Egyptian Paste

Just finished soldering my last granules to the tube.  Now I have to use the magical "Egyptian Paste" to make sure the porcelain stays attached to the metal!
But wait, theres more....
When I glazed the porcelain, I needed to put  two little dabs of glaze resistant clay to the bottom of the spoon so that it wouldn't stick to the kiln shelf.  I've sanded the areas, but they are white and distracting.  The epoxy that I use is food safe and dark grey.  I forgot about fixing this until now, but it is leading me into new and exciting possibilities!!!

Tube Makin'

Finally got my spoons made, glazed and out of the kiln.  I glazed white, black and blue spoons and decided to go with black.  I think that this will compliment the metals the nicest. 
Now, I'm chasing a tube form as the handle.  I decided to chase a hollow form because my reference is a very colorful lizard, with a lot of texture.  There are going to be two layers in the tube, the underneath will be brass, which will be enveloped in copper. along the seam, there will be silver accents.

Spoon Glazin'

Yesterday, I glazed all my spoons up and they are firing to cone 10 right now.  I chose my favorite one, but glazed seven, just in case I break one...or six. 

Waiting.

Over the past week, I made several spoons that vary in size and texture.  They are in a bisque right now and are almost ready to unload.  I was hoping I would be able to take them out before or during class, but the kiln is still over 500 degrees....looks like I'll have to wait.
By the end of the day, I'll be able to start forming my spiculums for the handle.

Run Rabbit!

This is not really related to jewelry in any way, but I'm so excited about it, I'm sure there will be a sculpture coming soon!



Final Project: Spoon

The final project is a bit of a challenge because it needs to actually function.  We are making spoons.  Therefore, we need to consider what metals we can eat off of (silver) and how to construct the bowl of the spoon.  I plan on making the bowl of my spoon out of porcelain, which will be held by a silver stem.  Porcelain is very strong and will be food safe.  Hopefully, this will prevent any bending that might happen if I were to use fine silver as the bowl of the piece. 
My theme is reptiles and I stumbled across this pretty cool family of lizards.  They come in all different colors and they are all very interesting to me.  They are called Anolis Lizards.



NCECA Seattle

NCECA is for ceramics, but it was refreshing and gave me some good ideas across the board.  Here are some pictures that I took.

This is at the Aquarium

This is a wall of gum.

The sign in the back says "Help save our oceans, eat meat."  Looks pretty appetizing...

And here are some images from the train.

Somewhere between North Dakota and Montana

Riding along the Puget Sound in Washington, right outside of Seattle

Somewhere in North Dakota