The studio positively glowed with creative energy today – six art teachers and artisans from south of San Antonio drove in for the Collage on Canvas workshop. I had met Becky and Sharon at Sandy Oaks Olive Orchard when I taught a journal workshop there earlier in the year, and they brought their friends and colleagues today to play. What a fun, talented group! Every workshop is limited to six people and that seems to be the perfect number to collaborate and share ideas. We definitely borrowed and developed tips and techniques from each other. Everyone was so generous sharing their materials – I received some wonderful tablecloth remnants and some old keys and feathers and cactus-pad skeletons – cool. When you see their work, you’ll be as impressed as I was – thanks for a great afternoon, everyone!

It’s a clean studio (in relative studio terms). It took a few hours, but I’m ready for tomorrow’s workshop. Among the things I found were my lost bee stamp, my lost favorite face mold, a bunch of assorted beads, chopsticks, and a plastic elephant. And tons of clay dust and paper scraps. Switching from collage to clay really is a challenge! But I’m ready for my Collage on Canvas class tomorrow – yay! Here’s the unvarnished photographic record of spotlessness . . . well, maybe not “spotlessness” –  but improvement, nevertheless.

It’s always a little scary to open the kiln when it’s fired during the night – once it over-fired, once things were way too wet and there was breakage, but most of the time, it’s a thrill to see all of the pieces intact and transformed. I loaded the latest edition of shards yesterday afternoon late (1st photo) and this morning at 5:00, the kiln sitter had tripped off, and while the pieces were still hot, they looked fine. I never can wait until daylight, always have to get out the flashlight and check on them. They are still too hot to handle but I can unload the kiln in a hour or so. These pieces fired at Cone 05 (about 1800+F), as do most of the earthenware pieces I make. Thanks to the kiln gods!

During Sunday’s Image Transfer workshop, I made a disappointingly mediocre transfer of a woman on watercolor paper that I am rescuing (I hope) – I added a rice paper indirect transfer on the right and then went back into the face with watercolor. I added some iridescent acrylic on the “window” part to give it some drama. It’s not Great Art, but if it were developed a bit more, it could be a nice illustration.

I loved this workshop group – we experimented a lot and got crazy results, sometimes really good ones, sometimes really weird ones. One of the things that *didn’t* seems to work was the ITS solution on the tiles – I tried it afterwards, and by baking the tile instead of using the heat gun, it seemed to transfer a lot better. I still think I rushed it a bit (and next time will let it soak several hours) but here were the steps I followed:

Cut the thermal (laser) design to fit the unglazed tile

 Pllace face down on unglazed tile and rub until well-adhered, then bake in a 325F oven for 30 minutes

 The paper will be firmly stuck to the tile after baking

 Cool the tile, then soak it in cold water for at least an hour (this is where I rushed it a bit)

 Gently rub the paper off, leaving the ink design – you can see that it came off around the edges, but I think if I had torn the edges to make them softer, this might not have happened.

Coat with a clear acrylic spray to protect the tile

The banner is up at the gallery – that means get back in the studio and start painting! 10 down, 20 to go – yikes.

The Herb Market was a trip! I had never done a show like that before with tables and lots of vendor rules and big crowds. The emphasis was on herbs (naturally), so I took some Scent Shards, the new little Sprig Shards, and the small dishes with bees on them.
Well! The Sprig Shards *sold out* in an hour – one woman bought 23 of them. I hope she has a lot of friends (or sprigs). Almost all of the Scent Shards and little dishes sold as well. It was amazing.
I absolutely couldn’t have done it without the help of my dear friend Maria Luhrman, who manned the cash box, talked to everyone and kept them interested, and even gave me the best homemade granola bar I’ve ever eaten. Thank you, Maria!! Here are some photos (thanks to Mike for taking these)

  

Work is going well on the Shades of Twilight series – I read part of The Prophet today while I was working in the studio and there are some lines that fit exactly what I’m working toward. I’ve finished ten of the small paintings, 20 more to go. Here’s a preview (although they may change a bit) —

I received these photos tonight from Rue, a talented creator and online friend – just look at her new Samhain Altar Doll: “Season of my Soul:”

 It makes me feel like dancing in the forest! Lovely work, Rue – as always, you elevate my little shard faces and give them a whole new life of their own.