Moving Forwards, Glazing Backwards?

Glazing. So much glazing to do... 

I do like to get all things organized first... 

I have been doing so much of it lately... my first large festival of the year is in a week and there's a new Ceramic Art Bead Market (auction site) on Fb that is taking off. I have new work to glaze and get out there, and i have old favorites to restock and replenish. My pieces are very detailed, a bit narrative, and completely mythic/nature inspired. Let me give you a glimpse into the glazing routine that draws on my painting background. (Back in the art school days before clay found me...)

Highlights and lowlights, Fins and ombre shading. 

I work most often with a combination of "low-fire" glazes and underglazes. I like the way I can mix and paint with the underglazes, layering, blending and the like. In the mermaids above you can see three tones in each hair color, and the type of color variations I use on the tails. But then that is all covered by 2-3 coats of a transparent turquoise glaze (below) This does allow the color variations painted in underglazes to show through, and gives an underwater appearance. Many layers? Yes. An investment in time? Yes. But I think its worth it. Tiny paintbrushes? Yes! 

Some of these tiny dears are looking a little worse for wear.

With a new crow design I am working on this year - I had to drastically change my approach. I did a series of these at a fellow artists request. I wanted to capture the iridescence of the crow's feathers, and so painted them in black underglaze, thin like a watercolor wash, and then applied blue and purple highlights. No good. I have approached these now in a backwards fashion... Here's what I mean: 

Backgrounds glazed, then first payers of underglaze. 

Three colors on each berry. 

adding one more color, then the black. 

I begin by glazing the background and the pendants reverse side in low fire glazes, three coats of course. Then I begin the details. First a bright cobalt, then a purple. The berry has shadow and highlight, each in a simple brushstroke accent. Then one more color, a teal and I add the black. They are each a bit different, but consistent. Of course now - after I finish writing this, all the areas so painstakingly painted in underglaze have to be glazed over with 2-3 layers of clear gloss! 

seals, crows, hares awaiting clear glaze... 

The kiln is loaded from yesterday's marathon glazing session, just waiting for these beauties on the top later. Let me refill the coffee and go crack open that jar of clear! I'd love to hear what you think of these new demanding colorful corvids...

Master the Mess Month!

Yes, believe it or not, some of us here are guilty of wallowing in one huge beady mess and we've decided it's time to do something about it. We've challenged ourselves (and each other) to have a spring clean and get it sorted and to make sure we do, we're sharing photos with you here in the hope of shaming ourselves into action! We have one month to get these studios ship-shape before we post new pictures of them all looking clean and sparkly like our beads.

Now as you'll see some of us are worse than others and some of us have excuses...but there is definitely a common theme here...

Diana - "Half the office, half the mess. Yes, that's my childhood Cabbage Patch doll on the desk. Even she is annoyed that my desk and chair are currently unusable. My first goal is to make it so I can actually work at this desk again. Sitting on the floor is getting old...and it hurts my back."

"The  other half of my messy office..."

Lindsay - 'My living Room...I mean Bead Room. There was floor less than a week ago. Apparently my recovery period 5lb weight limit only applies to putting things away."

Jennifer - "I don't even know where to start..."

Linda - 'This is supposedly my jewelry design table. But um, no space to design."

"My clay area has been invaded by encroaching bead minions."

Some team members tell us are not quite as messy as others...

Caroline - "This is tidy (unless you listen to my husband) You will note that you can see loads of table!"

Karen - "I'm not normally this messy. I blame it on shop update frenzy!"

Jenny - "Organized chaos. And still room to work."

And then of course there's me and I definitely fall into the tidy category....NOT!

I haven't made any jewellery for a while so my work table has become a bit of a dumping ground...or could that be that I've not made any jewellery because it's become a dumping ground...?

My clay bench is pretty messy to but to be fair I was actually working there when this was taken...

And as for this area the less said the better I think!

So please do come back in a months time and see what progress we've made...I suspect that in my case there will be more than one clean up before then! If you have any great tips for keeping unruly work spaces in order then please...do let us know because we need all the help we can get.

It just didn't have "IT"

Have you gone back to look at your designs from when you began beading and you liked a piece but it just didn't have the "it" you were looking for?  This was mine.

