2017 Progress Report: April-Part 3

A lot happened during this week. I unwrapped a piece from a sagger firing the previous week. Three more raku firings were done. The backs of several ceramic was pieces were being worked on. A little bit of drawing was done as well. Even though a lot of work was done this week, April still isn't over there is still another whole week of the month left. Hopefully, Part 4 will be posted soon and we'll be able to finally put April to rest and move on to May. Until then, enjoy the pictures and leave a comment or share this post with anyone who might find this stuff interesting.

4/18/17: Since I can only be at the college two days a week, I had to wait nearly a week to open this. I like the way it turned out, so it will not have to be re-fired. Now I have to move on to cleaning and polishing.

4/18/17: There are thee glazes being used. I tried using different glazes on the edges  instead of doing everything by layers., although there is some overlapping.

4/18/17: I tried to be careful here. I didn't want to use so much glaze that it would  cover the texture, yet I also didn't want to use too little because the it would have to be re-fired. 

4/18/17: This was a little tricky to glaze because of all the curves and uneven surfaces.

4/18/17: The two square pieces are for the hanging hooks. The rectangular piece  is supposed to balance the ceramic piece on the wall.

4/18/17: This is a little tricky. The foam piece is supposed to be what properly balances the ceramic piece on the wall. With this one, it ended up not working too well, though I wouldn't find out until later. Looking bacon it, the foam piece should have been lowered.

4/18/17: Molding paste is being used to cover up the wood. At the bottom, the molding paste is being used to make the bottom stick out so when this piece eventually go on the wall, the top and bottom will be even.

4/19/17: Some additional work was done. With molding paste, it is sometimes easier to let something dry overnight and then add on to it the next day.

4/19/17: Canvas was added and gessoed. I warned from last year not to simply cover the wood with molding paste. This adds strength.

4/19/17: Canvas was added and gessoed. A lot of molding paste work will have to be done here.

4/19/17: The firing turned out okay. I like the colors, but there is some inconsistency. Some areas look glossy while other areas do not. I can fix this without firing it again by using polymer gloss. That's a trick I picked up on a while back.

4/19/17: The firing for this piece turned out perfectly.

4/19/17: The piece turned out okay for the most part, but it also had problems with inconsistencies. I can fix it later.

4/19/17: I did some more drawing. The drawing is in it's ugly phase right now. I made the mistake of not  smearing the charcoal enough. I'll have to fix this later.

2017 Progress Report: April-Part 2

Part 1 focused mostly my mixed media work. This week focuses primarily on my ceramic work, though I did continue my mixed media work as well. If I counted correctly, 11 projects were being worked on in such a short period of time. Raku firings also took place during this time. Despite getting as much done as I did, I wasn't even close to being ready for the upcoming show in May.

Part 3 should be even more interesting than Part 2. That post should be coming soon. If you liked what you saw here, let me know and feel free to share this post with anyone who might be interested.

4/11/17: The bisque firing was successful.

4/11/17: This bisque firing was also a success.

4/11/17: It took a while to finally getting around to doing it, but the low temp bisque firing for this pieces is finally done.

4/11/17: This is also one of four pieces that were fired at a lower temperature. Three of them will end up  as pit firings while one of them will be a saggar piece.

4/11/17: This is the third future piece for the pit firing that came from the low temp bisque firing.

4/11/17: This is the only saggar piece that I'll have for the upcoming show

4/11/17: This piece is glazed will be ready for a raku firing the following day.

4/11/17: This will be the second raku firing done this week.

4/11/17: I got around to doing the canvas work this week.

4/11/17: Canvas work on the back is also complete.

4/11/17: Canvas work on my other mixed media piece is done.

4/11/17: Canvas work on the back is done.

4/12/17: I used a single coat of ferric chloride.

4/12/17: This also has a single coat of ferric chloride.

4/12/17: Like the others, this also uses a single coat of ferric chloride.

