Oh So Beautiful Bracelet from Gypsy Spirit Studio

Sharon from Gypsy Spirit Studio designed this beautiful bracelet using one of my large ceramic beads as the focal bead. It's the one almost directly in the middle (the BIGGEST, Yay!).

Sharon writes in her Etsy profile that she has been involved with some form of creative work all her life, whether it be supporting others art work or doing her own (although way too rarely).

She has sculpted clay, stone, and bronze; painted in oils,watercolor,acrylics and pastels. When not creating she has been a gallery director, an art museum director, an art auction coordinator, and a graphic art director(way before computers were prevalent).

Currently her work is focused on recycled glass(faux beach glass), driftwood, wire, beads, and shells.

This bracelet was hand formed using ceramic beads. Included in the design is the focal turquoise green bead and also some smaller coordinating white and green ceramic nuggets also made by me (Natalie from NKP Designs).

Sharon has randomly strung black agate gemstone nuggets, a rare vintage white silver etched plastic bead (from the 40's and 50's era), metal spacers, tiny hematite, glass and czech faceted turquoise green colored beads. All are strung on 3 black beading wire strands.

The bracelet measures approximately 8 1/4 incles including the toggle.

It is beautiful! Please visit her Etsy Store and buy it at once!

Fresh out of the Kiln

Congratulations to Remember Me Emily who won the Muddy Magnet Give Away by the Etsy Mud Team. Emily voted in our Autumn Contest and was randomly selected from all who voted. Information about this contest and future contests can be found here. Also randomly selected are Mud Team Members who have volunteered to create and give away magnets. These are the ones I sent to Emily today. Please visit her store, she has some awesome vintage treasures and handmade art trinkets.


Summer to me is chancing upon a bright field of wild asters. As it so happens, I also recently found a chalk type of glaze that allows me to use a wet brush to achieve a watercolor painterly effect. More about that later. This came out of the kiln today!

Celadon Ladybugs (or ladybirds)

I'll be putting these in my Etsy store today: a set of five Celadon glazed ladybugs (or ladybirds as some prefer).

I got to wondering about why this color of green is called 'celadon' so off I went to Wikipedia. Thought I'd share it.

"Celadon colored pottery is a specific style of pottery produced in East Asia. It is normally associated with a pale sea-green pigment though the style originally was made with much darker pigments. The pale green pigment came from the Korean artisans who used specific clays and potting techniques to create the style now associated with the name. Chemically, celadon is formed by combining chromium oxide, cadmium yellow, and titanium-zinc white. It was most commonly used in Korean art and spread to the other Asian cultures. "

Daisy Bowl

It's been a hugely busy week in the studio. I'm trying some things I haven't attempted before. This large bowl for instance ... I lined a favorite glass bowl of mine with newspaper and coiled the clay inside the bowl, smoothed it .. let it dry a bit, took it out, smoothed the outside and added daisy sprigs.


Now it's under plastic drying very very slowly and I'm hoping for NO cracks. We'll see. This took no time to type but it sure did take a long time to make this bowl.


I like the look of the inside of the bowl, too. It's smooth but the smoothing outward created some subtle but interesting texture, as if a flower was in bloom.

Chocolate Beads, Good Enough To Eat

These are some stoneware beads that I applied a crystaline glaze onto and got some wonderful glazing effects. They look like light and dark chocolate melted together wonderfully! MMMmmm!

Teeny Teapot

Just 2 1/2 inches high, this teeny teapot was sheer joy to put together. In an earlier post I wrote how I had been to You Tube and had watched a demo from Peter Fong Choo and how he put together his amazing teapots.

This is my effort to build a teeny teapot, Choo style! I barely brushed on a purple underglaze and applied a clear glaze over the body, but left the top, legs, and spout unglazed. However, Choo uses porcelain and the clay I used is stoneware.

Oh, and the lid also doubles as the handle. Imagine your hand wrapped around the body with your index finger on the lid. The lid is firmly in place though, it isn't necessary to hold it down.

Mug Showcase You Tube Video

I put together many of my recent mugs. Some have sold, some have not. Check my Etsy store in the event you just HAVE to purchase one! Enjoy!

Empty Bowls

Today after I put the lid down on the kiln I went over to Janet Rodriguez's Hart Street Pottery Studio to paint some bowls for Empty Bowls.

I've meant to go before now but this is the first time I've attended this year. Of course I'm kicking myself for NOT going before now. It's fun. Yes. It's for a good, most excellent, cause. Yes. I have to admit though, that the reason I'm kicking myself for not going sooner is that I learned so many new techniques (FOR FREE) from what other people were doing.

It was even better than You Tube.

Daisies

This photo reminds me of the old joke where you wrap your arms around yourself as though you're hugging someone!

I pulled this bead out of the kiln the other day and I'm very happy with it. It's here at the moment.

I just finished getting black and white Bead Swap beads packaged up to send to the Beads-of-Clay group that I'm a part of. There are 33 of us participating this Swap. The theme is 'Black and White'. After three failed attempts I am finally happy with the results. I'm not posting the photos, however, because I want the Swappers to be surprised. I do have about 10 leftover and they will probably show up in my bead store eventually.

New Batch

This is a technique I should have thought about doing a long time ago. Basically these are pieces of clay, rolled and shaped, onto a round ball of clay to form flowers and leaves. Now onto glazing ...

Decals and Teapots

To get a better view of this teamug, click on the photo to see a bigger version. I'm not certain how stable these decals are for the dishwasher. I'm not positive they wouldn't eventually fade away. If it never had to be washed I think it would be fine. However, I am going to coat this with a clear gloss and refire. So the experiment continues ...











... as does this one! These are some teapots made after viewing Peter Fong Choo's miniture teapot You Tube videos. I am sanding them today.

HomeMade Decals Part Two

WOW! They are sepia colored! I achieved this at Cone 06. Opening the kiln is always such a surprise! I thought they would only become sepia at a much higher firing, such as Cone 6. A few more firings will perhaps shed more light on the subject of why. As it stands for now, I had these in the big kiln. I fired at low for about an hour, medium at about an hour, high at about an hour, and then closed the lid. It was not a full load, however, and that could make all the difference.




This is one of the beads close up. I'm going to add it to my BEAD Etsy store which I only opened last week just for the beads. I have tried to blend the two different art forms into the same store, web-blog, etc .... but it is hard because I get sidetracked with one or the other and those who are only interested in the pottery (or the beads) are really only interested in that. For those that are interested in both forms, there are links on the side to the other blog/store and I would love it if you visited both. But if you don't ... that's okay too! I'm glad to grab your current interest.

For those who are interested in seeing these daisy forms on the pottery, check out my pottery blog. I am going to showcase a lovely teamug later today or tomorrow with all the Daisy characters.