Blog is Moving - Come on along!!

I wanted to move my blog to a domain that reflected the content, so it now lives here at earthshards.com.
All former posts are intact and I look forward to sharing many new ones!!!

The Trinity Alumni Artisan Show

This is always an enjoyable event - it's not a particularly good "buying" group, but seeing former grads at the lovely Holt Center gardens is fun. Here's a short video of the show. It lasted just two hours and was held in conjunction with the Alumni Picnic. Some of my favorites from other artisans were Tina Barajas' clay Whistkulls and Cathy Geib's giant cow done in pastels.

New Ornamental Shard Pin Collages

It's been a while since I've done these little shard pin collages- I love working in this format. Here are ten new ones from the studio. They will go with me tomorrow to the Trinity Alumni Artisan Show. If you haven't seen these before, they are clipped to the frame interior matboard with a strong bar magnet so they can be taken off and worn as a pin. There is also a clear straw "channel" on the back that a cord can go through so the construction can be worn as a pendant. They also look cool on a hat - or a lampshade :) I'll have more of these at my December 1st Open House/Open Studio event. Invitations will go out next week and everyone is invited!

I

Beautiful Afternoon at the Workshop

The studio positively glowed with creative energy today - six art teachers and artisans from south of San Antonio drove in for the Collage on Canvas workshop. I had met Becky and Sharon at Sandy Oaks Olive Orchard when I taught a journal workshop there earlier in the year, and they brought their friends and colleagues today to play. What a fun, talented group! Every workshop is limited to six people and that seems to be the perfect number to collaborate and share ideas. We definitely borrowed and developed tips and techniques from each other. Everyone was so generous sharing their materials - I received some wonderful tablecloth remnants and some old keys and feathers and cactus-pad skeletons - cool. When you see their work, you'll be as impressed as I was - thanks for a great afternoon, everyone!

Look Quick!

It's a clean studio (in relative studio terms). It took a few hours, but I'm ready for tomorrow's workshop. Among the things I found were my lost bee stamp, my lost favorite face mold, a bunch of assorted beads, chopsticks, and a plastic elephant. And tons of clay dust and paper scraps. Switching from collage to clay really is a challenge! But I'm ready for my Collage on Canvas class tomorrow - yay! Here's the unvarnished photographic record of spotlessness . . . well, maybe not "spotlessness" -  but improvement, nevertheless.

Thrill of the Kiln?

It's always a little scary to open the kiln when it's fired during the night - once it over-fired, once things were way too wet and there was breakage, but most of the time, it's a thrill to see all of the pieces intact and transformed. I loaded the latest edition of shards yesterday afternoon late (1st photo) and this morning at 5:00, the kiln sitter had tripped off, and while the pieces were still hot, they looked fine. I never can wait until daylight, always have to get out the flashlight and check on them. They are still too hot to handle but I can unload the kiln in a hour or so. These pieces fired at Cone 05 (about 1800+F), as do most of the earthenware pieces I make. Thanks to the kiln gods!

Transfer Rescue

During Sunday's Image Transfer workshop, I made a disappointingly mediocre transfer of a woman on watercolor paper that I am rescuing (I hope) - I added a rice paper indirect transfer on the right and then went back into the face with watercolor. I added some iridescent acrylic on the "window" part to give it some drama. It's not Great Art, but if it were developed a bit more, it could be a nice illustration.