UK Clay Users

Wednesday, 18 July 2012

July Featured Items

Made By Me Me Me

Porcelain White Bird with Pink Heart Necklace - £60.00

This necklace can be purchased here:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/93196630/porcelain-and-silver-bird-necklace-white

Please visit Jade's shop:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/madebymememe

Alex Carr Sculpture

Porcelain Pendant with Translucent Design - £30.00

This pendant can be purchased here:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/97861134/porcelain-pendant-with-translucent

Please visit Alexandra's shop:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/alexcarrsculpture

Maa P Studio

Martin Yellow and White Porcelain Ring - $44.20 (approx £29)

This ring can be purchased here:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/63529577/sale-san-martin-yellow-and-white

Please visit Monika's shop:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/MaaPstudio

Thursday, 28 June 2012

Promotional Plates Display

Calling All UK Clay User Members

Jude Winnall of VanillaKiln is organizing a Promotional Plates Display

" Make/paint a plate. It can be a plaque,
a tile, a work of art or a piece from a dinner set.
As long as it can be stuck/mounted to a wall and is round (ish).
It can be flat, wobbly, in pieces, etc.

Send it to me. I will arrange the collection(s) on an interior wall,

somewhere really presentable with a modern setting.

I will get the plates photographed, captioned with credits,

compiled into a beautiful press release and sent to the

glossy interior magazines to promote ourselves.

Theme

Winter

Shape

Round(ish)

Colour

Any

Medium

Clay, ceramic, polymer, air drying, london clay, etc

Size

It's hoped that there will be enough entries for two room settings.

A mini room setting /dolls house and a normal sized room.

Otherwise the plates will be artistically arranged

on the same wall in size order from large to small.

Miniature, from 1 inch to 1.5 inch
Normal, from 4 inches to 9 inches.

One entry per shop, maximum two plates.

ie, one miniature plate and one normal size plate.

Deadline
Get the plate(s) to me mid August.

I would ask that participants pay the cost of the return postage.

I send out press release late August /early September.
Unfortunately we may miss the Christmas editions – but still worth a go."

For more information
Follow the discussion in our team page:

http://www.etsy.com/teams/11358/uk-clay-users

Or contact Jude via Etsy:

https://www.etsy.com/people/VanillaKiln

June Featured Items

A Mandarin Duck

Alien Prometheus Polymer Clay Ring - £18.00

This ring can be purchased here:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/102380630/alien-prometheus-inspired-ring-polymer

Please visit Aniko's shop:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/amandarinduck

Vanessa Bullick

Spiked Ceramic Pot - £38.00

This pot can be purchased here:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/102739233/spiked-ceramic-pot-sawdust-fired

Please visit Vanessa's shop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/VanessaBullick

Devilish Designs

Steampunk Penguin Sculpture - $55 (approx £36)

This penguin can be purchased here:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/89967432/steampunk-peguin-mech-mechanical

Please visit Sherry's shop:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/DevilishDesigns

Friday, 1 June 2012

Featured Seller: Jude Winnall of VanillaKiln

Tell me about yourself.

I suppose I have always been creative. When I was a little girl, my favourite day was Sunday because my parents would get up late and I would spend all morning in my pyjamas drawing and playing imaginitively. And I loved holidays because we would stay places that had no television. This meant peace and quiet to enjoy drawing and making things. One holiday, I remember spending my hard earned savings on a stapler from the souvenir shop so I could complete some creative project! (Cellotape was very expensive in those days – it lived in a tin and was rationed!)

My Mum taught me to sew and make my own clothes at a time when clothes were ill fitting, inaccessible and/or expensive. Not an easy time if you were a fashion loving teenager with long legs living 50 miles away from a decent boutique! I sewed my way through the 70's and 80's and one of the last items of clothing I made was my wedding dress. I still have offcuts of lace from it which I now use to impress my clay tealight holders and bowls.

Back in the 70's, my parents did not understand how I would possibly make a living at art. However, they did not discourage me when I decided that I wanted to go to art college to study graphic design. It was not until then that I got my hands on some clay and realised I enjoyed modelling with it. This love was rekindled much later in life when I studied figurative sculpture and ceramics in my spare time whilst working as a designer, and more recently, raising a daughter.

