I'm on my way home now after a whirlwind of fun at BeadFest in Philadelphia, PA for the past three days. I'm usually the instructor at events like this so it was really a treat to just be little ole me....not the instructor....but the student! I am officially creatively revived...refreshed...at peace...inspired....
Cathy and I were signed up for metalsmithing classes for two of the three days with one day to shop till we dropped!
Of course with a bead show you expect to see endless amounts of beads beads and more beads and we did....but we saw artists and talent and products we've never used...tools we'd never seen...and a few friends we hadn't seen in a while, plus made lots of new ones.
The inspiration was endless really - I say that alot...but there was such talent here.
Check out the gorgeous lampwork beads. It's hard to tell, but these are giraffe lampwork beads and this artistis was amazingly talented with glass. I
We took a metalsmith and soldering class from Richard Salley. Beyond amazing! We learned how to create our own stamps from copper, how to stamp into solder, how to etch, how to attach and set stones...it was nothing short of amazing! So many of these techniques will translate to my Spellbinders Media Mixage Monday videos - and if you haven't had a chance to see any of them - click here for my youtube channel
Below are some of the samples I made in class -
Top left: I combined what I learned in this class with some of the pieces I made in our Cold Connections and Patina class
Top Right: Bear paw - made this for my sweetie Dana who loved to hunt - not sure what it will be made into...but it's such a cool piece
Bottom left: The design is from one of the copper stamps I made. Part of the process is image transfer to metal and we learned three techniques. I loved this because these methods are almost fool proof. Transferring images to metal has always been a favorite technique but the results up to now have been if-y to say the least...not any more...
Bottom Right: My class samples from our Cold Connection and Patina Class by Kate Richbourg - which was beyond words fantastic.
Always fun to make new friends and meet up with old friends. Upper left: Kate Richbourg and I, below Cathy, myself and Suze Weinberg and Katie Hacker - host of Beads, Baubles and Jewels and I
We also took a class called Cold Connections and Patinas by Kate Richbourg. If you get a chance to take ANY of her classes you must. She is sooooo much fun, so welcoming - just an amazing and lovely woman who is willing to share everything she knows with you.
In this class we learned new ways to use rivets and interesting ways to give color to metal using patina paints, alcohol inks and heat. The great thing about the techniques she shared is that nearly everyone can achieve beautiful effects on metal without having to purchase alot of tools.
We learned how to texture metal using different hammers, and found objects. I brought my Artisan X-plorer and used it to emboss metal - and once I put the color patina on it - OMG it was an amazing moment. It really had the *look* of etched metal....but with no mess - no caustic chemicals and no fumes either....yes...another video on this one!
Below are our class samples from that class - Cathy made the butterfly using the Spellbinders Media Mixage brass blanks and copper to create the dapped circles on the square (lower right)
Upper right were earrings made by a lady who had traveled all the way to Philly from Australia to take classes and they turned out beaut-e-mous! and then mine bottom left....love the colors - whimsical...and I have nothing to wear them with so I guess that warrants a shopping trip don't you think?
Kate shared a few of her class samples and taught us also how to make no-fail rings...a bonus technique...
seriously you need to take her classes - she has some free ones on Craftsy.com
Just can't wait to get home and put these new ideas into practice - and if I don't quit with this post I'm gonna miss my plane!
Have a great creative week everyone!
1 comment:
Those classes sound amazing. I hope we get to see some of the techniques on your Media Mixage videos?? I would love to hear about the image transferring onto metal for one.
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