Workshops in Switzerland 2019

At the end of February 2019 I'll be off to Switzerland for my annual teaching trip to Creative Glass at Volketswil just outside of Zurich. This will be the sixth time I have taught there and it is just an amazingly lovely place. The studio is very spacious with a lovely separate dining area and the whole place is filled with wonderful glass (even the sink in the toilet is amazing!! ;) lol

This year I'll be teaching four new workshops that I haven't taught in Switzerland before. There is still a little space on some of them so why not come and join in!!! 

All the details are on the Creative Glass website here.

On 23rd and 24th February I'll be teaching my Crystal pendant workshop. This covers a wonderful array of techniques including  riveting, making unique texture plates with polymer clay, adding gold foil, soldering bezel cup, stone setting and of course working with crystal wands. Oh, and let's not forget we are using silver clay too! It's a great way to expand your knowledge. There is so much to learn and you'll be able to choose from a lovely selection of crystal wands and cabochons to make your own unique piece. 

The next workshop on 25th February is Joyful Whistles. These really are a lot of fun to make and you'll end up with your very own working whistle. Maybe you'll even be able to play a little tune on yours, and if you have a dog what could be better for attracting his/her attention!! :D These are great to wear as a pendant and I wear one on a longer lanyard around my neck too. 

Yes, they really do work!!! Check out my video :D 

On 26th February it's all about rings!!! I'll be teaching my Celestial Rings with their amazing construction and a squared off ring band. The topper is set with lots of super sparkly stones!!! These really are statement pieces :)

Finally on 27th it's all about GOLD!!!!

This workshop is all about adding gold to your work and we'll be looking at various methods. We'll be adding gold by the keum boo method and also looking at various other ways including pen plating and using gold paste :D There is nothing better than a good splash of gold to take your work up a level! 

I'm so looking forward to being back in Switzerland to see old friends and make new ones. 

Don't miss out!!!

Joy x

Ring A Month 2019 - January

I decided it was time to join a challenge again so for 2019 I've joined the Ring A Month 2019 challenge started by the lovely Anna Campbell-Hall.

When Anna first posted that she was going to do this challenge and would anyone like to join her I immediately clicked to join. It was one of those impulse things, I love ring making and I'd already decided I wanted to do some sort off challenge in 2019. It was perfect! 

I was busy thinking out what my first ring would be when Anna posted the theme for the January - which rather took me by surprise - because in all the excitement to join it turned out I'd only read the first half of her post about the challenge!!! 😄. I'd completely missed that there would be a theme for each month!! This actually was a good thing as instead of making some easy ring that just sprang to mind now I would have to do a bit more thinking - making it an even better challenge for the year.

So I got making. I didn't really have a plan so I made a plain wide band with natural uneven edges and went from there. First I added varying sized holes around the band.

I then decided it would be a good thing, over the course of the year, to try to use some of the many dried clay elements I have laying around, and I have lots!! This box has teeny, tiny bits in. I chose some textured discs of clay to fit behind some of the holes on the band.

I added them from the inside of the band to create some textured recesses. I tried to make sure every texture I used was different. One or two are similar but no two are actually the same. 

Once I'd filled as many of the holes as I wanted I drew a pattern onto the plain areas with pencil to see how it would look. I'm not a great fan of plain silver so by carving in a design I could fill up some of the area. 

I thought that looked okay so I went ahead and carved the design onto the surface using a combination of the tip of a needle file and a tiny balled headed burnisher tool. 

You can see in the recess at the front in the photo below that one of the circular textures had a little crack in it. I did debate filling the crack, but as it didn't go all the way through I left it as it was - it added more texture!!!! 😉

Um...there was still still quite a bit of plain silver left so I went with my normal filler when doing designs that I feel are a bit empty. If in doubt add some dots, they always seem to work! 😂 

Finally I did a bit of carving to the edges of the band to make it a more interesting shape.

Finished and ready for firing. It went off into the kiln and was fired at 820C for an hour plus.

After polishing the ring I used some patina to make the recesses dark and to highlight the textures. 

Here's a short video of the ring so you can see all around it. 

I quite like the outcome. I've certainly never made a ring by this method before, and I'm sure I wouldn't of done without the challenge - maybe I will develop this technique more in the future :)

Now I will patiently wait to find out what the theme for February's ring will be! 

Have fun!

Joy x