The beginnings of my jewellery...

Haia!
So here are the promised photos of my new bits of jewellery! They're a little different from the original plan, as i still haven't managed to use the kiln at my studio space, which is really disappointing, but not much i can do about that! I mad all of the brooch pins myself, so i apologise to all those jewellery makers out there who will look at them and cringe, as they're my first ever attempt at making them! However, that said, i am very happy with them! So here they are...drumroll please...

i've shown my jewellery in an exhibition called Art of the Hidden Oak in Hereford, and they have also been in  the Artsite 3 christmas pop up shop, also in Hereford.  I have had lots of interest, but as of yet, no sales, which i have found a bit of a blow, but there's always next time!  So i shall leave you now with the invitations for those shows, and also a couple of images of work by Rose Ellen, which i have fallen in love with, until next time...

                                          

XxX

Back to work :)

Helloooo! I am back from a very busy summer! Moving house, moving studios, changing jobs, changing jobs again it's all been a bit hectic! But now i'm back with my porcelain and my pins, and i've begun on my jewellery designs! I will get some photos of my developments up as soon as i remember to bring my camera into my space to be able to take some! So for now you're going to have to deal with some images of some porcelain jewellery that i've been looking at in awe!

This piece is made by Marion Delarue...*droole I'm assuming that it's dipped shibori...i love the textures on the little balls... I really enjoy a good surface texture!  I really like the cluster of wool that you tie the piece up with!

These two pieces are made by MaaPstudio (on etsy) I LOVE THEM! I really like how translucent the rose necklace is, and the detail on the ring is really pretty.  Just enough detail to be noticeable, but not too much to get caught on things and break.  

Before i saw these this afternoon, i was a little sceptical about making porcelain jewellery, but now i have no fears...

Photos up soon!

Becca

xXx 

There and back again...

'Hectic' is probably the most favored word of this week.  We as the Crafts Cluster http://thecraftscluster.blogspot.co.uk/ have been working hard this week to create our degree show.  It has been slowly moving forward with every brush stroke, hammer and nail, and drill...

By the end of today i think most people's work was pretty much ready to either go up, or was up and looking good!  I spent the day hammering nails into my wall for my pieces to balance onto! it was quite a feat! I over ran my personal deadline, but i think i did well to do it in the time i did it in! I will have to repaint my wall...which until my grubby hands got to it was spotless and looking really great.  We had to take out the  clem clamps from between my boards and squish them together with some bracing behind them, as the clamps and tape joining the boards were just to distracting, and it wouldn't have done my work much justice, so it has been polly filled to an inch of it's life, and the gap at the end filled with a strip of wood and some builder's chalk...which turns out to be quite handy stuff!  So here's a taster of what i've been dealing with for the last couple of days...

  Working out the different compositions was quite a difficult one with so much to choose from...but then since my piece was doubled in length because i was given two boards i didn't have as many spare, but i had enough to mess around with, and also to replace the ones i might have accidentally stood on... oops...

I'm looking forward to getting the painting done tomorrow so that the space is perfect.  I am also really excited about guillotining my A3 pages to fit into my folio for my portfolio! I hope it looks as fab as i'm hoping it will!  i have some really nice images in it to really show off my work, so i'm looking forward to seeing it all together, and getting it in along with my other project tomorrow at 4...Scary stuff!  Everyone else is exclaiming at how they don't know what they're going to do with themselves after this is all over...i wish i could say the same thing...my dissertation is really dragging me down, i have to get this silly thing marked by the 21st and i've not even finished writing it yet! it's my project for next week.  i need to get it finished otherwise i will not be graduating this year, so i suppose that that should be a huge incentive, but with everyone else finished it's going to be really difficult not to get lazy with it...

Anyway! i invite you all to the degree show at Hereford College of arts, Folly Lane...

                                     

Taraa for now...XxX

It's raining, BOO!