Awhile back I received this gorgeous Seahorse pendant from Marla of Marlasmud which I was totally in love with and wanted to get a necklace made right away.  I do not often revisit my designs because I have to say the thought of ripping out all those little beads is well, for lack of a better term, SCARY!  I just kept looking at this one and saying to myself that "I just don't see it".  So I was searching through my art bead stash and came across the beads I got from Sue of Suebeads at Beadfest last year.

That blue cab just said "pick me" so you know I had to.  I began by getting the cab ready for embroidery.  I had some gorgeous marbled turquoise seed beads and I wanted to bring out more of the gold in the Seahorse.

This was perfect!  I loved so much I also needed to figure out what type of chain.  I knew I wanted this piece to be long.  I am loving the feel of a long necklace.  I remembered Lindsay had told me about her figure 8 chain and I know the blend of both the gold and turquoise would produce the look of the ocean in the sunlight.

It turned out exactly as I had envisioned and I am pleased as punch.  Now the design has that "IT" I had been looking for.  Have you ever revisited an old design and made it new again?

Tools we can use: Square

I am finally getting settled back into my (more or less) normal routine after teaching at Glass Craft Expo in Las Vegas. I taught four very full classes over four days, and had the best time - my students were terrific and the venue and management staff were incredibly organized, accommodating, and thoughtful. I really could not have asked for a better experience.

One of the things I had to plan for in getting ready for this show was taking payment for materials fees and the tools and other things I'd brought for sale. I haven't had an online shop in a while (more about that in a minute), haven't done shows in even longer, and haven't done much selling when I am on the road. So.... I had to revisit the Square, which had been sitting in my desk drawer gathering dust for weeks months years.

source

Amazingly, my account was still open and still linked to the right bank account. All I had to do was update some contact info and my logo and I was ready to go.

In the time since I've been gone, Square has made some improvements... significant improvements.

For starters, they've greatly expanded the "staff" mode, making it much easier to get help when you need it without sharing passcodes and log-ins. And you can fine-tune access as well, so that helpers only get to work with the stuff you want them to.

Since I brought a teaching assistant with me, this was enormously helpful. Even more helpful was that I was able to use the Excel spreadsheet I'd used for planning purposes as an upload for all my inventory and pricing, so there was no duplication of effort - and although that process did take two separate steps, it was super easy and fast.

Square has also greatly expanded its reporting capabilities:

I was extremely impressed with the range of reports available in their free account - lots of opportunities to dig down and get a picture of what's going on with your sales.

And inventory management is great too:

Square allows you to accept cash and checks, too, not just credit cards, even if you're not using a connected cash drawer. 

And if a customer wants to pay some cash and some other form of payment, you can do that too.

The Square worked fast and flawlessly, even when we had spotty cell reception. Ringing up the students was as simple as just touching an inventory or item entry, or adding one on the fly - which was also fast. And promptly at 5:00 every afternoon, Square bundled up all that day's sales, deducted their fees (which are a super-affordable 2.75%) and deposited them in my bank, where the funds were immediately available the next day. Automatically.

I didn't discover until I got home that Square also allows you to send invoices:

There are all sorts of other features I haven't played with yet, including a for-fee feature that allows you to use Square as the place to capture customer information for marketing purposes and an app that connects Square directly to our Quickbooks file so you don't have to do any kind of duplicate entry. And there's apparently an embed function that allows you to post things for sale on your own website and then direct people to Square to make the purchase. Square also hosts Square Market, where you can post items for sale if you don't want to create your own website, and with things going south over in Easy-Land, lots of folks are looking for alternatives (including me, because it is way past time for me to get my stuff together and create an actual online shop). Best part of that deal? No listing fees, just the usual processing fees when you make a sale. 

The bottom line is that in addition to kicking butt on the road for a fraction of other credit card processors, Square has the potential to combine a number of different business functions in one place and creating all sorts of efficiencies. And frankly, I can use all the extra time I can get! If you're looking for a way to accept payments on the road or online, I highly recommend checking out the Square. I'll report back if I add any of their premium features and let you know how they work for me.

Until next time -