What's Going on in the Classroom: Clay Stamp and Studio Portraits

Hey all, just a quick update on what's going on in the classrooms in which I teach! My foundations students recently completed clay signature stamps that they will use all throughout this year and on to other years if they continue with their ceramic endeavors. Check them out!

Also, my photo kiddos are working on their midterm which is a studio portrait. Take a look at them hard at work!

DIY: Three Necklace Tutorials

Over Christmas break, I dedicated myself to doing a lot of little projects that had been on my list FOREVER! You saw one early, the Harry Potter Embroidery. These DIYs are necklaces that I've been meaning to make for awhile.

The first one is a button necklace and I followed a tutorial I found online here. I wanted to make this necklace for awhile because I used some of the button collection that was my grandmas before she passed away two years ago. Now it's like I have a little part of her to wear on days when I want to feel close to her. Other items I used included: felt, gold chain, needle-nose jewelers pliers, glue and a glue gun.

The second necklace DIY I did over break was one I came up with myself. I've been admiring this necklace online forever but it is not sold any more and I decided, why not try my own version!

I used the following materials:

Jewelers pliers

Leather cord

Blue beads

Bronze beads

Glue and glue gun

First step was to create the tassel, I used the leather cord and wound it back and forth on my hand. Then wrapped a smaller piece around the tassel and tacked in place with a glue gun. Then I cut the looped ends to make the tassel.

Next a strung the blue beads on to each side. I used 9 beads on each side. Pro tip: make sure to get beads that a big enough for the cord or leather cord that is small enough for the beads. I had a small problem with that and had to do some quick thinking.

I added some small bronze beads to the end as well. 

Here's how it looks when I was finished with these two steps.

 Keeping with the design on the original necklace, I put some of the bronze beads on the ends of the tassel. But you can see my tassel ends are crazy because the cord I bought came folded. So I put it under a heavy stack of books for a couple of days to help flatten it out.

Finished product! You could always add more beads or something like the little feather charm as in the original. I opted not to and I'm overall happy with this DIY.

Lastly over break, I did a necklace tutorial that you can find on the A Beautiful Mess website. I followed their directions and my necklace turned out perfectly! Thanks guys for a great tutorial.

What's Going on in the Classroom: Metal Pendents

Take a look at the awesome metal work my students just finished! Also, check out the last picture to see some of my model students! They work so hard :)

DIY: Harry Potter Embroidery Sampler

I've had my eye on a certain wall space in our house, right at the top of the stairs. It is a cute little space and it needs something. So I've decided to work on a couple of things in the next few months to use to style that area. The first thing that I created was an embroidery hoop with a cute flower pattern and a Harry Potter quote. Perhaps I haven't mentioned this before on this blog, but I am a GIANT Harry Potter fan! Check out HERE for the inspiration for this DIY.

As I mentioned above, I love me some HP! However, if you're unfamiliar with the movies or the books. "Always" is a beautiful quote from one of the most misunderstood characters. Severus Snape ends up with the most beautiful and heart-wrenching story line. 

I used some lightweight canvas fabric that I had lying around. I also had a small embroidery hoop, a needle, and some embroidery floss. I chose some colors that I think will look nice with the other items I am planning for this space. However, something like this can be changed to suite whatever color palette you have in your house!

After gathering my supplies, I sketched out a basic idea of what I wanted to do and got to work! I used a back stitch to create the letters. I did two rows, right beside each other so as to make the letters thicker. I'm considering going back and adding a third layer to make them stand out even more? Thoughts?

After that I added some embellishments around the outside. I wanted to keep with the embroidery sampler look from my inspiration but I also wanted to make it my own. So I came up with some vines and small flowers and some daffodil/tulip like blooms at the bottom. 

I think the final project is going to look great on my little wall space! I'll keep you posted as I add more to the area and what it looks like when I'm done!

What's Going on in the Classroom: Photography- Shutter Speed

Just an update on Photography students! Students just finished up learning about and using shutter speed successfully in their photography to blur and freeze motion and paint with light. Look at the amazing results they achieved!

A Peak Inside my Portfolio: Figurative Sculpture *UPDATE*

Sculpture Class is over! Last night was our final critique. It went fine and I can officially say I'm done. One more class and a thesis until I get that Master's Degree! Now if you remember from my last post, my figurative sculpture suffered some damage in the kiln. I did decide to use Kintsugi to repair it and I love it!  But before that, here's the final image of my subtractive sculpture:

Turned out just great! Now moving on to the 'happy accident' piece... After some serious epoxy use, both to repair my piece (as best as I could) and secure the posts for weaving, here's what my piece looked like:

The I used acrylic paint and water to create a stain for the piece. I used brown, black, red and brilliant yellow straight out of the tube, watered down, and layered over the clay. Then I covered the entire piece in a wash of black, watered-down acrylic. The places where there were missing pieces, you can see I left un-painted. That's where the Kintsugi comes in.

If you click on Kintsugi, you will head on over to a webpage with some wonderful info about the art form. However, briefly, it is a way of taking broken pieces of pottery and putting them back together to create a new and possibly more beautiful piece. I just used some gold leaf and gold paint, nothing like the actual gold resin used by professionals. Regardless, I still think it turned out pretty nicely. The weaving looks great as well!