I recently cast 3 sizes of my bezel cups, from my original PMC pieces to sterling silver, and just finished a series of collages, and then filled the cups with Ice Resin, from Susan Lenart Kazmer. They turned out great! I was using a heat lamp to hasten the curing, and the lamp got too hot in one area, and LARGE bubbles appeared in the pieces too close to the heat lamp. Ice Resin is a nice, clear resin to use.
Okay–this batch had sooo many colors–and the last batch, if you look for the yellowish oval piece towards the left corner, almost all came out goldish. I have been packing the container, layering charcoal over the pieces until I have the container filled to the brim. This time I inverted the lid, to make more of a seal, so to speak, and wow–the colors!! The dusty blues are awesome!! You can see some of the fired pieces from the sunshine drying photo below in the older post.
On a hot sunny Denver day, temperature about 90 degrees, my drying method has been to set the bronze clay pieces out in the sun to dry. It’s really fast, if you turn the pieces occasionally. Hockey puck on the left, jar lid on the right, the black attracts the heat.
I’ve been teaching clay & jewelry at a kids summer camp all week. We were lucky to get out of town over Father’s Day weekend. We have natural landscaping in the mountains at our home outside Winter Park, CO. This rainy summer so far has produced beautiful wildflowers. Some day we hope to spread some seeds, but for now, the yard is au natural. We just had all our beetle killed pine trees removed–notice all the green!
I love the purple tucked away in this one.
a little like baby’s breath…
Here’s a shot of my homemade photo set up. Supplies needed:
One light panel from Home Depot, 4 “L” shaped brackets to hold light panel, large piece of black glass from D&L Glass supply, old tripod, with utility light clamped on, with an Eiko photoflood bulb, BBA. Tripod for camera, step ladder to stand upon during shooting, computer nearby to download shots. Camera Nikon D50 with Macro lens, 105mm (a bit beefy).
My favorite recycled piece, or “tool” for working with metal clay, actually there are two here, one is the wooden soap holder, that became the light bulb holder for shaping metal clay, the other is an angel food cake lid with a hole cut through it, hair dryer inserted. May need to replace this one soon, as it’s had lots of use and is melting……
Ever run out of ideas? Time to look through old sketchbooks. I seem to collect books to sketch in. Does anyone else do this? I have many: small, large, huge. One for ceramics, PMC, drawing, printmaking, you name it! My favorite is a small book I made in a class at the Denver Art Museum. My tools for drawing are colored pencils and a set of fine line markers from Prismacolor. For this page, I sat with an art magazine & drew some of what I saw.
We collect original art. For my birthday, my husband bought me this amazing salt-fired ceramic sculpture by Boulder artist Caroline Douglas. Mermaid on Camel….
After finishing some bronze clay pieces, this is how my desk looks. Messy isn’t it?
Wow-it’s almost been two months since my last post. May is typically a busy month, and April as well. We had our Colorado Potters Sale & Show, we had company, we went to the mountains, we did yard work. We entertained friends. I restocked my consignment galleries. I made a few new pieces. I’m figuring out my summer schedule. I’m trying to restock my Etsy store. Whew!
The fountain has water flowing…the chicken came from the Santa Fe flea market.
