Summer/Fall 2015 On the Road!

Classes on The Road!

Teaching is one of the most gratifying things I do as an artist.  I love my students! Helping a student realize their goals, dreams, and potential is exciting and fulfilling to me. Whether it's a technical challenge or a concept development issue, I love the the actions of problem solving and overcoming hurdles. Sharing the laughter and support of fellow students during the process, well it just can't be beat! Catch one of my classes in my home studio outside of San Antonio, TX, or jump into one of my classes on the road!

July 18 - 19, 2015 - Jen-Ken Kilns, Lakeland, FL. - Hot Stuff - Harnessing Flow in Your Kiln

Aug. 21, 2015 - BeadFest, Philadelphia, PA. - Metal Clay 960; Lentil Beads with Stones

Aug. 22, 2015 - BeadFest, Philadelphia, PA. - Metal Clay Pendants with Vintage China

Oct. 30 - Nov. 1 - SiNaCa Studios, Fort Worth, Texas - Sculptural Glass with Imagery

Nov. 6 - 8, 2015 - Milkweed Arts, Phoenix Arizona - Sculptural Glass with Imagery

Hot Stuff - Harnessing Flow in Your Kiln

In this fast paced 2-day workshop students will learn the secrets to creating the elusive progressive pattern bar and spectacular pot and screen melts! We'll even learn the set ups for beautiful vitrograph cane! All these exciting techniques create fantastic components for use in sculptural and functional glasswork. Each student will use their choice of centerpiece components to create a gorgeous cheese tray using the new Patty Gray Dam Mold. Students will gain the knowledge of set up and layout of pattern bars, pot melts, and screen melts in the kiln, firing schedules and kiln programming, building dams, pulling vitrograph cane, cutting cane, and more. Be prepared for FUN! We'll be setting up and running kilns, prepping molds, using tile saws, lap wheels, grinders, the sandblaster, and pulling hot glass from the kilns! Students; Please wear closed toe shoes, bring a 100% cotton long sleeved shirt, & safety glasses. Some glass fusing experience is required.

Metal Clay 960; Lentil Beads with Stones

PMC 960 Sterling Silver is an exciting medium that allows you to produce quality, detailed hollow designs in sterling silver without the mess or equipment required for traditional jewelry casting. Beginners will love the ability to create personalized, one-of-a-kind lentil focal beads that they can wear alone on a chain, or add to their favorite beaded designs. In just one day students will create enviable heirloom quality silver pendants that work with any style.

Metal Clay Pendants with Vintage China

Jump into Bezel Setting in Metal Clay! This workshop will introduce you to the exciting world of setting inclusions Metal Clay. We will work with PMC 3 and fine silver bezel wire, to add beautiful vintage china shards and make pendants that are truly romantic, art deco, Asian and more! Don't miss this hybrid approach to new techniques in soldering on metal clay that will open the door to loads of new possibilities in jewelry making.

Sculptural Glass with Imagery

Take your fused glass beyond the bowl! It’s time to create light catching sculpture communicates. It doesn’t matter if you’re going for a loose abstract design or a photographic image, you’ll learn how to make it happen in this exciting new workshop! Each new skill and technique can be applied to small work as well as larger projects, making this a “don’t miss” class. The focus of this workshop is on the development and printing of images in tall, transparent, slab sculptures. Students will learn screen-printing, powder applications, and direct painting techniques to apply their imagery to multiple layers of glass. The image layers will then be fired, stacked, and fired again to create tall thick slabs of transparent glass. The slabs will then be cut, ground, polished and mounted on steel bases. Students will become skilled at preparing personalized images, creating their own screens, painting and layering powders and enamels, and mastering the firing schedules that deliver success. In addition, students will experience effective kiln casting and cold working techniques. Each student will cut, grind and polish their pieces, and learn how to mount their base pieces. Fusing experience is necessary to participate, but advanced skills are not required to be successful!

BeadFest Santa Fe and More!! Can't Wait!

It's been a while since I've slowed down to blog. I'm forcing myself to buckle down this week! The studio has been going through some growing pains and we're adding new equipment and more space to the workshop area. We're excited, and sore!

Anyway, I'm thrilled to announce my new teaching schedule for next year will be posted on my site!
It includes January at the Fired Arts Academy at Jen-Ken Kilns, February at Sinaca Studios in Fort Worth, March at BeadFest Santa Fe, April in Las Vegas at the Glass Craft Expo, and May in London and Zurich at Creative Glass.

I'll still be doing my thing at Roadhouse Arts, just north of San Antonio! Come visit with me at any of my adventures!

Here are a few pix of the cool stuff I'll be sharing with my students:

Best 2 Days Ever!!!

