Your never too old...

to learn new things!

Last year I promised myself that I would learn to do modern calligraphy. I have been making cards and mostly using stamps for greetings because I am not too confident with hand lettering. I found some basic info on youtube and played around a little. Last week I found an online course on the "teachables" platform. The first month to learn basic strokes is free. The next few months of lessons are reasonably priced and you can pay as you go. So now I have all these practice drills on nearly every surface of the house. Jeff patiently refers to them as my "sheet music". He is right... it does look like sheet music. Leave it to a musician to see that.

If you are curious, here is a link to the course: The Happy Ever Crafter

Now that I look at a photo of my drills I can see that my ovals on the left hand sheet look wonky. I guess I better get back to practicing those!

Getting out of my comfort zone...

 A while back I signed up for Carolina Claymatters summer workshop. It's free for members and at the time I thought, what the heck, by August 30th we should be done moving and a workshop will be a real treat. Yeah, right. That didn't happen. I really had no business taking a day off and driving to Charlotte, but I did it anyway. It was a long day, but a good diversion from the stress of getting our studio moved.

The workshop presenter was Allison Luce. She is ceramic sculptor, works in raku clay, and fires to ^2. Her work really has very little relevance to what I make but I was able to take away some interesting techniques, as well as new ideas for my own non-functional work.

The focus of the workshop was creating depth in the work by layering oxides, underglazes, acrylic paint, and shoe polish. Yes, you read that right... shoe polish.

 Cream shoe polish can be purchased in a multitude of colors. The brilliant colors of many of these sea life inspired pieces, were obtained with shoe polish. The shoe polish is applied after the final firing.

 One idea that is now bouncing around in my head, is incorporating underglaze and shoe polish into the finish of my orbs. Typically, I have wood fired the orbs. That means I only make them about twice a year. I am definitely going to give this a try. It's never too late to learn new tricks.