New Studio New Designs

I can't believe that it's been over a month since my last update! There's already the hustle and bustle of one of my favorite holidays of the year. I can already hear my favorite Christmas carols on the radio and I can see people have started to put out their holiday decorations. 

It's definitely been a very busy month!  My husband and I have moved to a new place and we've been hard at work trying to make this new place feel like home. I'm so excited to finally have my own studio to work on my pieces and I have definitely been hard at work now that I have the space. It's a huge improvement from my makeshift studio on our "dining" room table.

We've moved to an extremely creative neighborhood where majority of our neighbors are artists. We literally have an artwalk that goes through our loft community once a month and it's completely inspiring to see what my neighbors are creating and coming up with.  There are painters, floral designers, photographers, sculptors, you name it.  Hopefully, I'll be able to open my studio to the public sometime soon=)

Here are some of the most recent projects I've been working on. I didn't have too much creative flexibility because I was limited to my class project guidelines, but I'm happy with the results. 

This is an arrangement of hydrangeas, roses and orchids. I was experimenting with bolder colors because I've been playing it safe with my previous projects.

This is a purple themed arrangement that consists of a gerber daisy, peonies and poppies. I especially like how the gerber daisy turned out, but I definitely need to work on my peonies.

I absolutely am addicted to working with clay and as I'm creating these pieces I'm realizing more and more how amazing God's creation is. No matter how much I try to imitate his creation, God truly is the ultimate artist!

Wedding Arrangements

I've had weddings on my brain after coming back from one recently.

I made a gardenia hair pick for the bride as a gift, but I knew that it was her day and told her she did not have to wear it. However, she did! She wore it during the reception and looked absolutely beautiful. I have one decent picture of her wearing the hair flower, but it's hard to see it. They were such an amazing couple and it was such a blessing to see them get married.

After coming back from that wedding, I was more determined than ever to finish my first bridal bouquet all made of clay. I had decided to go with a yellow color palette. I had no idea how it would turn out, but I'm pretty happy with the final result. The bouquet consists of roses, peonies, poppy and stephanotis.

I also took a stab at making a corsage. That project didn't turn out as well as I would have liked, but practice makes perfect. I'm going back to the drawing board and am going to start cranking out more flowers.

As I am spending each day making these, I'm learning more and more about how amazing God is to not only create all of these beautiful flowers, but that he took the time to mold and create us.  When I am thinking about each project, I have to carefully plan out which colors I want to use and which flowers I want to make.  I'm realizing how God also meticulously crafted every detail of who we are from our hair color to the unique size of our toes.

Now back to making more flowers=)

Practice Makes Perfect

I have literally been eating, breathing and sleeping clay and making flowers.  I wake up, go through my morning routine and then from morning to night spend my time studying each flower thoroughly, sketching it to make sure I understand the construction and then finally making it out of clay.

My stuff is sprawled all over our dining room which has now been claimed as my home studio.  I'll post up a picture soon so that you can literally see how awesome of a husband I have to be patient with me for taking over the place.

Recently, I've graduated from making roses and have been working on some new flowers.  My sister's good friend is getting married tomorrow and I thought it would be nice to give her a flower hairpiece to wear for her wedding.  I have made several failed attempts before I finally made this one.  It's not exactly the way that I wanted it to turn out, but I think it's pretty good for a beginner.

I recently found out that people pay $70-$100 just to use a real one on their wedding day and I just couldn't justify spending that much money on something that won't last.  A clay flower would be such a better alternative.  Now if only I knew how to make these three years ago when I first got married!

The next project that I'm working on is a mini bouquet for my class.  It's going to consist of an anemone, peony, roses and some stephanotis.  I thought pastels would be a safe color scheme so here some pictures of the flowers that I'll be putting together soon.  The gerber daisy is something that I wanted to practice.

I'll post up the stephanotis at a later time when I have all the stems attached to flowers. Have a great weekend!

Art meets Function

I absolutely love it when I can actually use the art that I create.

I haven't been to the ceramics studio in a while because I've been working on creating clay flowers, but I still had some pieces that I needed to pick up at the studio.  We came home just in time to eat dinner so we immediately put our pieces to good use.  Normally I would put my side dishes for our meals in generic corelle plates, but these bowls were the perfect sizes.   I was telling Bernie how I felt that the food tasted so much better knowing that we were eating out of pieces of art that we created!

