I made this in the same pumpkin making workshop I made the glass pumpkin in. I forgot to use the optics mold, so it turned into an apple instead of a pumpkin. Since it was going to be a different kind of fruit, I made a dimple in the bottom, and asked for a green-hued bit. Used the leaf press instead of the optics mold. I really like this.

The first one-day workshop I took this fall was for making glass pumpkins. It was billed as a beginner workshop, which was a mistake, as these are tricky to make. Some people weren’t able to make any. I was out of practice, so I made it easier for myself by doing one that was clear. I love the way the optics mold gave the vine those lines.

I quite like how the colors came out on this one. The yellow frit is opaque, but the cobalt blue is transparent, so wherever the blue overlaps the yellow looks translucent green. Very pretty. I got three colors in one.

This is one of the more successful ornaments I made at the workshop eariler this month. One of the changes they’d made at the MAC glass studio since I’d been there the last time is that the frit is in larger pieces. It makes it harder to pick up, but the colors can be more intense.  I used small white frit on the first pass, and then used larger frit with the second pass, for a nice textural effect. I also spun it a little so that I’d have some movement. The only drawback to this one is a sharp ridge near the loop.

I took another of the glass blowing one day workshops at the Mesa Art Center in early December. I do so love playing in the hotshop, but it’s frustrating that the only one day workshops were available as and listed as “no experience required.” On one hand, I like that people have a chance to learn glassblowing without so much commitment. On the other hand, it’s frustrating to listen to the same introductory lecture for the first 45 minutes of every too-short class when I really want to be playing with molten glass.

My first ball exploded when my assistant, new to glassblowing, blew too hard and popped it like a bubble. This was her second try, and I managed to stop her in time. This looks a little oblong, and it’s a little topheavy, but it has character.

The name of this book came from the epoxy sticker on the front. My friend sent it to me from Japan, home of the most wonderful stationary stores I’ve ever seen. She sent it in the year of the pig, a few years ago, and I couldn’t bear to part with it, so I put it in my card catalog of reusable junk.

For the cover, I started with a piece of striped cotton, which I pasted a sheet of joss paper onto, much like the grackle book. Since I already had the wings silkscreen out and the gold and interference paints ready, I silkscreened a pair of golden wings onto the cloth, then got out my commercial stamps and pasted the yellow lanterns here and there for a focal point.  I tried to stamp the gold on the joss paper too, but the effect is so subtle that I can’t even make out the design.

I also used my swallow linoblock (which makes frequent appearances in my art) and made a red swallow right across the cover.  Once that was done, I was ready to glue the cover onto the book, and then I used origami paper with kimono designs for the endpapers. Only after all that was fastened securely to the book did I glue the face onto it. The face is made of polymer clay (gold clay) and I used a commercially purchased press mold. I made a bunch of them and had them lying around for when I happened to need a focal point for a book.

I made some new books, on account of it was a certain person’s birthday and she didn’t have any of my little books yet. So I made covers for the last three book blanks I had. This is my favorite of the three. I started with some simple cotton cloth from a placemat. I pasted it to a piece of paper, and then layered over a piece of joss paper. Joss paper is nice for collage because it’s quite thin, and because the inks are not colorfast, so you get some interesting bleeding.

I wanted to do some linoblock prints, so I mixed up some red acrylic and did the print of the grackle over the joss paper. I then used the rubber stamp of the music score.  At this point, it was so boring, it looked like my throwaway cover. It needed a little more chaos, so after I used gold and metallic and interference paints on my other covers, I rolled the excess paint right over the top.

Once I’d had these layers, I was happy with how it looked conceptually, and now it just needed a tactile 3D element to draw it together. I decided to use one of the brass charms, because it had been long enough since I last used it that I’d forgotten what a pain in the ass they are. You glue the circle to the brass, then wait for the glue to dry a bit, and then you put the epoxy sticker over the top. At this point, the epoxy sticker immediately curls up at the edges enough to pull your background paper right off, and then you have to glue the whole thing down and weight it, sometimes more than once.

I’d gone with a brass, copper, gold color theme, so I decided to do grommets along the spine. As you can see in the second photo, I sewed along them with thin red and copper wire. I think that’s my favorite part of this book.  I sewed the charm on the cover with red embroidery floss, and finished the inside by using blue art paper with Chinese clouds on it.

Of the three books I made this time, I was sure this one would be my favorite. I started with some cloth that I like very much, and then I got out some of my expensive interference acrylics and my wings silkscreen and made a pair of shimmery wings across it. I added other Victoriana images: the keys and the urns.

I had already decided that I wanted something moveable, and I had in mind that I would use some gear charms I bought for probably too much money. Then I realized that not all the gears had holes in the middle that were the right sort to allow them to rotate. I had a pack of this metal tape that they use for repairing ductwork, and I have a metal embossing set, so instead I decided to emboss the gears and some clockfaces (also too much money at the craft store). They emboss pretty well. When I was done, I touched them with alcohol based inks, which have a lovely random watercolor-hue.  The cool thing about this metal tape is that it’s TAPE, so when they were done, I stuck them right on the cloth. I used the spinners in the middle of the clocks as my moveable element.

The end papers are gold-brown and black abstract art from 7 gypsies.

This is my favorite of the postcards, probably because I did more work on this one than the others. I started with the Morgan Green tarot card, and I used a stamp of the frame for the outside, (stamping it on black paper and using white embossing powder) I had to trim it to make it look like it fit. To bring the color to the background, I already knew I wanted to cut out butterflies. I had put some ink on the background to dull it down, and the butterflies brightened it up again. Some of the butterflies are stickers, and others I cut out from some art paper. I actually drew a skull on the back of one of the butterflies. One of these days, I’ll actually get back into drawing and draw more on everything, but I have too many cool things that don’t require drawing.

To get the texture on the papers on the back, I used these scissors which make a design. They are not easy to use, and you have to line them up with each two centimeters you cut. I’d spent so much on the front that I wanted something colorful. Had to use a 44 cent stamp too, because it’s too big for the normal rate.

I’d been looking at a cool book that has information on how to make polymer clay tile mosaics, and the artist used a lot of religious icons contained within frames. My friend Jane and I were in awe of how beautiful they were, so I started looking for tiny icon images I could use to duplicate the effect. I used these from a catalog that was selling a lot of Christmas cards. They’re tiny, just the right size for this.

The stamp has the eye inside the onion-shaped arch, so I stamped it on green paper, embossed it in gold, and then cut out the inside. No reason why I shouldn’t reuse it on the backside. There’s still plenty of room for a stamp.