Carving in Porcelain - Sand Dollars

It’s all go here preparing for my next show this weekend, so I thought for todays post, I’d show you making some of my newest design of beads… Sand dollars.

Porcelain Sand Dollars

Sea creatures are a great subject for bead makers, and an ocean palette is perfect for jewellery designing. 

To make make this design, I first start with a lump of porcelain. The clay is wedged and rolled flat. I use bands on my rolling pin to get an even thickness when rolling. This clay has been rolled to about 5/6mm.

Ready to start

Next, I cut circles with a cookie cutter. 

Cut blanks

Once I have enough, the clay is speared from one side to the other with a skewer. This takes a bit of practice. The clay is so thin that it’s easy to come out in the wrong place!

The start of the bead

The top edge of the cut circle is pressed to make a rounded edge.

Starting to form

A small slice of clay is removed from the front and back of the bead by cutting down to the skewer with a wire loop tool. 

Cutting the first hole

Marks are made on the bead to show where to cut through for the holes in the design.

Marking out

I poke through the clay with a needle tool.

Piercing

Then lightly draw the shape of the central ‘flower’ of the urchin.

Marking out

Using a flat sharp sculpting tool, shallow cuts are made all the way round the shape to create the top design.

Carving the details

And the flower is drawn on the back.

Sculpting the shape

Once the beads are leather hard, they are sponged to smooth any rough edges, and when completely dry, they go in to the kiln.

And here they are finished!

Smoothed and finished

I fired them unglazed for a natural finish. These will be coming along to the Stourbridge bead fair with me this weekend... Hope to see you there!

Creating for Cosplay

It's no secret.  I love cosplay.  This weekend I'll be heading out to The Steampunk World's Fair for three days of creative cosplay fun!  I don't sew but I do enjoy making the jewelry for my costumes.  For this years SPWF, I've made the jewelry for two of my three outfits.

Necklace for the butterfly collector cosplay

I've been hanging on to this fabulous metal and resin butterfly pendant by Lynn Davis for several years.  Well, I'm bringing back and revamping my butterfly collector costume this year so I finally had the inspiration to work with this piece.  I added some citrine, coral, carnelian and Vintaj charms and chain to complete this necklace.  It will also look great paired with the leather butterfly cuff that Lindsay posted about yesterday!

Fit for a mermaid

The other outfit I needed jewelry for was my ocean/mermaid-inspired steampunk cosplay.  

Fabulous enamel focal by Gardanne Beads

I knew when I saw this enameled seashell in Anne's booth that I had to have it.  It matched portions of my costume perfectly!  I paired it with some porcelain Suburban Girl seashell charms, Swarovski pearls, faux coral branches and aquamarine rondelles.  

In addition to using art beads for my cosplay, I also like to spread the love by introducing art beads to people who might not know about them.  In 2013, I started hosting the trinket swap at SPWF.  Participants create steampunk-inspired wearable trinkets that we swap with one another.  The first year I created wearable porcelain gears.  Last year I made stoneware keyhole pendants.

Stoneware Keyhole Pendants

This year I decided that mustaches would be my theme.  

Porcelain greenware mustache charms

I found a 3-D printing service and had them create some mustache cutters in an assortment of sizes.  I thought the tiny size was the best fit for my trinkets so I made about 25 in porcelain.

Glazed but un-fired porcelain mustaches

These charms were glazed but un-fired at the time I wrote this post but I should be unloading them from the kiln sometime today.  After I inspect them, I'll add a jump ring and put them on a ball chain.  

I'm looking forward to swapping them on Saturday AND to introducing more people to the wonderful world of art beads!

Happy Beading!

Learning to Sculpt

I don't sculpt.  I should say, I've never tried to sculpt before.  A few weeks ago I decided I would start teaching myself.  My cousin had been posting photos of her new pet hedgehog so I figured that was a good place to start.

My first two stoneware hedgies

These were my first two tries.  Not so great but not so bad as to make me quit trying right then and there (my complaining would suggest otherwise).  I took some advice from friends and kept going.