My father-in-law commissioned me to create a mug before he left for Korea. However, the turnaround in the studio is kind of slow so he wasn't able to see the final product after it got fired in the kiln.  I tried to create a one of a kind design, but it didn't come out exactly the way I had imagined.  It reminded me more of a 5th grade ceramics project, but I love it anyway because it was truly a labor of love.   While I was in the process of making the design, my ceramics teacher looking at the piece with a puzzled look told me that it reminded her of a jacket that she owned.  I looked at her and immediately knew that I would probably have to make another mug for my FIL.  I've kind of adopted the mug myself and have been drinking out of it everyday!

This last piece I worked on is a sculpture I did in class.  On that particular day, we had the privilege of sculpting a live model. I've never sculpted a figure before and my only experience with the human body was in drawing.  I had so much fun that day and never new how much I enjoyed reinterpreting the human form through clay. Everyone in class was really inexperienced with this, but we were all happy with what we created. Some people tried to make a abstract interpretation of the body, some literally tried to make the figures lifelike and as for me I tried not to make it a mess=)

My Hawaiian Inspirations

My wonderful husband took us both on an amazing anniversary trip to Maui where we first honeymooned after we got married.  We snorkeled nearly every day and saw fish, rays, and of course sea turtles.  Bernie had the misfortune of swimming in the midst of jellyfish and got stung, but he thought it was worth it since he got to swim alongside a sea turtle all the while being in pain!

I got so inspired by the amazing beauty of the island and took pictures of gorgeous hawaiian blooms that I wouldn't be able to see back at home.  The hibiscus and plumeria are beautiful flowers and I was so happy to see them up close and study their intricate details.  I tried to make them at home, and the more I try to make them lifelike, I'm realizing that God is truly the ultimate creator.  His creation can be unmatched!

I wanted to post some of my recent projects. This is a favor box with some plumeria, gardenia and a hibiscus.   A lot of the artists that use deco clay have a lot of clients that use them for their weddings and these types of favor boxes are really popular in Hawaii.

I've also been working more on creating figures.  This is a project that I also had to complete for my class which is a young angel that's singing.  She's a little chubby and short, but hopefully I'll get better proportions as I practice more.

I've been having a lot of left over clay and didn't want to waste it so I experimented with making miniature flowers.  I think they're quite cute!

I'm currently working on a gardenia for a friend who's getting married. I thought I might make a flower hairpin since it's costs so much money to use a real one.

The Art of Throwing and Glazing

In addition to my clay flowers, I've been taking classes at the local art center to learn traditional ceramics. I recently started to learn how to throw pieces on the wheel.   I've always had a fascination with wanting to work on the wheel and it wasn't because I watched the Ghost movie too many times=)  I originally learned how to throw bowls and cups in Korea so I thought that it wouldn't be too hard to pick this technique back up in class.  Mind you, it's been 8 years since I've thrown pottery so I knew I would be rusty.

When I sat at the wheel and tried to follow through with what my current teacher was teaching me,  things weren't going as smoothly.  After many failed attempts, I realized that I had learned how to throw with the wheel spinning in the opposite direction.  For some reason, potters in the U.S. decided to do things differently... not sure why.  Unfortunately, I had to relearn everything.

Here are some of my pieces. This first picture is the very first bowl that I threw.  Seasoned potters are able to make their pieces thin, but mine as you can see is very chunky.  Hopefully, I'll get better as I start practicing more.

One of the exciting things about pottery is that you can actually use and design what you make.  I had made some tea cups on the wheel since that's the easiest thing you can make when you're first learning.  When I got them back yesterday, we immediately started using them to drink water with our dinner.  I don't know if it's because we're biased, but water never tasted so good!

Glazing is another animal I had to master and learn.  One of the fun things about glazing is that it's often times unpredictable how your pieces will turn out. You may put a blue glaze on your piece, but it may turn out a gray.

Since we're both novices we just went crazy dunking our bowls and cups in whatever glazes were around.  Here's what our finished products look like.

Some of the pieces look like a muddy mess, but that's the fun of it all!

First Day of Class

I'm finally a student again!  I've been dabbling with the clay and creating flowers on my own without any instruction so I was eagerly awaiting my first day of class and I was not disappointed.

