The Pink Hare

more pics from penland

  This is the mostly finished Moth shrine .The only thing missing in this picture is the chain I made for it .

 

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Home safe and sound

 If not a little bit tired . I guess it was a bad idea to drink so much espresso everyday .cause now I feel like i've been run over !

 I had a beyond amazing time . This experience has given me so many new ideas and really shown me that I want to focus more on the art aspects of jewelry . As much fun as it is to make steampunk ,Victorian jewelry I miss the challenge finer jewelry presents .
   
 I adore this necklace ! I really look forward to experimenting with shapes and tin in the future .

So I think once i get my head back on straight thats what I will focus more on . Don't worry I'll still make my fun stuff but it just won't be the center of what i do .

pictures from penland

I don't think there are words that could really express just how amazing this year is . So have some pictures with a few explanations. 
 The necklace was part of the first day challenge. We had to take two objects from a bundle we were given and create something with them . I chose the poker chips and plastic silverware . I don't really feel like I took the challenge as seriously as I should have but I had fun.
 The button and rose piece were the second assignment . We had to trap a found object using sheet metal and prongs we cut out of the sheet metal . It was fun !
 The bug is a piece of tin and two pieces of copper riveted together . I had to remake this piece as I didn't fully think through it .

this piece you make recognize  from my sketchbook

And this piece is my big project . a bug shrine ! I am so happy with how this is coming along.

first day at penland

this is my room   I'm in the attic of the craft house . it's one of the original buildings .  Not much has happened today. I did see a luna moth . LIVE !!!

Tomorrow I leave for Penland

 and luckily this year my lap top isn't broken . so if all goes according to plan I'll update with at least pictures everyday ! I'll be taking a two week long course on jewelry with the amazing Robert Ebendorf . I am so so excited .

Lazy Days .

This morning was one of those nice lazy moments . Where the cats are in bed with you and everything is just right .Of course I had to eventually get up but I couldn't resist  snapping a quick picture of one of our cats . This is Ganesh ,he looks so happy  .
 Lately I've had so many ideas running though my head that I've come to realize just how important my moleskin is. I think every artist should carry around a notebook or something. I use mine for everthing from jewelry design ,addresses,shopping lists ,small journal entries and pictures of things that catch my eye in magazines.  I don't know what I would do without mine .

Dirty little secret .

I have a twitter . There I admit it ! If you want to follow my strange little tweets pinkhare tweets . Like I need more things to fill my time with .

 OMG penland is in 6 days !

whats she doing today

 Not too much actually . I've started the great bi monthly clean up . But I did sneak in a little time to photograph some of the thing i have made recently .
 Or in the case of the bottle garden 2 years ago . it's only just now starting to fill in and look really pretty .
I had originally planed to have bottles going completely around this odd little bit of land in out back yard . But we also have  70 year old oak that has huge roots ! So I filled in the spaces between bottles with large rocks and pool balls . I'm very proud of it this year as it's filled in nicely .

Something else i'm been working on is what i mentioned before Hypertuffa pots ! If you ever liked playing in the mud as a kid you's love making these ! I've also fallen in love with mosaic . The style I've fallen head over heels for is called pique assiette ,and uses broken china .
 So a friend and I go around to the local thrift stores and pick up plates ,bowls and anything else we can get out hands on . We then sit outside ,drink tea and smash plates . it's a lot of fun .

I've also started working on a few pieces using the etched metal and sari silk ribbons. I absolutely love sari silk ! it feels so good around the neck . 

I promise tomorrow i'll actually have new work to show you !

Etching metal and plaing in the garden

The weather here in North Carolina has been really nice ,but a bit too warm to work in my studio . So I've been making concrete and hypertufa pots . I've also taken a very very basic welding class so that I can make armatures for concrete sculptures !  Hopefully sometime soon I'll have time to work on that .

 I've also been etching brass and copper . If you've never tried it you should! It's very easy and really satisfying . I do most of my etching with either PNP {peel and press} paper or rubber stamps and stazon ink . Sadly Radio shack no longer carries Ferric Chloride but I'm lucky enough to live near Ornamentea ,which carries it . The problem with ordering it online is that you will have to pay a hazzardous materials shipping fee of about 20 bucks .
here are some samples of what we've etched
  All of these used plain old rubber stamps and Stazon black ink.

 I also use a heating pad to warm the etchant as this really helps you get a good deep etch .

I then use Winsor and Newton Brush cleaner to remove the ink and PNP paper . It works like a charm and it's cheaper then the stazon rubber stamp cleaner .

Sadly last weekend my bench pin broke so I can't really saw anything out untill I get or make a new one . So most of my echings will have to wait . I have some great ideas for combining tin and etched metal !
More soon !

art ,gardens and me

 We moved into our house almost two years ago . This provided me with something i'd never had before . A yard .. and space to garden . To say i have a black thumb isn't exactly right ..I just have no real idea what i'm doing .
 Our yard has one major drawback in the world of gardening . We get very little sun . This meant I had to alter my dreams of the overgrown english garden . So hats a girl todo when she wants lots of color in the garden ? I picked up the art of mosaic and cement !
 For the past few months a dear friend and I have been traveling around town to all the local thrift and junk shop buying colorful plates  and mosaicing them on brick flower bed edging .  It's taken about 30 of these segments and who knows how many plates,bowls and figurines but one flower bed is now fully ringed with these .
 They really are a delight to look at and so much fun to make . The picture is of the very beginnings of the wall .
We have since finished it  . I promise some great pictures soon.  We also started to mosaic tera cotta pots  .I don't think there is anything as satisfying as hunting for plates and then smashing them with a hammer or tile nippers !  
We've also begun to make our own planters out of concrete . There are literally hundreds of recipes and the ingredients are so so much cheaper then buying pots .  The first project we did used two plastic bowls one smaller then the other ,portland cement ,play sand ,cooking spray and water . The resulting bowl is just plain awesome . the only thing we have left to do is drill a drainage hole .
 On the top we embedded tumbled glass for a beach glass look .
 Up next are concrete sculptures ! I just need to learn how to weld so that we can create sturdy armatures . Luckily Durham has a TechShop ! And i'll be taking a basic class this monday . I really don't care if my welding is ugly as it'll be encased in concrete.

Concrete is amazing medium . And can be sculpted much like clay . so I really look forward to all kinds of projects .

 Right now we have to Hypertufa planters curing . I can't wait to add plants to those as it's really easy to get moss to grow on them .
 So as you can see the weather has just been to nice to sit inside and make jewelry . I'd much rather sit outside right now making "jewelry" for my garden .