Saturday, October 25, 2008

AREtsy Team

The Arkansas Etsy Team is called AREtsy. I live in Arkansas, so I joined this Etsy Street Team to help promote my shop on Etsy. There is a wide variety of items and styles in this group and it is a very friendly group. I hope you will check out some of the shops.

I was featured in an Arkansas Treasury this week too. I was very pleased to find my tiles in two different treasuries this week. The first one was for the Etsy Mud Team and the second was the AREtsy team. Check out the Arkansas team Blog for a list of members and shop links. This treasury featured my custom tile listing.

This treasury was created by Glassbead. Thank you Glass!



Etsy Treasury

I was featured in a recent Treasury that was created by an EtsyMudTeam member, MudGoddess. It expires tomorrow, but here is a snapshot of the treasury.




I was also featured in an AREtsy Treasury. I will post it in my next entry along with more information about Arkansas Artists or the AREtsy Team.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Heart Frame Tile


I haven't posted in awhile because I've been feeling creative frustration lately. Work and life have been very busy and stressful lately so I haven't had much time for creative time at home. I hope that will change soon. I need to make it a priority again, for my own sanity. I need to turn off the tv and stop watching the news. All the economic and political turmoil is becoming negative energy. I want to create for the sake of creating, but when I think of the economy, I begin to wonder if there is any point. But I will keep creating, despite the bad economy, because that is what I do. I don't feel like I've accomplished anything if I go very long without finishing a project. I just posted this little clay tile frame with hearts in my Etsy shop. I've got a few more clay items that I will be posting soon.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

"The Ritz" - Custom Tile Finished!

My latest clay tile is finished and on its way to its new owner who plans to give it as a gift. It has taken many weeks for this process to be completed because of the many steps that are required to finish a clay piece. First I made sketches from the description that the customer gave to me for what she wanted. In this case, she wanted a lakehouse. She made a couple of suggestions for changes of little details. Then I created the tile in clay, which took me 3 to 4 hours. Then the drying and waiting time began. To avoid warping of the tile, I loosely cover my tiles for several days to start the drying process, very slowly. After it is leather hard, I start to uncover the tile for a little while each day. I don't want the little details to dry too quickly. Eventually leaving it uncovered to completely dry out. Some of the edges are cleaned up, then I put it into the kiln to fire. After it is bisque fired, I apply black glaze to the surface and wipe away the black on the top surfaces, leaving black in the creases, lines, indentions, etc. The black glaze makes the texture and the depth show up better. The glaze colors are painted on, then refired. The best part is opening up the kiln to see the final result! Hopefully, it looks like I planned. Sometimes it does not. That can be disappointing. Although this process can take several weeks, I enjoy it and the creative process.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Memphis Chapter CPSA Art Show

I don't have much news this week, except that I have two drawings hanging in the Memphis Chapter of CPSA show at the Bartlett Performing Arts Center, Bartlett, Tennessee. This show will run through Oct. 29th. As I mentioned last month , I had my latest baseball picture and my Tree Scribbles framed for this show. You can see these hanging in these two pictures. That's my baseball above the woman's head in the picture. The collage tree with scribbles is in the 2nd photo in the middle. The opening reception was held last night.


"Stars, Stripes, and Stitches
"Colors of the Seasons"

My Kiln

My Little Kiln She is small but mighty. She gets the job done.  The size of my kiln does limit what I can create, but I get a lot of use o...