KM&V Countdown - Week 12

What a great week! :)
Not only am I still vacationing, not only did I manage to make my (almost) first fabulous hollows ever ...

Check out the size of this set! I were very impressed with my calm patience. If this is what happens when I torch in the morning, I really have some prioritizing to consider.

These are made in ivory and covered with Zimmermans fabled Z-99 purple. I love the stuff, it keeps prolonging my purple period. My stash will last for a while, but it's really too bad they don't make it anymore :/


I'd like to add that these are made by building discs only, not on a hollow mandrel. There has been no blowing involved, as you can see by the unevenness of the beads, or should I say the wonderfull rustic and organic shapes ;)

I also tried adding a bit of very chunky frit, which I have never tried before. It was not easy to get it to stick, but I am very pleased with the colour. I might like to crush it into smaller sizes of frit, but for this is was good.
Isn't that a lovely purple/blue planet full of little islands? There's even a crater :)


I am a bit undecided about wheather all these should be silvercored, but I suppose I'll have to see if they will fit my tool and let that be the deciding factor.

SO - not only did I get to make these lovelies, I also got a kick in the butt from the wonderfull Karin Castens of Castens Gallery (blog / website). I love what that woman can do with a little bit of silver, gold and precious stones!

But back to the kicking part - it led to me visiting an art gallery down the street from Karins shop, presenting my glassfigures to the owner, and voilá - on saturday I delivered 3 figures and 3 goddess pendants to be included in the gallery. Yay! :D

The gallery is called Gallerie Eros. It is the only gallery purely of erotic art in Denmark, and in a couple of days she will have pictures of my ladies on the website.


The gallery has a mix of old and new, explicit and understated, and you can read all about it on the gallery website!
The owner, Bettina Sinnet Fornitz, was very optimistic and now I am too, so a double yay! and many Thank You's goes out to her :)

A lovely week. Just lovely :)
P~

KM&V Countdown - Week 13

Still vacationing and loving it :)

This week I have been grating all the rough edges off a bunch of these metal cubes I use as base for my larger ladies.


When I get them they have sharp edges and pointy corners, and are somewhat unpleasant. Now they are all smooth and nice to touch. It is important to me that all parts are a pleasure, and as a bonus they will not scratch the surface you place them on (unless you make an effort), Yay!

I hope you are enjoying the summer where you are :)
P~

KM&V Countdown - Week 14

I'm afraid I have no beadrelated news this week either, because this week we went away on holiday, Yay :)
We played in the water, we watched the baby swallows leave the nest during the week, we got close to the wildlife at Knuthenborg.







We visited with family and played bordgames. I've made a few sketches of beads I'd like to make, and began drawing a palette of coulours to stick to, but nothing I'd like to show off :)
It is nice to be back home though, and I am looking forward to the rest of the vacation too.

I hope you have a lovely summer!
P~

KM&V Countdown - Week 15

Oh my, what a week. I don't think I have ever worked quite as hard all in one week. Unfortunately this has nothing to do with my show and everything to do with the rain that fell last saturday and the flooding that followed.

I have spent every evening of the week moving boxes of stuff, I even took a day off to try to get ahead. I did start out sorting the stuff, but by the end of the week I just moved the dry boxes to dry spots without looking much at it. The wet boxes had to be sorted of course, to see what was trash and what was treasure. I have to admit, it was mostly trash, though some things have been rescued. It is amazing how we have let it build up without even looking at it.

I am happy to say that the basement is dry now (mostly) and looking better than ever (mostly). I would really like to sort through the dry boxes and only keep the good stuff, and I will, I just need to regain my energy, and also give some attention to my show project. I feel terribly behind after this week.

So - since nothing beadrelated has happened this week, I'll tell you about an experiment I did the week before.

While surfing I came across this post on Watch me Create
I had never heard of fuming with EDP, but it sounds like something I'd like so I had to try it right away. I made a little bead in dark ivory, then fumed it in fine silver first. I wanted to make it crackle, but I guess I burned it all off.
Then I got my EDP and cooked it 'till it boiled. I could see the fuming hapening, but the bead didn't seem to take it. As I cleaned the bead the matted areas could be rubbed right off, so I'm guessing I put it in the wrong place in the flame or perhaps it was too cold. I shall definately try this again to see if I can get the matted surface to stay.

