New etchings

Here are some newly etched brass plates - 3 new designs and a larger version of my little bird artwork which I am going to try on bronze. I use etched plates to make the impression in the clay which then gets oxidized (after the clay is fired) so the recessed areas become black. It's like a rubber stamp, only it's brass. You can get a tremendous amount of detail with etching, which I really like. And it turns out good nearly every time!

Etsy Metal Clay trunk show 10/30 4pm Pacific

Some of us from the Etsy Metalclay team will be doing a virtual trunk show in the Etsy Labs this Thursday, October 30, at 4pm Pacific time (7pm Eastern). There will be prizes, and I will be doing some sort of promotion (free shipping perhaps) for those who attend.

Just go to Etsy communities>virtual labs at 4pm pacific on the 30th, or use this link:
http://www.etsy.com/virtual_labs.php
Click on the big green "treehouse" square and come on in! It's a live chat, and each artist will be showing and talking about 3 pieces. It's interactive so you can ask questions. There will be door prizes, discounts and promotions so stop on by! Meet the artists! Have all your burning questions answered! I will be presenting around 4:15.

Finished!

I finished up the mushroom last night - it turned out pretty cute. I also finished 4 more oak trees, a silver and concrete leaf and some other things, so I'm awfully tired for a Monday. One of these days I'll get enough sleep.

Mushroom ready to fire

Here't the mushroom in clay form, ready to fire.

Autumn in Sonoma County

It looks pretty much like summer, only there is even more brown and some of the trees turn yellow and lose their leaves. Not spectacular like fall in New England or anything, but the 80 degree sunny days and cool nights make up for that!

New piece - start to finish

Here's a new piece I'm working on, although why I feel the need to do a mushroom is a bit of a mystery, but, whatever. I keep coming back to it so I figured I might as well go ahead and see how it turns out! I thought I'd share my process, so here are the initial scribbles:



Once I have an idea of the shape and how I might construct the piece, I move from paper and pen to Adobe Illustrator:


Once I have a rough drawing in Illustrator, I can resize it all I want (yay vectors!) Metal clay shrinks after it's fired (12% to 15%) and I can calculate this and get an idea of what the final size will be. I'm also still trying to decide if I should do the mushroom on a round background or not. I plan on making this in the coming days so we'll soon see if it turns out good or not!

Congratulations Kelly!

We had our last race meet of the season at lovely Buttonwillow raceway this past weekend. My boyfriend Kelly finished the season first place overall in 250 production and second place overall in Formula 2. That's him on the green bike with the other class champions that ran Dunlop tires. As for me, I'm just happy I finished the season!