Silly stoneware hedgehog with tiny body

I don't know what happened here.  He came out with a big head and almost no body.  Ok, let's try some more.  

Two stoneware frogs and a hedgehog

This little guy made me happy.  His head to body ratio was better and I changed the shape of his mouth (also based on feedback from friends).  After I made a couple of hedgehogs I played around and made those little frog heads.  

Start of a stoneware cat face 

After the hedgehogs and frogs, I decided to try a cat face.  I made little silly-looking cat face charms a few years ago but decided it was time to up my game.  I rolled out a base and then attached two balls of clay for ears and began shaping them.

Cat face before eyes

I kept adding and taking away clay, adding more and taking some away.  Eventually I was left with a face with no eyes.  I couldn't decide how to make them.

Cat faces with two different types of eyes

Originally I made faces with the eyes on the left.  They didn't look right to me so I got more feedback and then made a change to one of them.  I carved out the eye area and then rolled two little balls and pressed them in.  I left the other one as-is just so I could see how the finished pieces would look.

Some of the finished test pieces with oxide and glaze

After all the pieces were sponged, bisque-fired, stained and glazed, I glaze-fired them and these were the end results.  I'm happy with the hedgehogs and frogs but the cat faces need some further adjustments.  

I started working on some more last week.  Here's a little hedgehog in porcelain.  I want to test a specific glaze on him.

Porcelain hedgehog

So my goal this week is to make some more in stoneware with the necessary adjustments and hopefully have a batch of them ready sometime next week.  It's been a fun (and at times frustrating) process trying to teach myself something as simple as these little animals.  I'm excited though to see what else I'll be able to create as I gain more experience.

Happy Beading!

Carve Your Own Style

Using commercial stamps is great for certain jobs, but they’re limiting and you don’t get much opportunity to express your own style of art through them. It’s also quite boring to just stamp and cut the same designs over and over, and as they’re readily available, it’s common to see the designs used in different artists work. If you want to create something that is entirely your own, lino cutting is a great technique.

I got myself a lino cutting kit a while ago and wrote about making tiny signature stamps to mark your work here. It’s taken a while to get around to it, but I’ve finally had a proper go at making some larger designs and trying them out in porcelain. 

I’m exploring more illustrative styles on my beads at the moment and making stamps from lino is a great way to get a line drawn style with the option of consistent reproductions.

The tools needed are minimal. A piece of lino, I’ve used the soft cut type which is really easy to use (with less chance of stabbing yourself with the tool) and a lino cutting tool. 

I got this really neat tool and baren set. The baren is the base of the tool and is used for burnishing paper on to the lino cut during printing. The handle unscrews and with a collet, turns in to the cutting tool.  Although I don't print with paper, I love the way all of the tools are stored inside the handle, and for five pounds, it’s a bargain!

Start by sketching your image on to the lino. I’ve drawn a stylised tree.

Then put together the cutting tool and carve out the pencil lines. It's easier to keep the sheet of lino whole while you carve, then trim the stamp out afterwards. A larger area means you have more to hold on to and lets you keep your hands well away from the blade. Keep an even pressure. Tilting the blade of the cutter alters the cutting depth so if you keep it nice and even through your cut, you will end up with a level line when you come to stamp. 

I decided while cutting not to go around the edge so that when I trimmed the shape, I wouldn’t have to worry about the outside line.

When you’ve finished, lay the stamp face down on your clay and roll over it with an even pressure.

This imprint looks really neat, but you can always rework the stamp if you’re not happy with it!

Here I’ve trimmed out some different shapes and designs from other stamps.

And some tiny ones for headpins.

Everything was glazed…

And fired…

I really like how these turned out, and I love how the glaze breaks over the lines of the image. The only down side is now I need more glaze colours!!!

Rebuilding a Kiln Controller: An Engineer's Story

A couple weeks ago my kiln failed right at the start of a firing.  We were getting an error message we didn't recognize.  It turns out that after 4 years of regular firing, the kiln controller needed to be replaced.  Fortunately, Colin (The Suburban Guy) is a systems engineer and his dad is an electrical engineer.  Rather than drain our account and buy a new controller, the two of them decided to build their own.