And I want to show you something interesting that happened. Here is the rod I used for fuming. See how at the end it has gone all clear? Fascinating!


Have a great week, try something new :)
P~

PS: I'm very happy to say that my oxygen concentrator is still alive after the flooding. I did manage to get it out of the water in time. Phew! & Hooray!
Unfortunately our laundry maschine was not as lucky :(

KM&V Countdown - Week 16

This week I have lost several beads to cracking bead realease. Some mandrels were freshly dipped and dried, some were dipped weeks ago. I think it might be a humidity problem. Maybe.
I did get a couple finished, these are from my first torchsession:


And my second:


The green flowerpod is a mess, and that lady on the right? She has no boobs because of beadrelease releasing too soon. I decided to make some nipsenåle (cause they aer made without release), even if I don't intend to bring any for the show, and here are 6 happy turtles in a row.


On saturday we had 2 months worth of rain within a couple of hours. Some areas close by got 150mm. I don't think we got that much, but it still ended up in my basement and my workshop.
I managed to burn my arm when reaching behind the kiln to untangle the cord of my oxygen concentrator, the only part of my tools that is on the floor. I hope I got it out in time, that water was raising fast! But I have to say - peppermint tootpaste is your friend. It took the pain away quickly so I could shovel water all night completely painfree. Yay! :)


But oh my poor muscles. I have aches all over from shoveling for hours on end. I need a rest. Goodnight :)

P~

KM&V Countdown - week 17

I started out the week with a torchsession on sunday. I haven't been torching much at all during this year, so this was a practice run, to see if I can even make a bead anymore. I decided from the start that I would only be playing and getting my feel for the glass back, which was a good thing.


These ringbeads are my first ever and hold their share of mistakes and inaccuracy. I don't think this is a good time to start practicing something completely new (allthough I am dying to try making hollows by blowing, as well as these ring beads), so I will only be doing them for fun, if at all, during these weeks. I intend to make beads I know well, with little variations to keep it fresh.

The drop pendant bead is going in the 'to sell' box after all, and I have added 'Buy more bails' to my to-do list.

Then I had another torchsession, oh yes, two within a week, how about that?

I had a plan as to what to make, instead of just deciding on the spot. I know I want to bring lots of my large ladies and lots of pendants to the show, so I set off with a torso.
These are only hard to do because of the time they take to finish. This one took more than an hour, with all the melting down of rods and even more keeping her warm. But apart from that it is a calm process that does not involve much precision, which is the perfect project to start up on after months of inactivity.


After I finished her I made a couple of pendants, using DH Clio and Psyche and Zimmerman purple rose and extreme white frit. I love that stuff :)
They are all very well reduced and extremely shiny and jewel-like, and it doesn't show at all in this picture ...


I have also begun making a plan for the 17 weeks. Nothing solid as of yet, but I have thought of what I want to bring, and am settling on a colour palette for the entire range of products. I'd like my space at the show to be a pleasant visual experience, which will take a bit of colour discipline on my part.

That is all for this week :)
P~

17 week countdown!

At the market last weekend I had and awfull lot of beads stolen. 14 purple silvercored braceletbeads, 30 uncored braceletbeads and two larger beads too.




I'm not going to complain about it though. It left me with all sorts of weird feelings, some unpleasant, but mostly I feel strangely relieved and very eager to start producing new beads. This is a good thing :)

My next 'market' is the huge (and might I add censored ;) 'Kunst, Mad & Vin' (Art, Food & Wine) show at Falconer Centeret in Copenhagen. It is on october 21-23'rd and I am very excited about being accepted. A ton of people will come, it is a fact, and I intend to be ready this time.
I have 17 weeks (including this one) to produce and stock up.

However - I know myself well enough by now to know that if I'm not carefull I will let weeks and weeks pass because 'there's plenty of time'.
So in order to keep myself accountable I hereby declare:

~ o 0 o ~
I intend that on monday of each of the 17 weeks I will accumulate and post a list of what I have done during the past week to reach my goals for this art fair.
~ o 0 o ~
So be it!
p~