Conference Workshops

At the Art Clay Conference there were workshops over three days. On the first two days I did workshops with Ryota and Dice who had flown over from Japan especially for the conference. Aida Chemicals who make Art Clay had kindly sent them over and also supplied all of the Art Clay that we used at the conference. Fantastic support and everyone was very grateful.

Ryota is a master Art Clay Instructor who teaches and helps plan the new projects in Japan. Dice is head of the Oversea Division and also provided valuable translation as Ryota does not speak much English.

On the Thursday the workshop covered making pieces to create a Mokume Gane type effect by texturing using cuttlefish bone and plating pieces in copper which was then polished back to varying degrees depending on taste.

Here is a (very poor!) photo of the group work.

Ryota demonstrating the technique

and these are the pieces I made.

On the Friday I did the Resin workshop with Ryota and Dice. As an enameller I was a little dubious about how much I would like this as usually when I have used resins before I have soon realised I could do it quicker in enamel!

This technique was to make a raised domed area which really is not something that you could achieve in enamel to have any strength.

I really enjoyed this workshop and it is definitely a technique that I will use again. The colours are hollow domes and look lovely. I was very pleased with the result.

Here is a photo of all the pieces made by everyone in our group

Mine is the rather startling orange one at the top (well it would be wouldn't it ;-) ) and you can see a larger photo of my piece at the start of this post.

On the Saturday I taught an enamelling workshop with my good friend Lynne Glazzard. We combined her paper texture techique with my enamelled accents and we had a fun day. Unfortunately neither of us remembered to take any photos all day!!

Here is a photo of some of the pieces from the show and tell the next day, but unfortunately quite a few people had to leave early so quite a bit of the group work is missing.

Still it gives you an idea of what we were up to.

I also managed a bit of sightseeing and have some nice photos in York Minster to post next...

Workshop Examples - work in progress!

Oh dear, so sorry - I didn't realise how long it was since I last posted!

I have been busy teaching and time just slips away doesn't it.

Anyway, I promised some more examples for the Art Clay UK Conference in September. I wasn't going to post these until they were finished but as I have not got that far yet and I want to show you I have been doing something (!) here is some work in progress.

These pieces have background textures using my good friend and co teacher at the conference Lynne Glazzard's paper texture technique. Then I have added some Enamelled Accents. This piece will be patinated with Liver of Sulphur to bring up the textures.

The reverse below is decorated as well. (OK hands up - is it just me who thinks Mickey Mouse every time I look at this shape or do you agree?  :) !! )

The second piece is again using a paper texture on the front. As well as the Enamelled Accents this time I have also added some gold fused to the surface using the Keum Boo technique but with a twist.

You will see the gold is slightly patchy at the mo but actually I am really pleased as this was just torch fired on and burnished. I have been experimenting with torch firing the gold and was surprised just how easily it took. I scrubbed the piece really well after to see if the gold was really fused and most of it was. I shall reapply to cover the patchy areas and experiment further.

Below is the reverse of this piece and again it is also awaiting being patinated.

I'll post the finished pieces soon....

More Enamelled Accents...

Ah got there at last! Now it is letting me upload photos.

So here is a new piece I have finished as an example for the conference. Haven't quite decided on a name for this one yet. Any suggestions? I rather like this flower. The enamels are Catallya Japanese enamels from Zama UK. I love this yellow.

These pieces are examples of the sort of things that we should have time to make on the workshop at conference. I am trying to stick with fairly simple for everyone to just get the idea of the technique with the short time and limited resources that are available. The workshop is only 3 hours long and we are making the piece from start to finishing the enamelling. I think the main issue might be queues at the kilns :-)

Can't wait to get to Jersey now for a great weekend.

Stamping Joy!

I have been trying to work out for a while what to put onto the back of my jewellery pieces. I have tried various options using stamps I have made myself with photo polymer plates but with small type they don't last long and I was never very happy with them. Over the last year or two I have tried

Handmade by Joy Funnell

Joy Funnell

Handmade by Joy

Joy

JF

For quite a while I have been using a small circle with JF in but since I make a lot of reversible jewellery I always feel this detracts from the reverse side because people don't necessarily want to have my initials on it. As I have redesigned my logo I decided it was the ideal time to settle on Joy, which hopefully people will like to wear, but now I could make it more distinctive as me by adding my squiggle (technical term!).

I ordered a proper stamp from Babette Cox in the USA. I wanted it to be quite small and Babette was really helpful with advice to make it work well. It only measures about 5mm across but is lovely as it is such a crisp clear image. It arrived last week so I used it on the simple piece I made at the workshop I taught at the weekend. So here is a photo of the front and back of the finished item which I fired yesterday after finishing off the decoration.

I'm really pleased with the result, hope you like it too.

Update

Gosh... sorry I just realised I haven't posted anything for several days now. Very remiss of me.


I have been busy with various things. The mask is not yet finished but I expect to get to that next week so keep checking back.


This week I am teaching. I have only had small amounts of time in my workshop and have been working on my enamelling workshop I am teaching at the Art Clay conference in October. I'll post some photos of examples when I get a few more pieces done. All very exciting though. If you are coming to the conference I do hope you are going to join me.

How exciting (part one)!

This is exciting - my carnival mask is being used to advertise the Art Clay Conference which is being held in Jersey this October. Here is the advert in the latest edition of Making Jewellery magazine.

If you want to know more about the conference you can find it on the Art Clay World UK Guild website. Do try to come to conference. It is such fun. It does not matter if you are a beginner or have been using Art Clay for years. Everyone is made very welcome and you will learn loads, and I am teaching the enamelling workshop!

Why is this part one? Watch this space......