Back to Basics!

November 10, 2011

I learned so much from my 6-day workshops – I honestly don’t know who learned the most, my students or me. Some things worked out great and some I’ll do differently next time. However I returned home more convinced than ever that two basic precepts hold true. First, the results are almost always gorgeous when [...]

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Back in the Studio!

October 26, 2011

I’m finally back home after several weeks of traveling and teaching. I’ll be writing about my teaching adventures as well as other topics in upcoming posts. Both Maureen Carlson’s Center for Creative Arts in Jordan, MN and Shake Rag Alley School for Arts and Crafts in Mineral Point, WI were wonderful venues for teaching. While [...]

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Sources of Color Inspiration: The Fabric Store

September 8, 2011

My posts are going to be short and less frequent over the next few weeks as I move into a series of workshop/retreats that involve a lot of travel. Next week I’ll be at a mountain retreat center with many of my polymer clay friends. I’m excited to be leaving everything that has to do [...]

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Workshop Teaser (more to come)

August 30, 2011

These are slices of canes made by six of the seven participants in last week’s 6-day workshop in Snohomish, WA. I will add a picture of Sandee Butler’s cane as soon as I receive it. Future posts will include the color inspiration images for these canes as well as some kaleidoscope designs from them. Thanks [...]

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Goodbye Rainbows

August 18, 2011

Announcement: One spot has just opened up in my Kaleidoscope Pendant Workshop at Maureen’s October 2-8, 2011.  More information here. I have several 6-day workshops and retreats coming up in the next 2 1/2 months so my posts are likely to be shorter and less frequent as I scramble to prepare. Mostly, I’ll just be [...]

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Triangles to Squares to Veneers

August 11, 2011

When I first published the previous post, it did not include a picture of the cane I was working on at the time. I added a picture of the cane later in response to a reader’s question. Here it is again, kaleidoscoped into a hexagon design in case you missed it. The initial cane looked like [...]

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Color Consciousness: Sorting Scraps

August 8, 2011

I call these posts about color “Color Consciousness” to emphasize the fact that we are surrounded by opportunities to expand our understanding of color and color interactions if we just pay attention. (I mean really pay attention – what color are tree trunks?) I believe that paying attention to color as we go about our [...]

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Premo Zinc Yellow and Cobalt Blue: A New Perspective on Polyform

July 25, 2011

I have been doing some research on the availability of Premo Zinc Yellow and Cobalt Blue and I am now convinced that people at Polyform understand that these colors are essential to a complete artists’ palette.  However, they only have a very limited amount of influence on which products large retailers, such as Michaels, Hobby [...]

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Color Consciousness: A Diagram Not to be Missed

July 18, 2011

(Updated 7-24-11) I write these posts for a lot of reasons. Thinking out loud, sharing my excitement about something I’ve discovered or done, asking for feedback, and creating a reference for my students are just a few of them. In this case it is because there is some information out “there” that I consider very [...]

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Color Consciousness: Oranges

July 12, 2011

This will be my last post on mixing secondary colors (green, purple, orange) from Premo primaries.  It took me a while to prepare it because my cadmium yellow clay turned to a mustard color (far right) when fired. All clays darken a bit when fired (some more than others) but fired cadmium yellow should look [...]

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