really been anything worth sharing. I did this quick sketch of Rhaynie before the class started, because I was thinking it would be a good image for a business card. The whole thing doesn't work too well, because it isn't really the right shape, but a cropped close up of her head might work.

The pictures below are some sketches done in class. They are quite big, and didn't photograph well, but they give you an idea about what has been keeping me busy. I am glad to be done with the course, though, because now I cna get back to the many half-finished projects waiting for my attention.

Thanks for taking a look!

Silver Clay Zoi

I mentioned to someone the other day that I had purchased a silver clay kiln, and that I wanted to try a 'zoi pin. She asked if I had enough skill to do a decent job, and I must admit I did hesitate before answering. I had to try it immediately, and I think it came out OK. What do you think? It was quite a bit larger before I fired it, but this is a nice petite size. I'm not sure it is worth the $60 in materials, though. And so far it is just a flat image of a 'zoi - I still don't know how to do silver solder, so it doesn't have a pin back yet. Next lesson, silver solder!

chain mail

I have been learning to make chain mail. This is a necklace made using the byzantine weave and very large rings (14ga and .5 inch diameter). The weave kind of falls apart without being stretched, but it stays in place when it is being worn.

I have also been learning how to use my metal clay kiln. The clay is really strange texture - slippery on the outside and hard and dry inside - so it is difficult to work with. I made this ring, and as it was drying, it cracked at the join, so I syringed a bit of clay over the crack and pushed in a tiger eye bead. I thought that the clay would cover the hole in the bead, but it shrank enough that the hole shows, and the bead turned red. It needs a bit of sanding, which I should have done before firing, but I didn't know what to expect, and everything I have read suggested that the dried ring would be really delicate and would crumble if I touched it. The ring shrank one size, as expected, and fits perfectly. Not bad for an experiment!

I was trying to copy an antique Egyptian turquoise faience ring using polymer clay. It took me five or six tries before I got one that fits, but I think it turned out pretty close. These are my examples:

Here is the original:

update

I managed to get a couple of things done this weekend - in addition to the normal cleaning. It was beautiful weather, so we also got a couple of long dog walks in. It feels like spring is on the way, and even though I know it will get cold again, and likely stay cold for at least another month, it was wonderful to take a moment and feel the warmth of the sun baking though the window.

I thought I would try making red hearts for Valentine's day, using the basic recipe for elephant ears with a bit of red food coloring. The recipe is really simple: just roll out puff pastry, dusting the curface with sugar instead of flour, sprinkle sugar and cinnamon over the top, roll and slice. I mixed some red food coloring with the cinnamon/sugar mixture and this is what happened:

They aren't very romantic, but they taste just as good as the original. I thought they would be good Halloween cookies, since they look like bleeding hearts. Or maybe they are good Valentine hearts for those who are hurting and need some sweet consolation.

I also managed to get a few paintings completed this weekend. This one was failing, and the colors were all washed out, so I added a bit of alcohol inks on the top, and viola!

The next two were started with alcohol inks on clay board, with a coating of wax on top:

Fly trap

I bought this venus fly trap in the fall, and left it sitting on the kitchen table, fully expecting it to die like they always do. I had been reading about them, and discovered that they need to go into hybernation, and when they do, they look dead, so most people throw them out. I figured if I left it in the original container, it might have a better chance of survival, even though the container is rather tacky. To my amazement, not only did it continue to thrive, but it started to flower just before Christmas, and had flowers for about four weeks.

This is a close up of the flower.

Catching up

I know I have been very quiet, so I thought I would finally post a few images of what I have been working on for the past several weeks. These were all completed in 2010 - the new year has been such an awful series of unfortunate events that I am starting to worry about what is coming next.....

I found a couple of these sweet little baby mermaids in tiny rocking shells: and captured this brownie alive in an old candle lantern:

And I finally managed to find some display cases for the mummified dryads we collected in the late fall this year. The frames are from Ikea, and they work perfectly as specimen cases for these dimunitive creatures. Well, dead bodies really, but you know what I mean.

Acer Saccharinum Sylvanii

Populus Canescens Sylvanii

A Beautiful Day

We finally had a semi-free day, and took the dogs for a walk. Although it was still a bit chilly, we had a great time. The dogs were so excited that they pulled and strained almost the whole way, and they are so worn out from the walk and run that they spent the next few hours out cold on the couch.

Unicorn

We captured this unicorn running around in our garden last night. We didn't have a princess to lure her in, but she was hungry and walked into our trap for candy glitter.