Late again, but with good reason.

Right, so, finals at school ate my life, time, energy, and brain.  The worst thing about finals in art classes is that it's not really an exam.  You basically take all the art work you did in class, display it, and stand up in front of the whole class and justify your existence...including your failures.

Epic Fail: Spirit of Earth

This was supposed to be "Spirit of Earth", AKA The Green Man.  It has bubbles, both ruptured and not (the popped ones you can see the base color in), as well as silver wire that has separated from the enamel.  This was mostly my hubris biting me in the ass.  Between the bad engineering decision that resulted in a face full of cracks (It's heavy enough metal that I can wait and counter-enamel at the end!), the physics-lacking jury-rigged solution (If I flip it over and counter it now, all the cracks will melt back together and everything will be ok), and over-firing at the end, the glass melted enough to allow the cloisonné wire to start falling out, and the glass to run down them.  It's a small miracle I didn't seriously damage the school kiln.  The only thing that survived were those totally perfect eyes...mocking me.



In happier news, Water is done:

Spirit of Water

I am pleased, especially with the metallics I got in the darker brown and the water.

This week in the Studio

I give you this week's big learning experience:

Oops!

Yes, that's a hole in the top of my bench.  The lesson here is that an Ikea hollow-core desktop is not designed to withstand a disc-cutter being pounded directly on the surface.  That's right, kids.  I went straight through the copper and into the desk.  I've got a rubber cutting mat laid in that area now, and the disc-cutter doesn't seem to bother it at all.

Now, to counter that particular crowning moment of oops, I give you this week's crowning moment of awesome.  2 of them, actually, both having to do with my "Different Worlds" series of enamel pieces.

First, I managed to get some weather detail on one of the blue planet pendants.

Stormy Weather #1

Secondly, I've started doing moons, too

Full Moon #2

This one got featured in an Etsy treasury, which was pretty awesome because it meant someone a) saw it, and b) liked it enough to tell others.  Now if only someone would like something enough to buy it...