Unlike the others, this will use three coats of ferric chloride. Since the will be a saggar piece, I'm also using horse hair, copper wire, and sugar.

4/12/17: This has been wrapped up in two layers of aluminum foil. The effects of that will be seen when the saggar firing is done.

4/12/17: The gesso work on the front is done.

4/12/17: The gesso work on the back is done.

4/12/17: The gesso work on the front is done.

4/12/17: The gesso work on the back is done.

4/12/17: The drawing is starting to take shape.

4/12/17: The raku firing is done, but still needs some work.

4/12/17: The raku firing is done and luckily, it will not need as much work done a s the other piece.

Weekly Report on Hiatus

There wasn't a weekly report posted last week and there won't be one this week. The reason for this is because there simply hasn't been enough going on that's worth making a post about. I'm hoping this will change by next week. I'm getting some new clay soon and I'm also resuming work on some projects that didn't get done in time for the show I had last month. So there is a lot that will be happening soon. It just hasn't happened yet.

2017 Progress Report: April-Part 1

With just a little more than a month left to prepare for my show, April was a very busy month. Come to think of it, April of last year was the same way. Anyway, given how busy of a month it was, that meant that a lot of pictures had to be taken. Because of that, the April 2017 Progress Report will be divided up into several parts, just like the November Report from last year. This month mostly involved work on ceramic pieces, though I did work on some mixed media pieces as well as some drawing. I also got three digital photo projects done, though they're not going to be in presented in this post.

Hopefully, part 2 will be up within the next few days. Until then, enjoy the photos and comment or share this post if you liked this post. Thanks.

4/4/17: I thought I was done with the foam board construction on this piece, but it felt a little flat. To fix this, I added another piece of foam board on the front.

4/4/17: The chicken wire work begins.

4/4/17: The chicken wire work on the front did not take very long. 

4/5/17: The wood piece where the hanging hooks would eventually be placed was added as well as the piece on the bottom to balance the piece on the wall. One regret that I have is not including a second wood piece at the bottom because there is a design flaw in the piece that made the final product somewhat difficult to hang in the right position.

4/5/17: The wood piece has been set in place. It is positioned perfectly.

4/5/17: The small wood pieces are in place. I'm using better wood than what I used for my hanging ceramic pieces last year, so there wouldn't as much of a problem with the wood breaking apart later on when I go to put screws in it.

4/5/17: Some additional chicken wire work had to be done towards the  middle of the structure.

4/5/17: The chicken wire work on the back is done.

4/5/17: The chicken wire work on the front is done.

4/5/17: The chicken wire work on the back is done.

4/5/17: The placement for an eventual name label has been made. The gessoed canvas has been added The somewhat lengthy process towards making the back more aesthetically pleasing is well underway.

The Weekly Report: 5/14-5/20

This last week was mostly a winding down week. The show was over and needed to come down and the semester was coming to an end. There was still plenty of other things that happened. I needed to take pictures of the work I've done recently. I could only do that after the show came down. I also spent time maintaining my button inventory. I think this next week will probably be rather dull compared to last week. If that turns out to be the case, then I may skip the next weekly report. Until then, here's a recap of everything that happened.

5/15: I had to take down my show so the next person could put their show up. This took about 30 minutes to do. I kept most of everything on my shelf in the ceramic studio since I still needed to take pictures of the work.

5/16: I spent part of the day working on a project that I wanted to have in the show the previous week bit couldn't because it didn't get done in time. The main focus was on drawing.

5/17: On this day, I photographed all of the work I had done up to this point in 2017. It took me nearly 2 hours to do this for some reason.