I wish I had brought my camera so that I could show you how beautiful my teacher's studio was. She had all of her floral projects displayed on her wall and we all had our own stations with all the supplies neatly arranged.  I'm trying to convince Bernie to give me the den in our apartment to make my own home studio=)

My instructor wasted no time in getting us started with our first project which was making a "proper rose" and used those to decorate a mirror. I will have to post a picture of that at a later time because my completed project is still drying.

This little guy is a bear I had to make completely out of deco clay. When my instructor first showed me a picture of what I would have to make, I had no idea how I was going to crank this one out.  However, I'm quite pleased with what I did.  Not bad for a first try!

Below are pictures of my last project which was a rose and shell wreath.  

Lastly, I would like to leave you with a full rose that I've been working on.

I'm thoroughly enjoying learning different ways that I can create things with different types of clay.  I've recently made some bowls using red clay with some beautiful glazes.  I'll save those for a later post.

Flower Arrangements

Bernie saw my previous posts and tried to help me photograph my flowers a little better.  He helped me think more about composition and lighting.   I never knew how much thinking about all of these design elements are so important in showcasing your work.  I'm by no means a photographer and I just used my digital camera with whatever lighting we had so enjoy!

If you look at my previous post, I changed the ceramics pictures with the ones that Bernie helped me take, too=)

Traditional Ceramics

Image from: Alley Cat Productions/ Brand X/ Corbis

Before I started my venture into the Deco clay art form, I was dabbling in traditional ceramics. When I was in Korea after I graduated university, I started taking classes there and learned a little bit about throwing pieces on the wheel.  However, I never was able to progress because of my work schedule.

Fast forward 7 years later...I decided to attempt to go back and try to take some classes at my local community art center with my husband.  I absolutely love everything about working with clay.  I'm just starting out and most of my classmates have worked with it for decades. Here are some of my first pieces that are nowhere near the level of craftsmanship of my peers, but I'm motivated to start heading to the studio more and making more pieces.  The great thing about ceramics is that I can use whatever I make.  

Here are some pinch pots and a plate that I made for my first ceramics class.

Update

Yay!  I have my first follower. This should motivate me to start posting more faithfully.

More to come soon ...

My Journey Through Clay

I'm taking my first Deco Clay class on Aug. 15th, and I can't wait to get started learning. Normally, I would wait to buy any clay or do anything before I start my classes, however, Bernie encouraged me to start experimenting and researching.   Why not?  I have the time, since I'm not teaching the summer quarter, and what's the use of wasting a couple of weeks just anticipating the start of classes.

SO

I drove over to Piecemakers in Costa Mesa.  It's a cute country craft store that has every kind of craft class imaginable.  They even have a restaurant in the store if you happen to be hungry while shopping=)  They also just happen to be the ONLY store in my area that carries Deco clay so I grabbed some.  

Now, being the ambitious person that I am and not knowing where or how to start, this is what my first attempt at a rose was.  I was personally happy with what I had accomplished for my first try, but my professional artist husband thought otherwise.

I was determined to make it better so on my next try I came up with this ...

I thought my rose was a big improvement, but I know that with any craft or art, it takes a lot of practice.  I spent the next couple of days creating these.

I have a long way to go in terms of improving my roses, but as you can see I am completely obsessed with making these!

DECO Clay

I have recently made a new discovery that I'm so excited to pursue.   I was just perusing through different craft websites and I came across this beautiful new art called Deco Clay.  It's a new form of clay art that is only taught through the DECO clay academy.  I was amazed at how these artists could create almost life like looking floral arrangements out of clay!!

This image below is from the Deco Clay Academy =)

It's amazing what you can do with clay.   I decided to check out the website and see if they offer classes around me and I was extremely lucky to find one teacher in my city.  Most of the classes are offered in Hawaii and instructors are rare on the mainland.  

I've already played around with the clay and have experimented with creating roses.   I'll have to admit that it's not as easy as I had originally thought, but I'm definitely improving.  I'll continue to post my progress and hopefully one day create beautiful clay floral arrangements.

I'm getting started!

I'm finally venturing into the world of blogging!  I've always wanted to chronicle my thoughts and ventures, but never had the courage to do so.  I'm going to be sharing my journey through crafts, cooking, travels, my faith ... just about anything that I'm experiencing.

I've always had an affinity towards art and exploring my creativity so we'll see where my journey leads.