Making / Failing

Making

Failing

For every hand I make, at least one is a failure.
I used to throw 'em out but since a while they go on the failure pile and are fired too.
They end up in my failure frame.

Work in progress

cutting

fitting

showing

The collaborative jewellery from LilaRubyKing and me, will be displayed and for sale in the fashion museum in Hasselt, Belgium during the next exhibition from the 26th of June 2010 until the 9th of January 2011. Yay! :)

Sneak peek

A little sneak peek on work that will be in Anna's shop today.
Check it out here! :)

Helicopter leaves

You know those leaves that twirl around like a helicopter? I used to love them as a kid - well, actually, I still do! :)
I don't even know if they are called helicopter leaves really.
When I was making moulds the other day, I pressed some of those leaves in the mould. That way, the back side of the mould is not going to waste. I found these leaves in a park in Portugal when I was visiting Kerrin from Sigmosaics last year so I thought it was cool to see them in pressed in porcelain.
I made a little hole on top of the leaf and hope that Anna from LilaRubyKing will find a way to turn these into a neat jewellery design sometime...

Merry go round

The month has passed super quick and every last friday of the month, I jump on the 'Merry go round'. What is the Merry go round exactly? Each month, a group of craftswomen from around the world join together and give their reponses to the same question/challenge.
This month we were challenged to take a photograph of something and create something inspired by it. For those among you with sensitive souls, I have to warm you 'cause what I'm showing is not a pretty sight...
Regular blogreaders know that I have been on a hunt for fish lately. I have been looking far and near for plastic play fish, lures, moulds,... but have not had much succes.

Therefor, a real fish is in order!

It's not the head that's important...

It's the tail that I need!

So, I moulded half of it...

And then pressed porcelain clay in it.

I hope that Anna, my collaboration partner,
will be able to use it in her creations...

I must admit that I had a different picture at first but the end result didn't work out the way I wanted. Hopefully I can still show that sometime later...

Want to see what other merriers made being inspired by a picture of something?
Hop over to their blogs to see! :)
Alison at Tweed Delights - http://idreamoftweed.blogspot.com

Kim at Vilt a la Kim - http://viltalakim.blogspot.com

Sara at Crafts of Texture - http://sarastexturecrafts.blogspot.com

Fabienne at Easterya Jewellery Creations - http://easterya.blogspot.com

Mariana at Florcita - http:/www./florcita.eu/

Agathe at Le Bar du Vent - http://lebarduvent.blogspot.com

Lily at Lily Pang Art and Design - http://lilypangart.blogspot.com

Wendren at Wren Design - http://thewrendesign.com

Ruth at Birdland Creations - http://insidetheartisan.blogspot.com

Looking for fish

A crazy idea in my head made me go look for fishes. You know, just plain plastic toy fishes from about 6cm or 2,5inches or a bit smaller but certainly not larger. Important fact: the tail needs to be nice. I like the tails on the second and third fish below. The first tail is too wide and not typical fish enough for my taste.
Anyway, my search has been horror. I went to every toy shop in town, visited the thrift shop every other day and I digged in the toyboxes of my niece and nephew to find what I was looking for but it just doesn't seem to exist.
Being kind of desperate, I asked my dad, who loves to go fishing, if he had any lures to spare.
We went to the fish material shop yesterday and I bought these 2 below but I'm not really thrilled about them. The tail of the first one is too long and the tail of the second one is not really a tail, it's a flat piece so that fisherman can add it to their hook. I might use the head in this case.
So I'm goingto experiment with those two for now.
But I thought the perhaps you could help me on my search? Go through the toy box of your kids, keep an eye out in the thrift shop,...
If you have any fish laying about that you would like to get rid off for art purposes, don't hesitate to contact me. I'll be happy to hear from you: mitsy@artmind.eu
Just don't send me anything yet, but show me a picture first so that I can see if it's useable and if it's THE fish I have been looking for. I'll pay for the fish and shipping or if you like an exchange better, we'll trade a fish for a singing bird! :)

