Happy Everything!

Well, it's a little late to be saying Happy New Year seeing as we're well into February already.
And we won't mention about the 6 months plus since my last post except for me to say Thank you to my readers for still subscribing to my blog and not culling me from your blog lists when decluttering (Wasn't that everyone's New Year's Resolution?)

After finishing my Cert 2 at Tafe, I was keen to continue on creating at home but last year it just fell by the wayside. My inspiration abandoned me and I was busy at work and at home so it just didn't happen.

Two recent events have changed that! First my husband bought me a great Christmas present (yes, he's a keeper!) - it was a total surprise, and a much appreciated gift - Here it is:

It was hiding in the shed for 2 months. Even though I do go in the shed quite often I never even noticed it hidden down the back among the neglected camping gear! Just goes to show how cluttered the shed was! What a fabulous surprise -  I cried when he took me out to the back garden Christmas morning and it was sitting there with it's big Christmas ribbon around it.  (Ha Ha - tears of joy!!)   No longer do I have to attach my small vice and Bench peg to the Meals Area Table. I now have my own dedicated jewellery bench to hammer, saw and drill and solder. We had to do some rearranging of the spare room and I need to get another power point put in but other than that it's working really well.....and we can use the Meals Area Table for ......well, our meals!

The second event is that I enrolled in another course. Two former Tafe Lecturers have opened up a metal studio. They are running courses, renting out bench space, opening up gallery space, loaning out metalwork books library style  - everything!
I enrolled in the 6 week enamel class which was their very first class. There's so much about this that is good: they are awesome teachers and have created an informal, friendly, practical, well equipped, safe place for us to learn.  Perth people check out the link  - Contemporary Metal Students are very spoilt.

We are covering experimental enamelling techniques in this course, rather than the traditional techniques such as Cloisonne. This suits me as I don't really have the patience for that sort of work. We've covered techniques using Liquid enamels, Sifting, Stencilling, Stamping, decals, & Sgraffito. Pretty much anything we can think of - we're encouraged to try. Some of things the other students have tried were impressing glass beads and fusing them to the work, and impressing ferns & material into the enamel before firing We're churning out lots of sample pieces and having lots of fun. I've made some cool pieces (and a couple of ugly pieces which I'm not showing!) but I'm learning so much and I'm looking forward to firing up the kiln at home when classes are over and playing with it all some more.
 Some of my favourite experiments were with stencilling.

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The samples above were made by sifting the powdered enamel through thin acetate stencils. The exception is the bottom left sample where the enamel was sifted directly through a piece of lace ribbon. If you're interested there's more on the stencils and how I made them over on my other Craft blog.

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All Fired Up!

Happy to finally put up a blog post to show something I've made. Creatively this year has been a bit of a non event for me, so it's great to be back into it again.
This term I enrolled at an enamelling class down at my favourite place of learning The Fremantle Arts Centre.
I've done 3 classes so far and I'm just loving it. Great teacher (Jacquie Sprogoe), great classmates and a relaxed, informative and enjoyable class.
I've nothing to show off from the class just yet - I'm doing a cloisonne piece at the moment and it's a work in progress but today, inspired by my lessons,  I fired up my kiln at home, (yes that poor neglected piece of equipment I purchased last year!) and had a play.
Just did a couple of simple sifted pieces but it gave me a bit of a feel for the firing times, how thick to put the layers on etc,  so all in all a good afternoons work and I realized I don't have to be scared of my kiln - it's actually quite user friendly! Using the kiln in class has given me a bit of confidence I think.

Here's the results - first one opaque white over copper and the second one was an unintentional but pleasant surprise with opaque white over opaque black. I've oxidised the edges of the copper too as I love the look of the blackish border around the pieces.

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Gunna!

I've looked back through my posts so far this year which have been few and far between and I can't help noticing that I was Gunna Do this or Gunna Do that.
Well I'm reporting back and to tell the truth not a lot of it has been done.
For instance I haven't touched the negative scanner that I blogged about in January, it is sitting here mocking me as it gathers dust. In fact it's dropped of the To Do List indefinitely now!
In that same post I mentioned Decluttering and Healthier eating etc. The Decluttering is an ongoing thing - sort of one step forward and two steps back. The more I get rid of,  it seems the more other "stuff" comes into the house -usually via the other family members! It's like the universe is saying to every piece of stuff  "Hey come over here - we've got some free space to fill now - you'll fit right in!"
The good news from that blog post is I've decluttered a couple of kilos, I'm exercising fairly regularly and I'm generally healthier than I was then!

My blog post in March I was gunna create wonders with my new dies and the hyraulic press - well I did manage to create a mess!

My hydraulic press is manual and I obviously gave it one too many cranks as I broke the die and the metal cut through in places - that was not meant to happen! Shame because that was my favourite shape but I do still  have the large size and the small size die left to play with later....probably a lot later.........

It's not all negative though, I've had sporadic bursts of creativity and made myself a ring with an enamel dome I made when I first got my kiln last June, when the kiln was my hot blogging topic and I was gunna do lots of enamelling.
Here it is:

I really want to fire up the kiln again and start experimenting with more enamel work but well.........I'm not gunna make any promises about when!! Pin It

Fresh out of the kiln.

The New Kiln Firing Up.

Since the kiln arrived I've been reading up on the instructions, and to be honest I found it all a bit scary! That and reading my enamel book, and researching the internet and magazines and I think I'm suffering from information overload.

So, this morning I decided that today was the day! With all my safety gear on the ready and my supplies and equipment nearby I wheeled the kiln to a spot by a window where I couldn't burn the house down.

Big Red Leather Welder's Gloves not shown!

Four or five hours later and I've made one small pair of earrings - yes that's all but I have learnt a lot. I've learnt:

• If my glasses steam up it means my dust mask isn't tight enough!
• Until I get some more practise -Stick to making pendants - it's hard to get two things exactly the same for earrings.
• Don't counter enamel with the same colour as the front. A few layers down the track I couldn't remember which side was which or how many layer's I'd done.
• Even though the books say don't apply a layer too thick - I think I can be a little more generous!
  
• Practise on larger items - I thought if I messed up I'd waste less materials with little copper components but the truth is they are fiddly - I'd be better off with larger pieces until I'm a bit more experienced.
• Find a better spot to use the kiln - preferably near the sink and near another power point where I can plug in the pickle pot - still hopefully where I won't burn the place down.
• Try and get a production line thing happening - it was very stop start today. I seemed to be forever taking the leather gloves, goggles and mask on and off, depending on what bit I was doing.
  

Anyway, I had fun, I didn't get hat hair but did get goggle & mask hair instead - glad there were no unexpected visitors! And...........Ta Dah! Here's the results of the day's efforts :)

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