Some days are just great! I consider myself lucky if I have 2 great ones in a row! This week it happened!

Thursday I had my "Metal Clay Girls" here! They came for the Silver Metal Clay with Vintage China workshop. We chose from English Florals, Asian, Graphic Black & White, or Delft china pieces. Then we ground them to our desired shape. Then we made and fired our pieces and then bezel set them into our pendants. Everyone did great and learned new and fun skills.  This can be a challenge because many of the beautiful china shards we chose to use were not flat, so it's harder to work around 3 dimensional pieces pieces. We had a ball! Can't wait for the next class with the metal clay brigade!

My demo pieces and Dee's piece!

Susan's piece in progress

Dee's piece polished and patinated

Caren's Pendant and Earring Set

In process

The next day....TODAY! Again, a perfect day! Today was the Freeform Silk Dying Workshop. We had so much fun! We did Ombre Dying of Silk Burnout scarves, as well as making our own stamps, and using Gutta (resist) and Color Magnet solutions. There were so many techniques in just one day....I'm kind of worn out! ....But in the best way! We had some students who were playing hookey from school, so they are not pictured! Don't want them to get busted!

Don't You love the Tribal Stamped piece?

This burn out scarf is a vibrant purple-ish blue with grey background!

Wonder what I'm gonna get?

Gorgeous!

Checking out the design!

Thanks to all my awesome students for making the last 2 days so wonderful!

Bronze Clay and Etched Metals

Just a little peek at some of the finished pieces from the Metal Etching, Fold Forming, and Bronze Clay workshops. I always wish I had more time! These were my demo pieces, the top two all be made into pendants and beaded into necklace sets.  Today, we had an Into to PMC class and we made some cool stuff. I'll post pix tomorrow....that is after I teach Intro to Glass Fusing.... Wow!  Busy Week!!!

Bronze Clay Bust

This almost looks like a chocolate covered cherry!

This is fold formed, corrugated, enameled, and the flower is PMC.

This one is etched copper and brass with bronze drops.

I love art jewelry!

Last Week into This Week...

It's hard to believe that it's May 1st tomorrow. How is the time flying so fast! As usual, I'm a busy bee with all kinds of buzzing going around.

Here's the recap:

Grad School: I turned in my final 3000 word paper today! Yeah! Now I have just one more week of reading and blogging ahead and I'll be done for the semester. I'm glad I only took this one class to get my feet wet, 'cause it was a commitment with everything else going on. I don't know if school will get harder or easier, but I'm glad I'm doing it. This was a great class! Thanks to Ed Check, my TTU prof! The class was Research Methods in Art. I'll publish my paper if I get a decent grade, so you all can read it. It's revealing!

WD: This week I had a few classes; Drop Ring Vessels and PMC Silver Beads. Here are some pix!

These are 2 drop ring molds with their happy blanks sitting on top. It's important to make sure they are level before you fire them, so here's the bubble level on top....hope I removed that before firing! Both molds needed slight shimming to make them level. I'll post after pix when done!

Here's a PMC Silver lentil bead, it's approx. 1.5" It's hollow!

This is a glazed bisque bead with a PMC ribbon wrapped around it. This was fun to do. This bead is 1.75" It's almost too big. But i'll find something to do with it to make it cool and wearable.

This is a bisque bead that was painted with PMC and then PMC clay was applied. It's about  3/4". The other side has a cool leaf imprint.

This one is my favorite! This is a hollow PMC bead made by painting PMC slip onto a cotton armature, then layering clay and syringe over that. It's approximately 2" tall, and even though it's hollow, it's heavy. When fired, the cotton armature burns out and leaves the inside hollow. We're carrying the cotton armatures and the bisque beads at the shop if anyone wants to try this. SO COOL!

Also....Denise Leone will be arriving at Wired Designs studios on Wednesday to teach her class. I'm so looking forward to it. We still have one open spot if someone wants to jump in last minute. I'm excited because we're using Rapid Mask! it doesn't need a wash out! YEAH!!!!

Commissions: The vases for the the church in college station turned out great. They are still cooling in the kiln so I'll post pix of that tomorrow with the drop rings. The Alvarez gray metallic sink is slumped, but...alas....not all goes as planned and the rim is crooked, so I'll have to spend an hour or so grinding the darn lip. I know it make the vessel sink look even more stunning, but I'm kind of lazy, so I was hoping I wouldn't have to do it.

Luann's sink turned out gorgeous, but the casting was just a little too thin, so it had to go back into the kiln with more glass. Here's how that looked.

I added 2 more half sheets of color and some clear medium grit to bulk it up. Hopefully it won't change the color much, because the blank was gorgeous and the client approved us to go to the next step.