5/20: I worked on updating my button inventory. This is a long process that I actually started on last week and had mentioned it in last week's report. This week, I had gotten to the point when I found many of my older buttons that I had to get rid of. When I first started doing this button thing back in 2010, I kept my buttons in the back of the basement. Over time, the buttons started showing signs of corrosion. While I don't have a problem wearing these, I knew I couldn't sell them. I got mad at myself for this since I had to get rid of more than $50 worth of buttons. Aside from getting rid of bad buttons, I also continued to update the baggies that I used to the smaller ones that allow me to keep things more organized and I did pressing for designs that needed to be pressed. My requirement is that each design has at least 5 pressings.

This is all for right now. Feel free to comment on this post or share it with others. It helps me out a lot. Thanks.

Upcoming Plans for the Etsy Store

As some of you may know, I run a shop on Etsy.com. This shop has not really seen much success, mostly because I've done a poor job of advertising it and keeping it updated. The reason for that is because I'm focused on so many things and I have a full-time job, so it isn't easy for me to focus on the store. That will hopefully change this summer, at least improving the Etsy store. Everything else will probably suck just as much as it did before. So yes, changes will be taking place and in some cases, they already have. Within the last few months, I have started paying for the store to be advertised which has at led to more views and likes, though the sales aren't quite there yet. I have also updated some important information that should have been updated a while ago. These are baby steps to improving the store. Here are the other improvements I would like to make before the summer is out:

- More button listings.

- Listing ceramic work.

- Investing in stickers.

- Further advertisement on Facebook, Twitter, Deviant Art, and Blogger.com

- A better attempt with engagement with followers on Etsy.

It isn't like I didn't know I needed to do these things. It's more like I'm slowly getting one thing out of the way so I can focus on another. Still, some of these improvements are way overdue. When everything is said and done, I would like everyone who visits the Etsy store to have the same choice of buttons they would have when they're at one of my shows. I've got dozens of button designs with dozens more to come. With the one con I participated in and at the art shows I have, people love these things and they buy them, so I know they have an audience. With the ceramic work, I got finished work that has never been advertised online. I got work that still needs to have a label and felt placed on the bottom. This really should have been done last fall, but it wasn't for one reason or another. The stickers are something that I've been wanting to invest in for years, but again, I got distracted. As for everything else, that just requires more focus.

That's all I have to say for right now. This was more of a rant than an advertisement, though I guess I should still advertise the store anyway, so here you go.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/Jonerich

If you have any questions about the store or anything I had to say, feel free to ask. I'm also open to hearing suggestions. If you think anyone else would be interested in reading this post, the blog in general, or would like to buy something from the store, please share this. Until then, take care.

The Weekly Report: 5/7-5/13

This was the week of my show. Unfortunately, I was not able to get everything ready by Monday and had to work up until the reception on Wednesday. It is also worth pointing out there there were two projects that I was working on that didn't get finished in time for the show. The later half of the week was a little tame by comparison. With the show out of the way, I worked on my buttons. Overall, it was a very productive, yet tiring week.

5/7: A lot of spray painting was done on this day. When I work on sculptural pieces that require painting or mixed media pieces that require painting, I always use spray paint as an undercoat since the black spray paint is a lot easier to hide than leaving the piece white. I also worked on the back of my ceramic pieces that I planed to hang on the wall, though I did not finish them.

5/8: I began hanging up work for my show. I spent the rest of the day working on everything that wasn't ready to go up yet. 

5/9: I finished the remaining ceramic pieces that needed to go on the wall. I then continued to work on the reaming work for the show.

5/10: I had decided that is was going to be impossible to finish two out of four remaining pieces for the show, so I made some last minute changes. The show's reception lasted 2 hours. I didn't manage to sell any buttons, but I did sell one ceramic piece.

5/11: I started updating my button inventory by pressing buttons that needed to be pressed and replacing buttons and plastic bags that needed to be replaced. I also started an inventory document for the ceramic pieces since I did not have one before.

5/12: Work on the buttons continued.

That's all for right now. I'm hoping to have the April Progress Report posted soon. There will be a lot of pictures. If you liked this post, please share and comment. Thank you.