Collaboration news

Have you ever seen these beautiful earrings in Anna's shop?
I love the shape of the vines and the silk red thread that connects them.
Anna launched the idea to make porcelain vines and then combine them with the silver ones.
I loved the idea so I got to work last August. It looks good in the picture but in real, these vines are very thin and fragile. Porcelain clay is super stubborn and dries really quick so adding a hole can mean that when the clay is too dry, it causes breakage.
Porcelain clay is really strong when fired so then it's nearly impossible to drill the hole afterwards. But after many tries and failures, I was sad to see this idea go...
So, I pondered on the idea and then thought that making them in 3D could be a way to make it work. They would not be able to be combined with Anna's vines but I'm sure that Anna would find a way to make it look pretty whichever way they are used. I made 3D vines in several sizes:
And perhaps it will look a bit like this? Only Anna knows that right now.
Keep your eyes peeled on her shop for the day when she uploads them...

A little teaser...

How fast time flies! Next monday, the 1st of February, Anna will list some new designs from our collaboration project in her shop. Here are some sneak previews...
I cropped the pictures that Anna send me. Sorry for being so cruel! :)

Launch of new jewelry line

Anna from lilarubyking on Etsy just launched our first items of the new jewelry line.
Make sure to check 'em out. :)
One click on any of these pics will bring you right to the listing!

The not so secret project...

Only a few more sleeps until Anna and I will launch our collaborative jewelry line.
Did I tell you that we started working together on the 9th of August? After a few convo's back and forth, we decided to have a secret chat on Etsy.
Anna send me these visual aids and I was already very impressed...We both were excited about making things together and we both loved to keep you all in suspense for so long. While we are still busy making, we just wanted to remind you to keep an eye on lilarubyking's shop on monday the 4th of January.
Anna will start listing the first item at 1pm Central European Time.
Every first monday of the month, we will list new work. That way we can still keep up the suspense a little bit! :)

The secret project... the big reveal!

From the moment we started this project and decided to keep this secret, we knew we had a hard job doing that. But we loved teasing you with work in progress and keep you curious. Since we are both equally excited about making and creating things it has been a joy to work together. From the start, lots of people guessed that I was collaborating with StarOfTheEast. Nope! Other guesses were: Sigmosaics, Kreativlink, Elsita, Karlita, Psarokokalo and Seaurchin. But none of them either...

The person I collaborate with has her very own style. She's incredibly talented and fun to work with. Her creativity seems to have no boundaries.
She's an immigrant in Europe as she originates from down under and she faces the challenge of living in Greece. Besides all that, she's also the European Streetteam's threadmaker on Etsy and provides a fresh chat thread every week.
Jip, it's the one and only Anna from lilarubyking or annarubyking.

The person who guessed it right for the first time is nobody less than the talented bagmaker from Switzerland: IraGrant.
She'll be treated with this gorgeous first creation:

Loop necklace - porcelain

And the runner up prize goes to EmmaLamb who will be send a pack of postcards from Anna & me with the inclusion of some Happy girls.

Congrats to both of you & we hope you will enjoy your goodies! :)

Now that we won't tease you any longer, it's time to show some finished work. The first of our new pieces will be listed in Anna's shop 'lilarubyking' on January 4th with more soon to follow so mark that date to check out her shop & grab one of our creations.

Plant matter studs

Pebbles & leaf brooch

Anna is producing more finished products from the things I send her recently.

And I'm producing other things that we decided on and then sent it to Anna to keep her busy again. It has been such fun to create together and of course we hope that our creations will be loved so that we can make many more together!

The secret project... work in progress

Some time ago, my secret partner send me some plant matter. My heart skipped a beat when I saw it & I made a mould of it right away. A bit silly to get excited about some plant matter?
Not at all, when your heart is jippetyjappety happy because of things simple and beautiful.
This texture is just divine...
I used it to make little lichen's out of it.
And after I fire them, I will send them to my secret partner so she can see if they can be used for something.

This will also be the last teasing-post concerning the secret project. And your last chance to send me your guess with who I'm collaborating. Last week I saw the first prototype of a finished product and yip, another skipped heartbeat and instant love...
We can't wait for the big reveal next week & we hope you have patience for one more week...

To know the idea behind the secret project, go read the first blogpost here or click on the label 'the secret project' to see all the posts about it.
Can't wait to receive your guesses but think about it carefully 'cause you can only guess once! :)
You can send your guess to mitsy@artmind.eu and can not change your guess so think about it carefully...

