Snow & Sparkles...

This winter started out quite nicely with snow. And now that it's raining cats & dogs outside the studio I'm left hoping that most of the snow that's fallen so far is staying around long enough to ensure a white Christmas.

I'm finally back in the studio, making beads and jewelry - what a relief! Even though this necklace is a gift for this Christmas and was a 'have-to-get-done' project it was nice to work with clay again. The silver foil effect on the beads was fun to play with, but I found out quickly that too many passes through the pasta machine lead to too many crackles. I finally came out with just the right distressing of the foil for the necklace and earrings.

With a grandmother who loves blue... my own curiousity about how foils would work and a wintery scene outside the studio... this necklace was the result!

Happy Holidays to all.

I'm getting there...

It's been far too long since I posted. I've found that for most of this fall I've been working too much on new curriculum for teaching and not enough time has been spent in the studio. I have plenty of sketches, ideas and thoughts swirling around just waiting to be printed or 'clayed' but time keeps getting sucked into "work projects".

However it's getting darker earlier - I'm finding that I'm tucking in to the house (and studio!) a bit earlier... and hopefully after this next round of curriculum and grade work I'll be a bit more free.

Wait 'til you see what my newest sketches look like! I'm moving on to more textures and starting to think about juxtaposing funky patterns/colors/textures next to each other... we'll see what happens.

Keep the cheer.

Texture & Color

I am feeling quite frustrated with my garden at the moment, the flowers are beautiful - it's just that the weeds are winning in a large area! So I felt the need to look at photographs I had taken from the garden earlier in the year. And there it was, a lovely image of an iris just after a spring rain... I adore iris... to me they are just such beautiful flowers and they are just so simply elegant. As I looked at the colors and the waterdroplets I was reminded of a set of purple mokume gane beads that I had made for the recent show. As I compared the two images I found myself wondering if I could take further inspiration from this link and possibly create something in polymer with even more sparkle. Hmmmm... we'll have to see.

Yellow Lily Pieces...

Ever have a funny connection about your artwork noted by someone else? Something that made you then relook at what you had created and go hmmmmm... who would've thought? I had created a yellow chunky set of jewelry using the faux turquoise tutorial. Instead of the obvious turquoise colors I opted for multiple yellows with copper acrylic paint for the 'crackle' effect. I really liked how the set came out and am curious to try different color combinations.
My father had come over to the studio to see what I was in the midst of creating and when he spotted this set of beads he made the connection with the little yellow water lilies that are abundant in our stretch of the Hudson River. So I found a photo for comparison... what do you think?

At the Booth.

The show was fun - the two images are of my booth set up and a close up of one of the tables full of jewelry! The setup went very smoothly with the tent going up, tables getting placed and all the jewelry set out. At a few points the my booth was like a small summer gathering of friends that I hadn't seen since we finished teaching in June. I also met many really nice folks. It was an interesting conversation with some people talking about how different making jewelry and tscreenprinting is. But as I spoke about the differences I also mentioned many of the color and technique overlaps! With this show finished and things packed away I'm back in the studio and planning on joining the group again for their Open House in November. The Troy Shirt Factory artists use the weekend after Thanksgiving to become the 'anti-mall' as artists open their studios and line the hallways of the building with beautiful hand crafted works of art. So mark it on your calendar, it's set on mine and now I have work to do!!!

Upcoming Art Show!

I'm as excited as can be. I've just signed up to participate in a local outdoor art show.
The Troy Shirt Factory in Glens Falls houses artists studios and ecclectic shops that are just wonderful. On August 11th from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. they are holding an Open House along with an arts & crafts fair on the building's lawn. I will have a booth (my first!!!) on the lawn showing and selling my polymer clay jewelry, some screenprints and notecards of my prints.
I'll be busy in the studio getting everything strung, framed and organized until then. We'll see how it all goes!
The two images on the left show what my studio looks like right now... I have postcards printed ready to be cut and sent out, packages and packages of clay waiting to become beautiful beads, and lots of loose beads that are sanded and waiting to become jewelry. I'll be busy!!!

From Sketch to Finish

I keep drawing and coming up with sketches and color combinations for polymer clay pieces that I'd like to bring to life someday. When that someday is varies greatly. I'm heading into the end of the school year which will take up more and more time and with spring just around the corner, playing, hiking and gardening in the great outdoors will take more time.

But for now I've actually managed to pull a piece from sketch to a finished necklace. I wasn't happy with the color combination in the sketch so I 'borrowed' another color scheme from a different page in my sketch book. I'm working on really translating size, shape and concept into the actual materials... trickier than I thought.

Blue Spirals...

It's been grey and overcast for most of the day and it started snowing again this afternoon. So I played in the studio stringing up some spiral beads that I had created a few weeks back. It's really nice sitting up in my studio looking out over the river and watching the snow pile up on the branches and pine trees.
The photograph that I posted is from one early morning looking out from our front yard over to the island in the middle of the Hudson River. The sun touches the tips of the trees first and adds some rosy glow and then warms up the rest of the valley. I thought it would be a nice image to link with the blues and spirals of the necklace.

Tiffany Stained Glass inspiration...

I have always loved Louis Comfort Tiffany and his amazing glass work This summer I was able to see an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that showcased some of his work along with many other Art Deco artists. So that got me on a reading kick in my odd spare moments. I finally got around to taking one of my images of an iris from my own garden here at the river house and using it as a starting point for a 'stained glass' cane.

Building it was challenging, reducing it was tiring, cutting into it once it was reduced to the first size I wanted was frightening... but then I did a dance of joy around the studio. I'm so happy - now I need to finish reducing the rest and see what I can make of it!!! The first image is the original iris photograph and the clay image shows the cane before it was reduced and after at about 2"x2".

Back in the Studio!

We have finally finished our addition on our house which included an art studio space for me. The two images are views of the studio. I actually have a dry area for computer graphic work, reading, researching, sketching and assembling my jewelry. And then I have an area that is more messy for the clay work, oil pastels, pastels, printing, baking and sanding. Because I'm a printer using water based inks I even have a "shower-like" area that I use to hose off my inks to get the screen ready for the next print.
I'm so excited to finally be moved in, organized and getting back to work. With the year's construction pushing me into the basement and then over two months during final construction without a space to call my own - that was just too long!