BTW Feb 23, 2011

It's Bead Table Wednesday Today.  I have been busy making signs of spring for the upcoming Beads-of-Clay Open studio event March 6.  There is still time to sign up to participate if you are a ceramic bead maker.   Here are some of the pieces I have been working with.  And I have been continuing to experiment with Coyote Glazes--the disk beads and leaves.
 I love the Shino and mottled blue combo on these.  The others are gun metal green and blue.

But most of my bead table is still involved in the big Bead Soup Blog Party coming up Saturday!!  I have been having a great time working with Genea's beads.   No sneak peaks yet. 

ABS Feb Challenge

This month's Art Bead Scene Challenge  is to be inspired by John Singer Sargent's painting Carnation, Lily,  Lily, Rose.  I just love the colors and warmth of this painting and built a necklace around similar colors.  Luckily I had just completed a pendant and toggle clasp that evoked the same color feeling.  I build the necklace around them.  I used Lapis Lazuli sticks and silver lantern beads to make the chain.  I warmed up the palette cooled off by the silver by adding a copper bee, and a piece of copper chain to attach the toggle clasp.  Oh, and  the bar on the toggle clasp is also a copper hue.

Thank you for looking in on me today.

Glaze Testing Cone 6 Coyote Sample Pack Best Selling Colors

Ever since Marsha Minutella of MarshaNeal Studio began writing her 3rd Friday Cone 6 Glazing blog for Beads-of-Clay, I have been feeling like I would like to try some myself.

The occasion presented itself when my friend Cait Throop wanted to make some buttons.  She thought she would like to glaze them in colors.  Since they were made with a white stoneware clay, what other choice was there than to get some of those cool Coyote Glazes.  I chose the Best Selling  Sample Set #3, Coyote’s 12 best selling glazes in 4 oz jars

Shino, Gun Metal Green, Really Red, Desert Sage, Archie’s Base, Red Gold, Mottled Blue, Oasis Blue, Black, Eggplant, Pam’s Blue and Pam’s Green ( which were on sale at the time).

About 2 weeks ago I glazed up some test pieces.  I dutifully wrote on the back in underglaze pencil the name of each glaze I painted onto the clay pieces. ( per Marsha's instructions)  I am not usually a good record keeper but glaze testing has to be the exception.  I fired the test strips at Cone 5 Speed Fast Hold 16 minutes in my  Caldera Kiln.

I made my test pieces with a deeply stamped pattern so that I would be sure to see how the glaze "breaks." The two pics above are of my samples.  Now that I have seen how they came out, I may have coated them too thickly.

But the day of the first glazing of the buttons we took that into account.  This is the Shino with 2 coats.  It turned a wonderful rich and golden brown.  A real keeper.  That beautiful fibre is Cait's handwoven scarf that the buttons are being made for.In her Etsy Shop now.

Here is the Mottled Blue on 3 of Cait's buttons.  I love this one also. Not sure if it has 1 or 2 coats of the Mottled Blue.

The green beads in this picture have 1 coat of Gun Metal Green.  I wet the beads first since the glaze got so powdery.  I think some may actually have more than 1 coat but certainly not a full 2nd coat.

This picture shows the test piece for both Oasis Blue--3 coats and Shino 2 coats.  The three coats looks too heavy to me.  I know that I am a heavy glazer so I am cutting back to 2 coats in the future.

Some of Cait's buttons being glazed.  This is our 2nd session and they have not been fired yet.  These are not as heavily coated as the first try.  We will see if it makes a good difference.

Gun Metal Green and Desert Sage

Our first try using the glazes on buttons.  They came out quite true to the test strips.  We learned the hard way that the holes fill up easily even if you clean them.  We were able to salvage almost all of the beads from the rods.  I redrilled some of the holes with a diamond drill and water.

Hope you could find some useful info in this first run of Cone6 glaze testing.

Bead Table Wednesday New Stoneware Beads

This Wednesday I added this picture of my new stoneware beads to the Bead Table Wednesday Flickr! Group.  I have been having a great time exploring stoneware ceramic clay finishes.  On my table are beads glazed with a Cone6 Coyote Glaze ( those are the slightly shiny ones) and the teal stained and tumbled finished disk beads.  I had to mix two stain colors to get this color since I am out of my favorite teal stain and can't seem to find it anywhere.  I just love how these colors go with that Ornamentea brass chain in the background.  I am hoping to try out some more Coyote glazes on beads tomorrow with my button and glazing buddy Cait Throop ( BarefootWeaver).  We are having such fun discovering the range of colors possible with these incredible glazes.

Bead Table Wednesday Genea Beads

It's Bead Table Wednesday!!  Here is what I am doing.  I hope you will stop over to the Flickr Group and see what everyone else is up to. 

I am trying out seed bead colors with some of the beauties sent to me by my BeadSoupParty partner Genea Beads.  Aren't they gorgeous!!! I want to use  dark color beads for the background beading so that her beads show up really well.  Here I have her gorgeous disks coupled with an Iris Green size 6 seed bead.  I really like this combination.  You can see hints in the back of the photo of some tiny delicas that perfectly match some of her bead colors.  Yum!! Yum!!

This combo works but I don't like it as well.  Seems like to many colors competing for attention..

In any case I am diving in despite some trepidations.  Let the journey begin!!!

Finished by Friday, Peyote Mixed

This week my Finished By Friday project began with the above unfinished necklace.  This one has been more difficult since I wanted to combine free form peyote stitch work with chain and wire wrapped beads.  I got stuck at this point quite some time ago.  When I  began last night I had only the above piece to work from and about 5 or 6 wire wrapped ceramic beads already strung together.  I decided to make the transition on each side of the necklace with a beaded loop onto the connector piece--a copper circle and a ceramic button.  That seemed to go OK.

I hung 2 charms onto a long SLK wire and that gave the piece some balance since it is asymmetrical.

Here it is all together but the photo does not really show off how it looks.  It actually looks pretty good.  I imagine I will enjoy wearing it since I love dangles and unusual necklaces. 

Bead Table Wednesday Feb 2 2011

Here is what is on my bead table today.  I am loving the agate  rounds with this toggle clasp.  I don't know why they go together so well since the red on the toggle clasp is really red not the wonderful desert red of the agate.
I actually almost forgot about Bead Table Wednesday because we are having our share of the BIG Storm.  I was so busy watching it on TV and thinking it wasn't so bad that I was not thinking about the day of the week.  So here is my quick pic for today.