Wednesday, October 29, 2008

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!

Monday, October 27, 2008

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.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Mushroom ready to fire


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

Friday, October 24, 2008

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!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

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!

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

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!

Monday, October 20, 2008

Lulu Bug featured on Wishing Willow blog


Here's a really lovely post about my work:
http://wishingwillow.blogspot.com/2008/10/thinking-concretely.html

The oak tree also made the Etsy front page today - yay! And it's been sold. The response I've had to this piece is tremendous, so more concrete trees are on the way. What a nice way to start a Monday!

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

The CEO


Chief Eating Officer Clancy.

Monday, October 13, 2008

The head honchos at Lulu Bug Jewelry

Lily is the CFO (chief fun officer) and Lulu is the President
here at Lulu Bug Jewelry. Not pictured (yet) is Clancy, the
CEO (chief eating officer).

Friday, October 10, 2008

In the kiln right now

My trusty little kiln, at full sinter temperature
of 1650, in the living room


Here's what's in there


There was a time in my life when I'd feel like a total loser, sitting at home on a Friday night, but not any more! Now I am pleased that Kelly and I went out to eat early, and I'm sitting here with these pieces firing in the kiln, and a bunch of bronze in process on my bench. Get older is not so bad after all.

The above pieces are made using real seed pod/blossom thingys (I'm not a gardener so I don't know exactly what they are, only that they're cool) that are covered in MANY layers of paste made from pmc. I'll post an after picture if they turn out, and explain more about the process then. Enough of a break - back to work! I'd easily stay up till to 2am or later working on stuff, but I have to go to an 8am workout tomorrow so I have to get some sleep. Tomorrow night is a different story. I won't feel like a loser then either!

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

New work


I was busy this weekend. Here's a bit of the work that I finished.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

New workbench!

My first treat to to myself after selling much better that I expected on Etsy was to purchase a real jeweler's bench. I've never had one at home before, but used to have a really nice one when I worked making high end gold jewelry. I was amazed at the amount of tools and other stuff I've collected in the last 11 months, so it took some time to get it set up how I wanted. I can pretty much find everything at this point too.


Here's what's on my bench at the moment:

There's concrete pieces and sparrows ready to fire tommorow, a bunch of stuff that is fired and will get finishe tomorrow, and pieces, parts, and things in still in the works.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Etsy Metal Clay team featured!

I'm a member of the Etsy MetalClay team, and we have been featured in an article today on the Etsy front page. Here's the link:
http://www.etsy. com/storque/ spotlight/ featured- etsy-team- etsy-metalclay- 2657/
It should be great exposure for all the team members!