Warwick Castle

I have just returned from a weekend craft fair at Warwick Castle. I have never participated in such a well run event, the whole thing from arrival at the venue; setting up right through to dismantling and leaving was extremely well organised and from my point of view went smoothly. The staff were lovely, really friendly and helpful and the castle had a huge number of visitors, particularly on the Sunday and it was lovely to meet so many interesting and interested people.

I will certainly be returning to this venue (if, of course I am invited).

New book and ready to go

Today I have received Kate McKinnon's book Structural Metal Clay
http://www.katemckinnon.com/smcbook.html
It seems to answer many of the questions I had about metal clay and offer all kinds of ideas and solutions. I am really keen to just sit, read, digest and work my way through it. Unfortunately I have to get ready as tomorrow I am going on a course run by Business Link and then off down to Warwick ready for the craft fair at Warwick Castle next weekend.

Can't wait to get back and start experimenting though......

Earrings

Two pairs of pretty earrings finished off today. These are textured on one side using pieces of fern from my garden and the twist gives them a great sense of movement when they are worn.

Workshop at the Platform Gallery

On Saturday I ran a workshop at the Platform Gallery in Clitheroe, Lancashire. This was a fantastic day at a lovely venue - a great bunch of very creative people and all well looked after by the dedicated staff. I will post some of the pictures on facebook

Hadar's book arrived here too

and now what am I going to do? I haven't actually got any of the bronze clay yet and am having so much fun experimenting with the silver that I don't really want to get sidetracked at the moment - but it does look interesting and one of my aims for this year was to learn how to make rivets........ and I haven't started yet!

I have gone back to my usual methodic ways and am making tiny samples of the art clay silver all the same, so that I can treat them differently and have a visual record........ to join my folders full of enamelling samples........ no, not really just playing honestly, this is research! Fun though.

yawn yawn

I seem to have spent most of my day updating my website, not what I intended to do but ah well! I suddenly got all enthusiastic about experimenting with enamel and bits of glass again last night and stayed up much too late - but then of course had to wait for the kiln to cool down after annealing this morning. I think some of the experiments have gone a bit too far though....

Looking at the pictures really

Well I finally spent my book token, a birthday present in early October it has been lurking in my bag waiting for the perfect book...... which I decided is Precious Metal Clay Techniques edited by Tim McCreight. Each chapter is by a different artist and it is totally inspiring! I just don't know what to do now....... where should I start...... ?