Two wonderful new classes

September 14, 2012 3 Comments

I have wonderful news to share! I am planning my workshop schedule for 2013 and have arranged to two very talented teachers to run Masterclasses in art clay silver here in my workshop in Yorkshire.

The first will be Anna Mazoń from Poland, known for her intricate designs in metal clay.

11th and 12th May 2013 – Herbarium openwork pendant workshop with Anna Mazoń
£325 per person including materials.

In this class you will learn to make an openwork, romantic pendant, adorned with a bezel set stone and precise, tiny ornaments. You will use silver clay to create lacy, yet strong and secure constructions, which you’ll decorate with extremely detailed tiny leaves, flowers, forest fruits or other ornaments of your choice. You will also learn to make a box like, elevated base for a stone and set it in a bezel setting. All these skills can be easily adapted to your own style, merged with your favourite techniques and used with different metal clays.
 Openwork designs are wonderful response to increasing silver prices, allowing you to save on material, but not on the quality of your works. Some previous silver clay experience is necessary.

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The second will be Joy Funnell. Joy Funnell is well known for her colourful silver and enamel Venetian carnival mask pendants. This will be the first time Joy has taught this workshop to a group anywhere in the world!

29th and 30th June 2013 – Colourful Carnival Masks with Joy Funnell
£385 per person including materials

On this 2 day workshop you will learn how to create your own unique silver mask using Art Clay Silver. Then we will cover how to add wires to the mask for decoration before enamelling them to create your very own colourful carnival mask pendant. You will learn tips and tricks including creating the best surface on the silver for the enamel, making a three dimensional mask shape, making bails and decorating the reverse of your piece including setting small stones.
Once the masks are fired and polished you will learn Joy’s unique Enamelled Accents technique for adding wires to make free standing cells for enamel. After covering how to prepare the enamels to get the brightest clearest colours you will learn how to wet lay them onto your piece and how different colour enamels can be used and blended together.
Finally we will use patination to accentuate the bright enamel colours and the textures.
During this workshop you will have a rainbow of enamel colours to use that you will be able to take home with you afterwards.
Some previous experience with silver clay is necessary.

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Terms and conditions
£100 deposit required to confirm a place, £100 payable two months before the commencement of the class and the balance payable by cheque or cash 14 working days prior to the first day of the class.

14 days notice of cancellation is required so that I can resell the workshop place.
In the event of cancellation more than 14 days before the class the deposit can be carried over to another mutually convenient class. Cancellation by the student less than 7 days prior to a workshop will result in forfeit of your deposit and course fee.

Each class has a maximum number of places available and a minimum number before it can run. If I have to cancel a workshop I will give as much notice as possible and a place will be offered for an alternative workshop at a future date. Refunds will be given in the event of tutor illness or insufficient numbers booked for a workshop.
I reserve the rights to vary these terms and conditions at any time.

My studio is based in the beautiful village of Glaisdale on the North Yorkshire Moors, approximately 12 miles inland from Whitby. I can recommend B&B accommodation locally – email me for details.

Filed under art clay silver, Art Clay Silver Courses, Enamel jewellery, Enamel silver jewellery, Enamelling, Enamelling classes, Guest tutors, Jewellery, jewellery making class, Learn to enamel, Master classes, Metal clay, Metal clay classes in Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, setting stones, Silver and enamel jewellery, Silver clay classes, Tools and tips, Workshops in North Yorkshire Tagged with , , , , , ,

Moths and butterflies

July 20, 2012 1 Comment

The Guild of Enamellers exhibition is up and running at the Pannett Art Gallery, it continues until 12 August 2012 and in the meantime I have gone back to working on a few ideas. For a while now I have been looking at moths and butterflies and how they are used as inspiration for jewellery. Some of the most striking examples are found in the Art Nouveau jewellery of the early 20th century and I was lucky to visit the museum of decorative arts in Paris recently and look at some beautiful pieces (sadly no photography allowed – and a very poor book available)!

Anyway, I am back working slowly on these ideas.

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The wet weather means there haven’t been many butterflies in evidence in the garden this year but yesterday I was lucky to find a couple of ringlets in the polytunnel.

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I was able to gently catch this one and it stayed quietly on my hand for some time, allowing me to really appreciate it’s beauty and observe how fluffy it’s body was and the fine lines of the structure of its wings. Eventually it flew off into the garden. Although this wasn’t a particularly vivid butterfly it has given me new inspiration and I will continue to work on my attempts to capture the essence of this ephemeral creature.

I have plenty of classes coming up – just get in contact if you would like to learn to make your own beautiful piece of silver or enamelled jewellery.

Filed under art clay silver, Enamel jewellery, Enamel silver jewellery, Enamelling classes, jewellery making class, Keum boo, Learn to enamel, Metal clay, Metal clay classes in Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, PMC, Silver and enamel jewellery, Silver clay classes, silver clay rings, Sterling silver clay, workshops, Workshops in North Yorkshire Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Hearts and a lovely day at the Castle Museum

May 12, 2012 2 Comments

I have had a lovely day at the Castle Museum in York teaching art clay silver jewellery making to a small group (five). After a brief description of our aims for the day – to make a silver keepsake pendant, I took the group down to Kirkgate, a street created within the museum which has a variety of Victorian shops. We spent a bit of time looking at the jewellery in one of the shop windows and talking about ideas of sentimental jewellery. There are some lovely examples of cameos and name brooches but I wanted the group to focus on a pretty little gold open work heart shaped pendant. Because the museum light levels are fairly low to protect the objects in other displays and the pendant it was quite a way back in the window I couldn’t get a good photo of it. Having had a good look at the examples we went back up to the meeting room and I showed them the sample I had made and talked a bit about the art clay silver products and production. I then did a demonstration of the first steps for rolling out, creating the textures and forming the main heart shape.

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This is based upon a project published by the Artist Alcina Nolley some time ago and adapted slightly by me to fit into this theme of creating a sentimental keepsake. After rolling out and trimming a textured strip it is wrapped twice over a plastic straw. We had to add a little moisture to the surface of the strips – it was really warm in York today! The ends were joined with a little paste and gentle pressure and trimmed, keeping the clay trimmings safely in a bit of plastic film. The shape was tweaked slightly while the metal clay was still soft.

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Then the main pieces were put to dry while the students re-conditioned the trimmings and made another small piece. At this point some of them chose to set a small fireable stone. This little piece was also put to dry. By using the trimmings to make this little additional shape the project uses a complete 7g pack of art clay silver. After refining the edges of the pieces using ‘baby wipes’ (which avoids the need to sand and having to supply students with dust masks and makes it easier when away from my own studio) the pieces were joined using a little of the paste, dried fully and fired in my kiln.

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After firing and cooling the students polished and burnished their pieces before threading them onto chains. They can be threaded through one loop so that they hang asymmetrically or, as all the group chose, by threading the chain through both loops so that the heart hangs level.

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I can safely say they were all delighted with their little treasures and one of the class said it would be a perfect birthday present for her sister!

Thanks to them and to the staff and volunteers at the Castle Museum, York for making this possible and to Alcina Nolley for sharing her original idea on which this project is based.

Filed under art clay silver, Art Clay Silver Courses, Jewellery, jewellery making class, Metal clay, Metal clay classes in Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, Silver clay classes, workshops, Workshops in North Yorkshire Tagged with , , , , ,

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