I just added a new video tutorial to my tutorial pages. It is for those who are skinner blend challenged and need a bit of a visual help. You can find it by clicking on the tutorial link on the menu above this post. Have a safe and clayful holiday weekend.
post floor re-do and studio set up, I have a ton of stuff to get rid of. Your lucky day! Click right here for the sale.
Moe, who claims to be skinner blend challenged, unable to make two colors become a pretty blend. I took pity on the poor woman, you know she just had another cow….sibling rivalry is bad there now, so she needs a little clay boost. I sat down at my clay table in my new clay room and whipped out a rapid no editing no speaking video for her on how to make a skinner blend. I figured others might like to see it in case they too are SB challenged. I decided to host it on my .mac site and let it handle the traffic (not to mention it was easy to upload there right from iMovie *g*). Edited to remove the link because too many folks couldn’t see the m4v file. I am in the process of uploading it to my site where it will become a lesson in my tutorial section. I promise to post the new link when I have it all set. Less then an hour, I promise!
after touching clay again at my guild meeting, I did get a chance to clay ALL DAY on Monday. I had fun making my “tropical nights” blend and decided to make a variation of the blend with varied sized stripes. Here is the blend.
Then I decided I wanted to try to make a Maniguette style bracelet using my favorite blend. She was nice enough to translate the pictorial tutorial into English for this language challenged clayer. Of course I don’t have the PCE Extruder and disks so I had to back up and punt. What I ended up using is a piece of bamboo cut to 1/3 as the “trough” to shape the top. I think I will find or make a new trough that isn’t as deep as the bamboo one. I even amazed myself with sanding the pieces all the way through all of my grits. I haven’t sealed it with any finish, it is just buffed to the 9’s. I guess I should shut up and just show you the bracelet eh? Well here it is.
I think I will make a few more of these in different colored blends. I can also see a few different things I would like to try besides the back filling or for that matter WITH the back filling to adapt it a bit more. Maniguette has beautiful things on her blog, drop by and see all her pretties!
Yes, I pretty much finished getting things put away and weeded out. I had my guild meeting this morning and made a nice skinner blend then came home motivated to get enough done that I can clay tomorrow. I will admit I still have to go through two boxes that contain the file cabinet items and shred what I don’t need, plus combine two large rubbermaid containers into the yarn container, but besides that, it is all done. I will deal with that this coming week as I am taking pictures of things to put up for sale.
I need to introduce one of my studio mascots. (one of eight) Zuma is our giant “pear” cat. Her favorite position is flat on her back or twisted into a pretzel shape. As I was taking pictures of how the clay room looks now she came in and promptly flopped on the floor and posed for me.
Starting from the doorway you see my closet stock. In there I have my beads, items to cover, large canes, and one double rolling cart with items all neatly in the drawers (not labeled yet).
Next you can see my tower of clay and clay table. I am weird, I am a left handed pasta machine user. (no, I am actually right handed but when I started claying I had a bad right shoulder and now, I am not comfie using the PM on my right side) Already laid out are some sheets I created over a month ago, waiting for me to create something with them.
Next…the computer corner. Soon the desktop will be gone (though I will hang on to the monitor to hook into the notebook) This is where I have my inspiration board, some items I ahve gotten in trades and swaps, the anodizer is tucked down in the shelf unit along with some of my clay dvd’s. The file cabinet is hidden by the two boxes I still need to go through.
Finally, my book case wall. This has my clay books, my Anne McCaffrey books and my beloved dragon collection. Sitting at the base of the book caseare the two boxes full of items I have weeded out to sell. Nope….not telling you whats in them. You will just have to wait.
I am sure that I will be doing some tweaking on where things are stored or how I have things set up, but for now I am pretty happy with how it looks. I do have a small table that I can set my photo cube on for taking good pictures, my easel is tucked under the clay table along with the canvases, in case I want to paint. It has been a hard road getting this room all set up, but one I am actually happy that I took. The energy in the room feels wonderful and I have a feeling that the energy will translate in to happy creating. Until the next post, happy claying!