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

35/52 Twirls n Turquoise

This week I've been working on new textures! I'm trying out a new method of creating the texture plates so lots of testing! I'm super pleased with the first tests and very excited about the whole thing - but lots more work to be done yet! ;)

These are some discs made with the new texture plates...

...they have been fired and polished, but no patina (dark in the recesses) applied at this point.

Then I wire wrapped the discs with some lovely little 6mm natural turquoise beads. The discs can turn freely and really catch the light when they are worn! :)

On the back of the discs I added another of my textures. I always like to finish the backs of earrings properly - you never know who might be standing behind you!!

I'm very pleased with the outcome, and was tempted to keep them for me ...but no, because I have more exciting news!

I've been having work done to my website and now I can change the content of it whenever I want to - yay!! So I've been giving it a revamp! Please do pop over and have a look!

Now I've started updating my shop with new items. I be adding more pieces all the while so please do keep checking back.

These earrings are already there in the shop! :D

Have fun!

Joy x

32/52 On Angel Wings

One of the things on my challenge list for the year is making more complex stone set rings. Not sure if this is really more complex - but I like it anyway, and I have never made a ring like this before :)

The three stones are lab grown YAG stones, sort of like a garnet. I believe these stones are now no longer made which is very sad because all the colours fire wonderfully in silver clay on the open shelf and the blue and green in this ring don't really have any other equivalents that I know of.

I acquired these stones quite a few years ago. I bought some green YAG from PhoenixMagyk

and Delia was very kind to include some extra stones. These are three of them. I've often looked at them but never been inspired to do anything with them. 

This week I wanted to make another ring and had something very different in mind, but in rummaging around in my stone stash I came across these again and they just struck me as perfect to go with some angel wings, so the plans all changed and this is what I came up with! :)

I think I'll be keeping this one as the stones have a really lovely sparkle, and it's just my size!! ;) (Oh, wasn't that lucky!!). My photos don't really do the stones justice. 

The two wings go around the band and come together at the back.

I put my little Joy logo inside the band at the back (always handy should a bout of amnesia hit!). So there it is - a fine silver angel wing ring :D

Have fun! :)

Joy x

31/52 Joyful Torii - Part 1

OK, this next piece is going to be in split into 2 parts for the challenge! No, I'm not cheating, really! There is quite a lot to it all, and I have used two different things on my challenge list so all is good! :)

Having recently won the Silver Accessories Contest in Japan (yay!) my mind is now turning to all things Japanese. I have booked my flights and will be going to the award ceremony at the end of October! It's all super exciting!!

I decided to make a piece inspired by some of the wonderful images I've been looking at online while trying to organise my trip. I particularly like the shape of all the Torii I keep seeing! (A torii is a traditional Japanese gate which marks the entrance to a sacred space.)

My first challenge was to use a heap of pieces of Art Clay Silver that have been sitting beside my kiln for over 5 years now! You can see them in the top photo. There are a lot of little extruded square profile rods and a little roof shape. The clay has discoloured a lot in places, but dried silver clay seems to keep just fine.

This was a rough idea of what I had in mind. (I keep my designing on the simple side! ;) )

I started out making a square tile of silver clay textured on one side only.

A bit more googling images of Torii and I soon realised the roof need to be much shallower - and the other way up with the wider part at the top! I joined the square rods into pairs to make the various beams and added them to plain side of the flat tile of clay to make a framed area. Then I added the roof at a sloping angle to the top.

Whilst I hadn't done any drawings I knew in my mind that I wanted to extend the beams out each side to give a bit more interest to the piece, so I added the four small pieces onto the edges.

Finally I added a couple of hanging loops and my logo to the back. You can see in the photo below I used up most of the rods. These were the only bits left at the end!

Now the piece was ready for firing. This photo gives you an idea of the scale before firing.

Once it was fired I polished up the silver and added a patina to the piece. Then I photographed it ready to do this blog post...

...and then something interesting happened!

As soon as I uploaded all the photos ready to start blogging and looked at them all I realised that I had gone OTT!!! I looked at the photo higher up this post, the one showing the piece before I added the four small extra bits on the side and thought...actually less is more!!!

So it was off for a quick bit of work in Photoshop to check this out! Here are the three options I have. The piece as it is at the moment on the left, with the bottom two edge pieces removed in the middle and with all four edge pieces removed on the right. Isn't modern technology wonderful!

I can immediately see that it has to be option two or three. In my attempt to add more interest I have lost the look of the gate! The question now is do I go with the middle or right hand side one. I'm quite torn between the two different looks, but I think I will most likely go with the middle one :)

Now you have probably read all this (assuming you have made it this far!) thinking...

 'what about that boring plain bit in the middle?? You've called it a Joyful Torii but there is nothing very Joyful about it!!' 

That will be Part 2 in this saga!!