Did you enjoy making your own clothes? Do you often keep and re-purpose old garments for your works?

I made my own clothes from necessity but I became so involved in the process that I became very discerning and would only work with the finest quality fabrics and paper patterns. I loved going to the special sales in London that sold the ends of designer fabrics. At the time I was making one-off original garments for myself but all I wanted was to be in fashion! When I look back at the wonderful clothes I made, I wish I had kept them. However I did keep a lot of the offcuts and am developing a project with them now.

Have you incorporated textiles into your ceramics using techniques other than imprinting fabrics?

I created a piece of fine art this year which incorporates textiles with ceramics. I wanted to see how the two materials could be used together in an abstract way. Everything in the piece is white. The background is quilted with the words of John Lennon's song Imagine. I used a special foot on my sewing machine, dropped the feed dogs and sewed the words freehand onto the cloth. Two pieces of figurative ceramic landscapes (like a map) are sewn into place and seperated by folds of horizontal fabric. The piece is my response to the title "Crossing Borders" and represents two counties where creativity is abundant and flowing despite the border. It was exhibited in North Wales recently near the border of Wales and England.

If there are enough hours in my life I would like to produce more mixed media pieces. I was very inspired by a collection of Japanese fabrics at Ruthin Craft Centre recently and would really love to weave long lengths of fabric and pieces of ceramic together and hang them in the light.

Having gained plenty of experience with textiles from an early age what influenced you to become a Graphic Design and later a Ceramicist instead of studying something like Fashion?

I nearly did architecture but opted for graphic design, I thought I might be an illustrator but really liked typography and desiging logos.

Fashion did not appeal to me as a subject choice. I only sewed so I could wear nice clothes, and would have preferred to have bought them. In college, however, I put my sewing skills to good use by constructing three dimensional objects in fabric and made a lamp, a bus ticket machine, an embroidered bus ticket and a boxed view of the city in the rain. I also made three dimensional characatures of my friends which would, these days, be considered art dolls.

Does design influence your crafts and vice versa or do you separate the two?

I love the fact that women are redefining the art world by using traditional feminine crafts like sewing and knitting. When I was in college I would incorporate these elements into my graphics and it's good to see that nowadays graphic design and logos are becoming softer, hand drawn and more feminine.

Graphic design was my "day job" for over 30 years. But when my daughter was born it was difficult to continue full time because of the workload and tight deadlines. So I only work part time now but still really love the work when I can get it.

One of my goals is to incorporate original graphic design into my ceramics and I've made a start with a couple of smaller items – a tea bag bowl and a wedding ring dish. I have designed a hand drawn contemporary typeface which, when applied to the clay, stands proud on the surface catching the light. I am developing a range of items in this range because I'm so pleased with the results.

Do you think there are prominent traits which differentiates craft from design or do you often find similarities between the two?

The beauty of graphic design is that it encompasses so many disciplines. My first job was as a cardboard engineer which could be considered a craft because I needed skills to cut, fold and glue the material. I would define craft work as making things with your hands and there's very little craft work involved with computer aided graphic design. But the mental processes are the same. I get a vision in my head and/or finished visuals flow through pen and paper (or computer). There is one fundamental difference between the graphic design and the craft work and that is the graphic designs are not mine - they satisfy the needs of a client whilst my ceramics satisfy me (and hopefully the people who buy them).

But with fine art it is a completely different process. Well for me it is. I get an idea of something that I want to express and I make things up as I go along, not knowing where it is taking me but hoping that it is saying the right thing visually. It involves doing without censure - then being objective and making decisions.

You also mentioned that Graphic Design has become more feminine. Do you solely use feminine aspects of Graphics for your ceramics or do you choose to use masculine elements as well?

I am using feminine styles in my ceramics simply because, as a woman, I find them attractive. I am working selfishly and Etsy is a very feminine platform - but nothing wrong in that! Boys have their shoot 'em up games and all the other genders have Etsy! Seriously though, I do think there is a huge market for mens' gifts on Etsy and 101 on my list is to make a man's mug, which would be a butch version of the very pretty lacy mug.

