Bead Table Wednesday 3-30-11

                                           

It is Bead Table Wednesday today.  I am showing two photos of some beads I am making out of two different clay bodies.  The photo above is a tray of stoneware beads that have been bisque fired.  The flowers were inspired by the ArtBeadScene monthly challenge painting by Paul Gauguin.  I just love his work and that painting.  I especially like the blues and greens and his wonderful intense reds.  I am going to try to make these flowers a red color that is deep and rich.  If it were my usual earthenware clay body and glazes I would probably not have any difficulty doing that.  But I am going to try to make the red with the cone5 glazes that I have.  In any case, I won't be ready to enter the challenge.  But the inspiration is has been great.  I am happy is I finish the work by next month.  I just love the opportunity to try out new colors and beads.

This picture is of a tray of bisque fired Frost Porcelain beads.  I found this clay great for stamping and cutting out with a cutter.  But to cut with a knife as I tried to do with the leaves, I found it to be sticky and very difficult to work with.  The stoneware in the first tray is so much easier to work with.  The small white buttons on the top left are made by my friend Cait. 

I hope you will visit all of the offerings on today's Bead Table.  You can get there easily by clicking on the BTW button on my sidebar.

Thank you for look and feasting on beads today.

Russian Spiral My Style

I love the Russian Spriral bracelet I made in the class I took at Market Beads a few weeks ago, but it just wasn't quite my style.  So I played around with the components and added my own ceramic beads and came up with this design.  I really like it.  Do you think it looks more like me?

I have a few more ideas on how to personalize this kind of bead work which I will post later when they are finished.  Hope you had a sunny Happy Easter weekend.

Art Bead Scene Submission for September

Above are two different photos of my submission for the ArtBead Scene September challenge. The theme for September was filigree. I used a lovely filigree piece in the center of the my handmade ceramic pendant. I wire wrapped some of my handmade ceramic beads and alternated them with wire wrapped mookaite beads. I used one of my toggle clasps. I really like participating in the ArtBeadScene monthly contest because I do work I might not try otherwise. I like trying new things and I like having to struggle within the parameters of the task. I am not completely pleased with my results this month but will keep working on it.

Jewelry Art Exchange with Gaea, Lorelei, Joelle and Jennifer

A few weeks ago Gaea came up with the idea of a Jewelry /Art Exchange on her blog. I learned about this fun project from Lorelei's blog and wrote in to Gaea that I would like to participate. I am not quite sure of all the artists who have joined in but will add their names as I learn of them. So far I am the third person to add to this necklace. Below I have included pictures of the additions as they were made and by whom.


Lorelei's contribution (above) Joelle's contribution (above)

Mary Harding's contribution (ab0ve)

I added a small bird, a red gemstone, the green fiber chain, and the toggle clasp. I have really enjoyed this challenge. Can't wait to see how it turns out. The small bird and the toggle clasp are ceramic beads handmade by me. Now the necklace is going on its way to Jennifer Stumpf .

Ceramic Bead Making Class Day 2

Luckily the second Saturday of my Ceramic Bead Making class turned out to be beautiful and sunny since we were outside glazing beads and raku firing them.

Here is a bird's eye view of the kiln of their fired bisque ware ready for glazing. I did slip some of mine in here too somewhere.

We all sat around two tables up in front of the entrance to my studio. This seems to be a great spot since there is electricity and we have quick access to my studio in case we need something.

Sally Hartman stopped by and made some oak leaves and fired a couple of beads. She makes lovely smoke fired earrings out of these leaves.

Here is a bead rack after the beads were quenched in cold water and the straw and sawdust rinsed off. You can see that there are some beauties there.

These are some of the raku beads (many went unphotographed since I was so busy I forgot to do it sooner) after they have been scrubbed with Ajax and dried. They are being photographed in the late late afternoon sun. I pulled the last load of beads out of the kiln about 6:00 PM. We had started at 12 Noon. Wow are those colors great!! Everyone made great beads. What a wonderful day we had. I am so glad that we did this!!

Ceramic Shards

I have been inspired by an opportunity to join the Beadmakers Blog Ring to expand the focus of my blog. So I changed my name from pitfired beads to maryhardingjewelry bead blog. This will give me a place to talk about all kinds of ceramic bead making. I am excited about this but also a bit nervous as very few people ever read my blog before.

I have been experimenting with making ceramic shards for my peyote stitch necklaces. I got the idea from Linda Musante who uses PMC to make shards for her peyote stitch. I have made and glazed two so far and have 5 more in the greenware stage. I am excited about the sculptural effect of these shards. They are not flat. I have formed them around a bottle shape to give them a bit of a curve and it seems just right. But so far I have not added one to a necklace. I think I will wait until the next batch is ready.

I found out yesterday when I was sponging off some rough edges of my ceramic shards, that I was making more shards as I went along as they kept breaking. Because they are slightly concave they seem to break more easily than a flat pendant. So now I have a few more shards than I started out with.

As I was working on the shards I was thinking about pottery shards that I found as a kid in Arizona and how they all had smooth soft edges as well. I would smooth mine out anyway, as they need to be comfortable and gentle on clothing and the necklace itself, but I was wondering at first if a shard should be smooth. Funny how answers pop into our heads.

But one thing about today and yesterday that will not remind me of my childhood in Arizona is the new deep snow. We had just had a great melt and now it is back again. Beautiful, but I was already thinking Spring. One good thing though, I can have one more chance to use my cross country skis. I had been regretting that I had missed the last day before the thaw.