Tuesday, December 04, 2007


Well it looks like my hard work is paying off in lovely write ups. For the last month or so I've been working on snow baby beads and little children beads for an order. The order has been shipped and as you can see from this article at The Beadin Path the Customer really likes them.

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

No I haven't dropped off the face of the earth.

Ok so I'm the worlds worst blogger. I admit it. Writing has never been one of my strong points. I'm an artist its the creating that is fun. I'm trying to improve this aspect so hang in there with me. I hope you will visit my New Jewelry & Bead website to find wonderful things to include in your jewelry projects. I've got it set up so the jewelry and the beads are in separate areas but you can purchase from either or both areas and check out in one easy step. I hope to have some exciting new pieces to put on their soon.

I've also been working on the Ceramic Bead Artists website This project is a sort of gallery to showcase all of the different styles of ceramic beads and bead artists that are out there and to raise the awareness in the market place of the time and effort that goes into these works of art. If you are a bead artist working in any of the fired ceramic type clays ie. earthenware, stoneware or porcelain think about joining us. There is a tutorial section to show people how things are done. To help out people that want to learn and to give the non artistic public a better understanding of the effort that goes into these pieces.

In between all that website work I've also been doing some porcelain and I've added a couple of quick little tutorials to the new tutorial section of the Ceramic Bead Artists site.

I hope you will stop by and have a look and let me know how you like all the improvements.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Confetti Heart Necklace


This Necklace is created using one of my multi strand sets. There are multiple holes in the top on each side of the heart and corresponding holes in the lower edge of the small hearts. As you can see the idea is to help maintain the desired order of the multi strands allowing you to set up the way the necklace is going to hang. This gives the designer an advantage over simply putting multiple strand through a large hole bead in that they have some control over how the strands will lay. This necklace has five holes that can be used on each side of the necklace and additional strands were added as well. Two main strands on each side were strung with beadalon cable for strength. The additional beaded strands were strung using dandyline for flexibility. Then the decorative wire mesh was added just for show. I wanted this necklace to look a bit chaotic like confetti in the breeze so I used the multiple colors and added sequins to enhance the confetti look. For a larger image have a look at the Deviant Art Page

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Apothecary in Miniature - the finished product


Well the Apothecary Jars are finished. The photo here shows three of the finished jars which you may recognize from the previous post photos. To see all of the jars, some of which are still available visit my miniature shop
I also did some of these designs on small vessel pendants you can see a couple of those at the Ceramic Bead Artist site

Friday, May 25, 2007

Apothecary in miniature


Over the last week I've been working on miniature apothecary jars. The first picture shows how I lay out the design with pencil on the little unfired pots. (Click the pictures to see larger ones) The other two photos show the pots that I have finished so far. These are all painted with underglazes and they haven't been fired yet so the colors will be a bit more intense once they have been fired. These pots have been done for several people that have asked me to make some. I'm not sure how many they will want so there may be some extras.

Check the website in the apothecary category for available jars.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Murrini


For a long time I've wanted to do some murrini work with colored porcelains. This is a process similar to what many of the polymer clay artists do when they build canes. However, with porcelain it is a bit trickier. More attention has to be given to getting the various pieces to stick together and rolling the 'cane' to smaller and smaller forms doesn't really work. Some reduction can be done by careful pinching and pulling but in general the design must be built more or less the size you want it. You can enlarge it some by cutting thicker slices and rolling them to enlarge it but again care must be taken to avoid distorting the pattern. The accompanying photo shows the first murrini that I have done. The smaller slices shown are basically just cut from the piece and sanded a bit to smooth them out well. The larger ones were rolled to enlarge the design. There were several issues I encountered with this pattern that I think I can eliminate in future designs to make future ones better. However, for a first attempt I think this came out pretty good and for what I was making them for I think they will work out quite well. I will be using them for a component in some pendants that I will be working on in the next few weeks. When I get some done and fired I'll post the finished results as well.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Organic Dreams


Last fall when I created these organic pieces I didn't have the time to do up any examples of what could be done with them. Finally I've been taking some time to dress some things out. Here is one example of the sort of thing that can be done with the organics. For this one I've strung in some swarovski crystals, seed beads and some hematite stars. To see more of the 'blank canvasas' look under 'free forms' in my shop.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Pipestone Pendant


Ok I know its been three months. I've been busy but not on art. You know how it goes, there are taxes and websites and houses that need attention. Well finally back to art. Here is the latest pendant I've created. It is hand carved out of Minnesota pipestone(catlinite)and inlaid with PMC (precious metal clay). The underlying circle design is borrowed from the mound builders. Designs similar to this were found on carved shell gorgets (pendants) and on large stone circles called sun circles found in mound builder ruins. On one side there is a pipe superimposed over the snake design combining the tradition of the pipe with the ancient snake design. On the other side (below) you can see that the tail of the snake is over the protrusion of the pipestem from the first side. Let me know how you like this latest departure from porcelain.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Hot out of the Kiln


Hello everyone. This is one of the last pieces I will finish before the To Bead True Blue show in Tucson. This is probably my favorite piece of all the ones I have done leading up to this show. I could easily keep it for myself. I would be interested to know how the rest of you like it.