Back!
Been at work selling glittery trinkets at Claire's!  Must admit, i do love my side job!
So now i'm back i will tell you about the experiments i have done for different types of ends! It's all very exciting, i made 20 different ones, i've picked a couple that i particularly like - i didn't think of taking photos of them unfortunately, i only have a group photo of them all...

i really like the natural ones - so the ones that i've torn, or the ones i've kept the way they were when i rolled out the clay.  I also like the end with the galvenized nails (top 3rd from left).  I'll take a decent photo of it, but  basically underneath the top layer of bobbly nail heads the metal has kind of raised and has gone really wrinkly and fluid looking, it's really beautiful.  I also like the end with the pins all over (top 2nd from right) it's all gravelly and just completely the opposite to the porcelain, it's really great...  I don't really like the printed ends (i pressed some of the ends into a piece of sand blasted wood, so they picked up the grain) I followed this grain with some of the pinned ends, but i don't like these as much as the one i've just been talking about.  I also don't like the more literal ends i made, that's just not what my work's about...

I really like this piece, i love that i didn't pin the pins in all the way...like ivy on a twig.

Now this looks amazing, it looks like moss!  I love it! Admittedly it was a happy accident, a really happy accident!  Basically the fibre blanket i have been using to try and stop the metal from getting onto the kiln shelves (unsuccessfully) and when the metal melts onto the fibre blanket i don't know what happens, but there's a reaction between the metal and blanket that makes the blanket stick to the metal and it turns a greeny brown colour.  it is really rather beautiful.  

This is a handful of my small scale pieces that i'm going to display on a plinth.  I'm really happy with how these are turning out, there are no problems with them (so far) so i've been able to get on with these and get a decent amount of them so that i can pick and choose the best ones when it comes to it.

Just a couple of photos of the twig ends i've been drawing...

This is a very sad photo.  This beautiful part of one of my pieces is stuck to a kiln shelf.  I can't get it off, it is positively fused to the shelf, so it's going to be ground off, leaving no evidence that it existed, apart from some rather hideous gouges in the shelf. I just put too much metal in the piece... In the middle area that's quite spotty the heads of the nails have bubbled off of the nails and whilst handling this bubbled shell has been cracked off revealing the nails underneath.

So here is the beginnings of my large scale final piece, some of these might not end up as any of the pieces that are used, but they are potentially the ones.  Exciting times!  Now for some more drawing, tech jounaling,  analysing and CV-ing...so, so much work...! Tara for now!

There's a silver lining to every cloud...or to every ruined kiln shelf...

Haia, I know it's been a while, but don't worry i have definately been doing work... lots of experimenting, making miostakes, drawing, and as the title says, ruining kiln shelves...Eek! I started the kiln shelf ruining with some copper experiments, looking at colouring the porcelain naturally, without having to touch glazes - they are very scarey things...

You can't see very well from this photo, but the middle of this end is an amazing honey comb texture!

Even though i made little beds for them to go into the kiln on, the copper still ate through the clay and made an aweful mess of the shelf... With this in mind, i decided to stop experimenting with the copper, because i was losing more by using the copper and having a smooth surface instead of the nice lumpy texture i get with the steel.  It was nice to have a mess around with it though, i might have a little more of a play in the furute, to try and get the green into the porcelain...maybe by combining the steel with the copper!
Be right back, have to go to a pricing workshop!

a FAB photo...

This is a photo that hopeyvonnepowell.blogspot.co.uk has just taken of my work, it's so well focused i thought i'd share it with you! xxx

Drum roll please...

So today i got what i've been waiting for! All of my small twigs have come out of the kiln! Yay! Not only that, but they all worked how i'd hoped they would, so i don't have to go to plan B! What a relief! Here are photos of some of the work that came out:

I really love how the metal bubbles out of the porcelain! I also like how the porcelain has a 20% shrink rate, so i don't have to make them as small as i want them in the end, which is a little less fiddly!  Looking forward to painting some kiln shelves with batt wash (to stop my pieces from sticking to the shelves) and to making some props, to prop the twigs whilst they're in the kiln, so they don't slump back down to being totally flat. But never mind college work for now, I'm off to Barcelona on sunday, and fingers crossed it'll be a little warmer than here there! Chao! xxx