I'll let Colin take it from here...

Inside of my kiln's controller

See those white wires up at the top of the photo?  Those wires power the elements inside the kiln which generates the heat to fire Diana's work. The key to making the kiln work is to measure the temperature inside the kiln and then turn the elements on and off controlling how fast and to what temperature the kiln reaches. We fire to Cone 6 or around 1250 degrees Celsius. The work my dad and I needed to do was to replace the green board in the middle which is where the brain lives.

Testing the new controller-in-progress

The first step in the process is to make a prototype and make sure each part of the controller was doing what it's supposed to. What you are looking at here (besides a mess on the kitchen table!) is our prototype. What it does is measure the temperature of the room and then turn on and off a very high powered switch (the black box at the top left of the picture). There are a few safety parts in the way as the kiln is a VERY high powered device and I wanted to make sure we were safe (Diana runs with scissors).

Testing the controller with a lightbulb

This step was the fun part (to an engineer). To make sure the computer program I wrote worked right, the temperature probe (the part below the light bulb) was stuck by a heat source and then the new controller was given a temperature to control the probe. For our test I tried to have the controller hold the probe at 50 degrees Celsius. The result was a success and a lot of blinking on and off (the bulb not my eyes)!

Testing the new controller on the kiln

Here we have the setup outside and attached to the kiln. The original controller's box is on the floor in the back and our controller lives on the wood in the middle. This setup was a bit delicate as there is a lot of electricity which goes through the elements when the relay turns them on. My dad and I attached the computer to the controller so that we could watch the temperature go up with the program I wrote to make sure it did what was expected. The kiln was loaded with a few pieces to make sure things went right. I made a few adjustments after the first firing as it was a little too hot and heated a little long, but it was a huge success!

The brand spankin new controller

You are looking at the final package. All those crazy wires and bits and pieces wrapped up into a nice little package. The only addition to this is an SD card (the same thing that's in a digital camera) so that the program can record what it does giving us a record of each firing. It is important to know what the kiln does each time so that each batch can be compared when things go well (or not so much at times!).  I'll be installing the new controller into the old controller's box later in the week.

There it is in a nutshell. A little engineering experience and some really cool electronics and the controller for the kiln was duplicated in a weekend and a couple of glasses of wine (it's what fuels the Suburban Guy)! 

Diana P: There it is!  I have no idea how to do this stuff so I married an engineer.  Ok, that's not the ONLY reason I married him.  Thanks to Colin and my father-in-law for getting me back in business!

Happy Beading!

Diana P. & Colin "The Suburban Guy" Mellars

Suburban Girl Studio LLC

Bead Fest Stress....Errrrr Prep

Prepping for Bead Fest is stressful.  There are so many things that have to get done before the show;  make a ridiculous amount of inventory, new displays, pricing, sorting, jewelry samples...

Speaking of jewelry samples, remember this rainbow Byzantine weave chain from a few weeks ago?

Well it currently looks like this...

I finished the chain, added the clasp and got the pendant attached.  Then I created more mini links coming off the necklace.  There are supposed to be porcelain charms hanging from them.  Unfortunately, a few weeks ago I was firing a large batch and the kiln shut down during the firing.  Big ERROR message on my screen.  Ahhhhhhhhh!!!

It turns out that after 4 years of solid use, the kiln needed some parts replaced.  The Suburban Guy (Colin) ordered them up and then realized he needed a few other things.  The parts came in a few days ago and Colin made all the repairs.  We did a test firing and it ran a little hot (brand spankin' new parts will do that) so we adjusted the firing.

Yesterday I took that half-fired batch back over and loaded it back in the kiln.  Here's the bottom getting filled up...

And here is the top shelf...

I have never re-fired pieces before but my fellow ceramic artist friends were encouraging.  I'm heading back over to the kiln this morning to see how it all turned out.  I will update this post this evening with the results...good or bad!

*Update*  I do believe the kiln is working again.  Wouldn't you agree?   

Happy Beading!

Diana P.

Suburban Girl Studio LLC