Happy New Year

Happy New Year!!

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Ok, in true Kelly fashion I'm about a week late, but I hope you and yours had a lovely holiday season.  Ours was manic as ever, zipping between Northampton and Birmingham, seeing all the family and having lots of fun along the way.

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I made one New Years Resolution; to stay more up to date with my blog.  My job is evolving and has already turned from a 3-day week to a 4-day week.  I am due to go permanent shortly, when I'll be back to a full 5 day week.  Until then though, I still have my one day a week for all things creative so my intention is to blog each week until I go full time again.  It's a small resolution, but one I hope I can keep.

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So, here's my first post for 2010!

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Here's Jasper - yep, he's headless again!  I have to admit I'm beginning to feel more satisfied with him lately, I even  look at some parts and feel they're ready for the waste mold!  I don't think I'll ever be fully happy with him, but I am determined to finish him this year.

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Amber and Deeley got realy close today, they even touched noses!

Today I also finished the Bear portrait, I'm not positive I'm done yet so emailed a photo over to Joanie, I'll post a pic when I know it's finished.
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One thing I'm going to miss horribly when I go full time, are the daytime walks I have with Bruno.  I do walk him lunchtimes on other days but on my day off work, we just have lots of fun.  He's really enjoying the snow, and he loves eating the snowballs off his paws when we get home too!

One last off-topic shot from today, this one just makes me giggle!  Wheeeeeeeeee!!!

Hey Joanie!

Does this look like anyone you know? This work-in-progress is the second in a trio of portraits I've taken on in a trade deal with Joanie Berkwitz, the uber-amazing custom glaze specialist (she is happy for me to talk about her here - Hi Joanie!). I just looked through my previous blogs and can't find the post showing the first portrait, so here is a pic of that one (the scanner makes it look more contrast-ey than it is, but you get the idea). I've made a lifestyle change recently; going part time with my "day-job" means I am able to dedicate two solid days a week to my artwork, sculpture and casting. I've had to learn to see things slightly differently as I now HAVE to earn at least a small amount each month in order to top up my income, but so far so good.... (she says confidently! hehe!). This does mean that I'll be taking on more and more portrait commissions over the next few months, I spent a few hours Thursday designing my fliers, they're ordered now so we'll have to see how well that bit of advertising goes. I'm totally new to this type of business so it'll be quite the eye-opener seeing how much publicity is needed to get an order.

In he mean-time, I'm enjoying working on this second portrait a bit more than I expected - after the first I developed quite a phobia towards my white pencils for a little while, hehe! It's likely I'll take on a paid commission next, before tackling the third in the series, partly as this is a trade deal I need to get funds too, but also to avoid that phobia returning!

Latest news

Lots of new things have been happening recently! Bruno is growing like a weed, we went to visit the family in Birmingham last weekend and took him for a walk up at the Lickey Hills, it was pretty misty and with all the fun he was having playing with the other dogs there he was absolutely soaking when we got back to the car. Bruno is my first dog, I can't help but wish I'd made it happen sooner, he is everything I wished for and I am thoroughly enjoying having him in the family! Amber is pretty confident around him now, but Deeley is still very timid. We'll get there though - I just thought, in our house now there are 14 legs!!! Hehe!

I started by new job last week too, I was quite entertained when I saw my "office". We're in the middle of an office move so I'm just working at a spare desk, it's lost in the massive room. I'm enjoying the peace and quiet though, at my old job it was very open plan and echo-ey, here I have perfect peace and am working so much faster, it's lovely! The job itself is mind-blowing, using cutting edge technology and state of the art equipment. I can't put too much here yet (it seems some people at my old place have grudges to bear, sigh) but this job could be the making of me, and at the same time it may well bring my high-tech employment and my low-tech hobby together in a most exciting way (ooh, I wish I could say now, but...)

Here's a happy photo. I LOVE colour, so when I knew I'd be making a number of molds for the Snowflake Frodo run, I needed to keep track of them so colour-coded them. I actually have a brown mold complete now to add to this selection and next up will be a white and a black. Unfortunately the snowflake combined with the texture of the pony are pretty tough on mold rubber, I got over 50 models out of each of my Little One molds, but I don't think these will be anywhere near that many, so I'm planning about 25-30 per mold this time round. The molds have all come out well, apart from the blue one - the model moved while the rubber was curing, so I put that mold onto a little stack of wooden tongue depressors (large lollipop sticks) to make sure the model still casts perfectly flat.

I caught myself having a bit of a moment a few days ago, when I was tidying all my mold-making kit away to make room for the casting stuff. I was looking at my rubber mixing bucket and admiring all the little bits of coloured rubber that have survived my attempts to clean it. Somehow I just felt it had a story to tell. Apologies if the picture is sideways, I'm still working out the kinks in Blogger and Picasa.

I found out some exciting news today, it's to do with my "Little One" sculpture - I've had a cool idea - more details on that when I know more myself! Til next time...