Spring Fever!

I must be ready for spring, not that I can really complain about winter here in Sonoma county. The daffodils and mustard are blooming, a sure sign that spring is on it's way. The pieces I made this week are very bright and cheery in response. I must say that I'm really having fun using the concrete. The pea pod was given hardly any advance thought at all, I had the idea and was able to sit down and execute it immediately. That is really my favorite way to work.

Collaborating with my sister

My sister Sharon is a very talented artist (although she would NEVER admit it!) Very recently she started her first printmaking class and has already done some very cool stuff. I made this piece for her from a photo of one of her prints. Her work lends itself to my way of working in metal clay, so perhaps this is the start of a new line of jewelry.

400!

I just had my 400th sale on Etsy tonite! It's going better than I ever imagined it would. That's a lot of jewelry, all designed, made, photographed, listed and shipped by me. I guess that would explain why I rarely get more than 6 hours of sleep a night. Speaking of which, since it's only 11:20 pm I had better get back to work.

Experimenting

I was trying to figure out how I could do some of my concrete pieces smaller, when I was hit with a "duh!" moment. I normally work with PMC3, which shrinks 12-15% after firing, and I realized that I've never tried the original formula PMC, which shrinks along the lines of 30%. So I ordered some immediately, and sat down and made an orange slice as soon as it came.

What you're seeing in the photo is the PMC3 orange on the left, and the PMC original on the right. They started off exactly the same size! Pretty amazing! The clay was wonderful to work with, but I did learn that I need to make everything thicker than I have been. There was quite a bit of warping with all the shrinkage, but I was able to pound it back in shape. The original is 1 1/2" in diameter, the experiment is 1 1/8". I'm looking forward to making more stuff with the original clay.

Fruit!

My first batch of silver and concrete fruit was so well received that I've made more. I love fruit - it's yummy and reminds me of exotic places I've traveled to. Passionfruit in Zaire, Pineapple in Uganda, Mangoes in Egypt.

Custom Bunny

This is Docket, the adorable Mini Rex bunny who belongs to Caroline in Saskatoon. I really enjoyed making him, and figured out some new tricks too.

Making good use of my cut in hours

As you can see by the state of my workbench, my Friday "off" has been very productive. Good luck getting me to go back to 40 hours a week at the day job!