A bird with red legs

Astonishing to see this little red legged partridge sitting just outside my living room window one day last week. If the picture is slightly blurred it is only because I set my camera to zoom as high as possible so I didn't have to go near to the window, I didn't want to startle it

Firing on two kilns at once

Thought it was time I made some input into this! I have been working hard but after a weekend away in Edinburgh am all inspired. I spent a happy afternoon with Emma Baird and she very generously showed me how she makes her lovely spotted beads. I had a day out and went to see a very interesting exhibition of ceramics with calligraphy at The Nomads Tent (and of course had to be dragged away from all the beautiful carpets) and then spent Saturday at the Guild of Enamellers Region 1 workshop which was an introduction to Riso Screens, run by Pat Johnson.

It was a really interesting technique but I am not sure that I will use it much - as it means having to send off to have the screens made!

Anyway, most of this week I have been making glass beads. I have also done my first constructed bi-cone bead in metal clay (art clay silver); made a triangular pendant that I intend to enamel and am half way through a tube pendant with a couple of small matching tube beads to combine with some of the glass beads I have made today! The kilns are working overtime - one annealing a batch of glass beads and the other firing the metal clay........

Phew and at least the studio is warm !

I have now added a photograph of my new beads, fresh from the kiln

Glass beads and whatever next

I have recently begun to learn to make glass beads and it is totally addictive. I am spending as much of my time as I can at the torch, gas flame noisy and keeping me company. Although I have only just started and am fairly pleased with progress - I love the colours and the way in which I can combine them, sometimes swirling sometimes dabbing on spots. The other beads are silver, made using art clay silver, a mixture of silver particles with a binder. Metal clay that can be moulded, pasted, textured and then fired in the kiln where the binder burns away leaving a pure silver piece. It is a very exciting and flexible medium - I teach courses in my studio in North Yorkshire

For more information see my website

www.lynne-glazzard.co.uk

Still cold here and

I am not really working very hard! It is ages since I logged in and I have had a busy few months. I am (again) reviewing my work and thinking about a few new ideas. I have spent a bit of time trying to organise myself a new website www.lynne-glazzard.co.uk and have included my first attempt at an online shop. I am curious about the effectiveness (or otherwise) of the internet for buying and selling one-off pieces of hand crafted jewellery. I have doubts about using the web as a way of selling my work although I see a huge variety of on-line shops selling jewellery. How much do they actually sell? How often do people buy jewellery that they haven't first tried on or at least held in their own hand so that they could feel the weight, see how it would fit or hang etc?

Pre-Christmas crash

I always seen to hit a difficult spot just before Christmas, probably something to do with the pre-Christmas rush of making work and knowing that the pressure is generally off for a while? I know this is the time for a bit of a re-appraisal of current work and a time to start thinking of and planning new directions...... but more difficult to actually apply myself, especially as the studio is so cold!
Merry Christmas anyway to everyone out there!

Exciting times

The dale today has been shrouded in rain clouds, without very much rain actually falling here, where we need it or certainly will need it later when the summer arrives. Looking out of my studio into the dale I can see a bright line along the ridge of the hill contrasted with the dark overhanging clouds giving the view a sense of drama.

I have been in the workshop all day working with a student on art clay silver projects. I just have a bit of the usual paperwork to do now before I can call it a day and go home, not that home is very far away!

Art clay silver is an exciting medium in which to create small pieces of silver jewellery. It can be modelled like clay and when fired, by a variety of methods and according to the manufacturers instructions, the binder is fired away and the silver fused together to leave the piece of jewellery. It is a very accessible way of creating jewellery and can produce very striking results. Like most creative media it does require an understanding of the ways in which the materials can be manipulated and of course practice. I offer courses in my own workshop and at various other venues in order to introduce other people to the medium and hopefully inspire and give them confidence to go on and create their own work. Teaching in this way is interesting and demanding, it brings me into contact with a wide variety of interesting people and, through their questions increases my own understanding of the medium. Having the confidence to offer courses has also added a new dimension to my own work and reduces the sense of isolation that can sometimes happen when working here on my own for long periods of time.

It has given me a much needed boost and a sense that there is a huge potential here for experimentation.......... exciting times!

Ready or not.....

Today I thought I was supposed to deliver work for an exhibition at the Pannett Gallery in Whitby. I finished the final of the three pieces yesterday and this morning carefully wrapped them ready to deliver - only to find they were not expected at the gallery until Friday. Anyway, they are there...... I can only hope they make it onto the walls now?