Do you feel more satisfaction creating something for yourself rather than for a client? Also do you enjoy creating something that's more hands on rather than designing digitally?

As a graphic designer, I am used to a brief with a client or company to design for. I find it easier designing in three dimensions because that's how my mind works but it is also harder designing things to sell to the "general public" because there is no way of knowing whether they will like it. That's why I like being on Etsy. It is a very stimulating, informative and socialable environment. Our efforts do get recognised and we can tell by the number of favourites or treasuries how our products are doing. I am influenced by what I see on Etsy but ultimately I design things that are pleasing to my eye and hope that they are liked by other people.

I get the most satisfaction designing something original whether it be a logo or a ceramic dish. Both discilines are hands on really - keyboard, camera, clay - I just need a creative project and love to work with my hands.

What triggered your love for clay?

I find working in clay easy and have a natural aptitude in three dimensions. Copying someone's face in clay is so pleasurable. But funnily enough, I did not start to experiment in clay until last year. Up until then I had been following the dictates of various courses and experimenting was limited. I am full of ideas and am particularly attracted to orginality and novelty which accounts for the inclusion of ruffled lace and buttons in my ceramics.

What inspires your shapes, forms and colour choices?

My favourite colours are white, turquoise, grey colours and silver. Porcelain clay allows me to work with these colours most effectively. I love its purity and, because the integrity of materials is also very important to me, I do not want to cover it in colour or hide it's intrinsic qualities with layers of glaze.

Simple elegance and all sorts of three dimensional forms inspire me. I like people's faces, ballet dancers, flowers, birds and natural forms. It's really a question of what to concentrate on and what to develop. I am learning to experiment more with arrangement and not to rely on a preconceived idea. I'm not so slow to reject an idea now and can recognise when something is not working. When I think I have hit apon a good idea I find it useful to put it aside for a while. Usually I can tell if it was as brilliant as I first thought when I look at it again later! And more often than not if I ask my teenage daughter for her opinion the result will be the same. She can recognise something good even though her tastes and mine are not the same.

What does ceramics mean to you and do you plan to move forward with it?

At the moment ceramics is on the thin line between a hobby and a career. I am beginning to get ambitions and dreams of where it could go. My inner critic is very active however and I am constantly having to tell myself that it's ok to be on this unpredictable path. But I have learnt before that by daring to try, and by finding out what I needed to know and learn, dreams do come true. And I would love it if my ceramics could support me and my daughter, so we were free to live wherever in the world we wanted. Me, a dreamer?!

Do you think you'd expand your talents into different types of clay?

I have worked with lots of different clays but in an attempt to narrow down the creative parameters I am sticking to porcelian paper clay for most of my projects. It is strong and easy to work with and I don't have to worry about the clay or my work drying out because it can be wetted, revived and reused (unlike other ceramic clays). I would like to play around again with paper porceain clay slip but I have promised myself that I would use up the clay in the shed before buying more stock. There are also practical reasons why I stick to porcelain. If I have a batch of work going in the kiln it is much more convenient to have everything firing at the same temperature and I'm also familiar with the glazes on this clay.

Do you have a favourite piece of work?

My favourite piece of work is always the one I'm about to make! However my daughter will not let me sell a wobbly bowl with an amazing blue green glaze. It was an experiment that was a huge surprise and completely wonderful. I think it was time I had something like that happen because I have had more disasters than successes really!

Thursday, 31 May 2012

May Featured Items

Jo Lucksted

Queens Jubilee Union Jack Keep Calm British Flag Button - £4.50

These buttons can be purchased here:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/95406826/red-white-and-blue-flag-handmade-union

Please visit Jo Lucksted's shop:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/jolucksted

Buttonalia

Cornucopia Of Small Ceramic Buttons - $15 (approx £10)

These buttons can be purchased here:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/92971784/cornucopia-of-small-ceramic-buttons

Please visit Buttonalia's shop:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/buttonalia

Jo Heckett

4 Porcelain Letter Magnets Choose Your Own - £12

These magnets can be purchased here:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/24627929/4-porcelain-letter-magnets-choose-your

Please visit Jo Heckett's shop:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/joheckett

Thursday, 26 April 2012

Featured Seller: Fizzy Claret

Lets talk about you.