The secret project... work in progress

Last monday I shipped a parcel to my secret partner. I made the first part of the production on the things we agreed on. I couldn't believe really how little it was in volume - so many teeny tiny bits but it will make for a good start I hope.
I put some things in there to surprise her although I could not wait to share pictures of it of course. I experimented with some red underglaze. Definately needs more tweeking but it looks cool I think. She replied saying that she'd be dreaming of red spots. Is that a good or a bad sign? :)And then she had asked me to make a kind of drop with a crackle glaze on the bottom.
I absolutely love this! I just couldn't wait any longer to share it with you. I think we should make more of these although I have no clue yet what she'll do with these! :)
I suppose it's my turn to be teased of what she'll do with it now... *sigh*
I think I loved teasing her and you better! :)As soon as I get so see some pictures of what she produces, I will show... I can't wait! :)

You can find more pictures of the finished products in my Flickr stream. I must admit I was quite impressed myself by the Barbie hands after they had been sanded and fired.

To know the idea behind the secret project, go read the first blogpost here or click on the label 'the secret project' to see all the posts about it.
Can't wait to receive your guesses but think about it carefully 'cause you can only guess once! :)
You can send your guess to mitsy@artmind.eu and can not change your guess so think about it carefully...

The secret project.... work in progress

Remember my struggle to mould Barbie's hand last week? Well, the last option with the partly silicone, partly plaster mould worked OK. Not entirely satisfied but I did mould quite a few and hope that after sanding I will have a few good ones left to use.And monday a lovely surprise arrived in the mail. My secret partner had sent me some left overs from colored glass. I could not wait to experiment with it. And so I did of course. It did not come out all well but two of them I find really lovely. I hope she will like 'em and will be able to use 'em.This week, I'll be firing a batch of the first production process on porcelain temperature. Will ship it next week and then my secret partner can make the final product with it. I'm very excited about this! :)

To know the idea behind the secret project, go read the first blogpost here or click on the label 'the secret project' to see all the posts about it.
Can't wait to receive your guesses but think about it carefully 'cause you can only guess once! :)
You can send your guess to mitsy@artmind.eu and can not change your guess so think about it carefully...

My creative space

My creative space is not for sensitive people this week...
Please skip my blog if you're one of them.
I just want to share my frustration with you and perhaps one of you has a clever solution to my problem. Well, the thing is that my secret collaboration partner had this fun idea to use a Barbie hand for one of the pieces. She asked if I could make it in porcelain clay.
I said: 'jip, no prob' but hey, did I know Barbie is so stubborn?
Here's the gang...First I thought to use a silicone paste 'cause it gives the finest detail on the mould. But it doesn't work as it's a closed mould, it doesn't dry really well.
Then I decided to make a double mould. Look at that grin on her face... yuk!
Mould the other side...
But it does not com out right. See here all my failures...
But I didn't want to give up. I was tired of seeing that grin on her face so I just pulled her head off.
This time I tried to make a partly plaster and partly silicone mould.
It looks good, so today I'll try if I can make a decent porcelain hand from it.
Many thanks to my secret partner for this lovely idea! I'm having heaps of fun as you can see! :)

Oops, two secret project posts in one week? Might skip one next week then as not to overload you... :)

To know the idea behind the secret project, go read the first blogpost here or click on the label 'the secret project' to see all the posts about it.
Can't wait to receive your guesses but think about it carefully 'cause you can only guess once! :)
You can send your guess to mitsy@artmind.eu and can not change your guess so think about it carefully...

Want to show your creative space? Hop over to Kootoyoo's to play! It's fun! :)

The secret project... work in progress

Not much to show you this week, only one thing but it's rather large compared to some other things I have been working on for the secret project. I wonder if my secret partner will be able to use this little branch I made. So not sure yet if you'll be able to see it in her shop.
That's the fun part about this collaboration: lots of surprises for everyone!

To know the idea behind the secret project, go read the first blogpost here or click on the label 'the secret project' to see all the posts about it.
Can't wait to receive your guesses but think about it carefully 'cause you can only guess once! :)
You can send your guess to mitsy@artmind.eu and can not change your guess so think about it carefully...