Next I plan (to try) to add a micro mosaic into the the frame!!! It's on my challenge list! I bought a whole load of smalti filato (now you'll have to google that!! :) ) years ago in Murano, Venice, and have never used them. I have no idea whether I can do this as I haven't tried at all before. I realise already I've made the frame a bit too shallow so that will add extra fun, and I'm not even going to tell you what design I have in mind, it might all change once I get started! lol

So...watch this space for the next instalment - finishing this piece off :)

Meanwhile...

Have fun!

Joy x

5/52 - Esotericness

This week's challenge piece is a rock crystal wand set into a fine silver mount. It has three 2mm lab rubies around the top of the mount and a 3mm lab ruby cabochon in the front.

I bought this crystal wand about 3 years ago and there are some really attractive inclusions in it. As ever I had great plans for it and started to make a mount for it using Art Clay Silver. I soon realised my idea would not work so gave up, and there it sat.

So, of course, the wand went onto my challenge list for this year!! In my mind I decided I was going to use snakes of silver, but would make a plain base first to add them onto. As you can see that all changed once I started creating!! This piece was very much designed on the hoof! :)

In this photo you can see the inclusions quite well. 

I find it all rather fascinating. To my eyes the inclusions appear as a flat pattern, but as you turn it they always look more or less the same. 

Part of the challenge of this was that whilst the wand looks like quite an even cut in the photos it is in fact quite skew-whiff so I had to take care to get the decoration on the mount in the right places. The mount is not a symmetrical shape at all!

I fired the mount and set the wand into it after it was polished and patinated. 

All the while I was making this I felt it had a regal look to it. I really love the medieval period and I think a bit of the essence of that has gotten into this piece. When I posted this onto Facebook a couple of people mentioned the Knights of the Round Table as well :) I'm delighted it has that kind of look to it.

One thing I did learn was that photographing rock crystal is not easy!! I think I took about 80 shots to find the ones that worked. Thank goodness for digital cameras!! :)

The back of the mount has my little Joy logo on it. 

Finally I made a beaten silver ring to hang it from...

...and after taking all the photos and sorting out the ones to use I realised I had forgotten to patinate the ring!!! So there it is, the ring and chain still need a patina to make them look a bit more antique and match the rest of the piece!! 

I will do that before it goes to a new home!!!

Now to think about my next challenge piece. Normally I am already thinking one week ahead, but this week I have not decided, so I'm off to consult that list again!

Have fun!

Joy x

2/52 - Amberesque

My second challenge piece of the year. I really enjoyed making this one!

I'll be honest, I've had the domed section sitting around for a couple of months. I made it in a fit of enthusiasm having thought of the idea, and then could not settle on how exactly to use it! So there it sat, just looking at me - taunting me to get my brain into gear - lol! :)

I kept picking it up and drawing ideas around but none jelled. Then at last I hit on a shape I thought worked really well for it, and it all came together over the last week. Here is the centre section nearly ready for firing.

And this is the finished pendant. It is quite large, the centre section measures 45mm across. It's made using Art Clay fine silver clay, and has an amber cabochon set into the centre. After firing I added the enamelled areas, and then added lots of 24k gold dots onto the dome by the keum boo method. I have to say they were quite fiddly, and I now know that trying to add 18 gold dots (the number of them around the lower part of the dome!) all at once is pushing my capabilities of fast burnishing to the very limit!! :) Still, I managed it - just!!

Finally I added a patina to give the pendant an antique effect, and then started on the chain.

I knew I wanted to make a chain for it, the problem was what would go with it. I was really pleased with the the final result. The chain is made using a mix of silver wire and silver clay. Every textured link is double sided, so no problems if it turns when you're wearing it! I shall be continuing the chain making through the year to see where I can go with it :D

Due to the shape of the front of the pendant this piece isn't reversible as it wouldn't lay properly that way round. But the back is as important as the front in my view, so I added some nice swirling designs.

I always seem to end up with swirls on everything!!

Joy x

Blackbird Locket

 I have often been asked if I make lockets, and while I have made a couple in the past, more recently I haven't.

So I had a good think about what sort of lockets I wanted to make and this is the end result! 

This Blackbird Locket is quite small, the heart shape measure approx 26mm x 20mm. It is made in fine silver and the bird is enamelled (black obviously :) ). The stones are lab garnets and are 2mm in diameter, and then there is a little 24k gold decoration just to finish it all off.

I was quite chuffed with this when I finished it yesterday! :D

 

The back has a sunburst design and my little Joy logo.

 

The front swings open and is held closed by a little magnetic clasp. Inside are a few more 'hidden' garnets.

I'll be making some more little lockets very soon, so watch this space! 

I'll also be teaching this project in the future.

Have fun!

Joy x

New Work

 I've been having fun over the past few months making lots of different types of work.

These are a few rainbow enamelled pieces. I do love adding colour with enamel!! :)

Ive also been making lots more rings. No enamel on these ones, but still some colour on most of them (of course!) :D

The weather has been really hot over the last few days, but today it is cooler which is great as I plan to get enamelling.

So, it is kiln on and time to finish up a locket (or maybe two!!) that I have been working on. 

Photos tomorrow hopefully!  :)

Have fun!

Joy x