My name is Caroline Fisermanis although I love to sell my art via my nickname Fizzy. I grew up in a town called Rugby in England where I studied art at A level and studied a foundation course in art also. I didn't pass either course as I left both of them half way through to study something else. Although I left my art studying behind it always haunted me and I began sculpting about 2-3 years ago just or the fun of it. I loved it so much I haven't been able to stop and I now love to create miniature dollhouse items and jewelry. I sold my first piece and it inspired me to make more so eventually I opened a shop here on etsy just to see how it would go. So far I am loving the results.

Pick 3 words to describe yourself.

3 words I would use to describe myself would be considerate, imaginative and observant.

Who is your favourite artist and why?

My favourite artist, wow this changes all the time for me. At the moment it is a wonderful artist called Amanda Clark who paints incredibly dreamy images of the countryside, hares, women with long dreamy hair, faces, the moon...etc all of her paintings have such wonderful use of colour and I could sit and look at them for hours. I bought one of her paintings recently and it is just stunning, i'm so proud to own such a lovely piece of art. She actually sells here on etsy and her shop is earthangelsarts.

Tell us about your shop.

My shop is called Fizzyclaret here on etsy and I also sell on eBay under the same name. I first started selling under the name Fizzyclaret 4 years ago and had to make the name up quickly as someone was filling out my details for me. Fizzy comes from my nickname and claret is the name of my wonderful 8 year old cat. I just blurted out Fizzyclaret and the name has now stuck lol.

Tell us about the inspirations for your creations.

I used to decorate old toys such as old and battered My Little Ponies and began sculpting flowers and other decorations to put on them. They turned out quite pretty and began to sell well. Then one day I decided to make a miniature castle teapot and discovered there was actually a demand for miniature teapots, so I made several more. I then started to make lots of different miniatures and have since built up a small following which I'm so proud of.

I'm inspired by nature, walks in the woods, I love patterned and textured things like old trees or a pretty mosaic table...etc. I find that most of my ideas hit me just as I'm drifting off to sleep. I'll get so many images go through my mind that sometimes I quickly have to turn the light on and grab a pen and paper to write my ideas down in case I don't remember them in the morning. My sculpting is a bit like an obsession to me.

What are your creative processes?

My work varies in how long each piece takes me to finish. I find sculpting trees takes me the longest and each piece takes me hours to complete. Most of my sculptures are finished with acrylic paint detailing to highlight certain effects. I don't often seal all my pieces as I look the raw look of the clay after it has been baked and I'm not keen on shiny glosses.

Choose 5 words that describe your work.

5 words that describe my work would be whimsical, colourful, miniature, dreamlike, ooak (one of a kind), hope that last one counts ;)

Do you have any favourite works?

My favourite pieces are my horse head brooches and pendants as I enjoy making them so much. I love the way the colours begin to work together and how the horse developes in front of my eyes.

Any tips you'd like to share with other sellers?

The tips that I would share with other sellers are not to get too disheartened if you don't make many sales in your first year. Stick with it and eventually you'll get there. Keep adding new items little and often, socialise by joining teams and participating in discussions, make treasuries, use other sites like pinterest, twitter or Facebook...etc there are so many ways to build your profile and get yourself noticed. I'm by no means an expert but the little I know about the web certainly helps to get my shop noticed.

Name 3 of your favourite shops.

My 3 favourite shops here on etsy are earthangelsarts for the beautiful paintings, 64tnt which sells beautiful miniature polymer clay dollhouse items and jennifermorrisbeads which has the most exquisite and delightful polymer clay jewelry that I've ever seen - a true inspiration.

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Just a final note to say thank you to everyone who has bought from my shop or to anyone who has favourited my shop or my items. You have all helped a very shy person believe in herself :)