Art unleashed in progress step 2

smkie

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#1
progress on art unleashed donation teapot fired fine. now to complete two cups the right size. First two attempts are too big.

running out of time
:(


THe other teapot the handle pulled away, it was too dry when I attatched it and I rushed the process of drying all together so it is my own fault. It can still be used, and will now be our play "tea party" tea pot. Aiden my grandson really likes to pour our "tea" with it.
 

smkie

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#4
I hope someone at the auction feels the same way. I made a teapot because the groundhog one turned out so much to my liking, I do not like the lid on this one as much as the ground hog, that is a very hard turn collar and turn to work out of a bowl, I do not cut and add, I don't know how to explain it, but you just keep turning it and touching it just so to make it go where you want it to go. Takes forever. I know there are teapot collectors out there, so I was hoping that would help in the donation end of things. I was happy with the coloring of the little dog with the sticks on top. That turned out better than I had guessed and I will do that again on something. I did not have any porcelain, so I went to the recycle bin at the guild and found about an inch glob of it which I diluted into slip and added mason stain. The teapot is glazed on the inside. It pours well, my second try dribbled so it's no big deal that the handle pulled away, I wouldnt' have used it pouring like that. I am still new to spouts. THanks for the words of encouragement. I will donate this, a bird or so, and my two guys and a dog if the dog works being reifred, the guys didn't turn out like I had thought, but I am not disappointed. NOt a big donation from me this year, but it's been a very expensive and stressful year that just keeps giving. So I doubt I will finish anything else in time.
 

smkie

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#5
My pieces are dropped off. There is the My sticks not Yours teapot, a large water bird, and the little cinders cat. I walked right out the door without the boys and the dog, but I am not too whoopie about them anyway, so I will refine it, probably re do it and give it next year. Cross your fingers they bring in good donations. THe auction is in just a couple weeks.
Due to Pepper's most expensive leg injury, and driving the truck through the garage door by not putting it in gear, I wish I could do more, but these three pieces I think are nothing to sneeze about. I had wanted to do a couple cats that they told me about. Where the finances started my donation decline, the babies staying all summer finished off any hopes of getting anything else done. I hate excuses, but these reasons are just unavoidable facts. I know for sure I have donated for a decade, might be longer, I am no good at keeping track of time.

Mine are not on here yet..because I just dropped them off, but here are some of the other donations if you like to look at animal artwork, and the people who cared enough to send it in. https://qtego.net/auc/2013artunleashed/index.php?next=30
 
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smkie

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#7
I wish I would have packed them better. It's my own fault if they get broken. I am afaid right now I am a walking wreck. Hyia had 2 doc appts this week, the kittens were a drive across town, I am a summer behind with babies and Jory, I just threw them in my basket that I use to go back and forth to the guild and dropped them off that way. I had forgotten today was the deadline, and just everything is a dither with school starting, and enrollment and back for meet and greet. I forgot plain and simple. I have lost myself in all these children this year. Hopefully I can soon get some of me back to me.
 

smkie

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#8
I have been invited to the Patron and Artist dinner with a guest the week before the auction, I said I would go, but but but but but.....
I hope it is a very casual affair because I don't have clothes. And the shoe issue is a nightmare. I walked through the joint of my big toe a whole long time ago, and my rocket dogs are right now the only shoes I can get on my feet and walk, and they have holes in the side. Guess I could be the eccentric one that shows up in mason stain spotted jeans and holes in my shoes...sighs. But maybe I can find something somewhere. I sent a request to know if it is casual or not. When you don't date, and your just a Nanamama you don't worry about things like haircuts or holes in your knees ....all my funds go to the children. It isnt' like I can just go to a store and find something that fits either. I have to special order my jeans because I guess 0 talls are not carried in any store that I can find. I hate clothes shopping. I have lost so much weight that my dresses and skirts are all too big. Dunno..what I should do. I would like to go, for no other reason then a really good free meal and a room full of grown ups. Around here sentences are MINE SHOES....and yeah yeah yeah THAT. WHen I ask Aiden to speak in a sentence and say now can you say that? Yeah yeah yeah THAT. If it wasn't for this place and face book I would probalby forget how to talk to adults all together. I talk with my MOther every morning. She has me call her to make sure she isn't dead, so SHaffer won't have to wait too long to go out and potty but that is pretty much it for anyone over 13 for the day.
 

Baxter'smybaby

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#9
that is pretty fabulous smkie! I hope you go--what an honor to be asked. You can figure out the clothing--any thrift store options? When is the dinner?
 

Barb04

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#10
I was going to say the thrift store too. I really want you to go to this and enjoy.
 

smkie

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#11
Believe me, I know all the thrift stores, when their half price day is and can feel it in my dna when the 50 percent rack has dropped to the quarter rack. Just no one is built like me any more and shoes, sighs..I can't go to a brand new store and put on a pair, my feet don't bend anymore. Grammy would have known what I mean.. Someone said to look at Gordman's because a lot of their clothes come from a country where the woman are more built like me, sure isn't the states. I have very cold feet. I would like to back out. But I really should go just because it's been 12 years an I never have. Might be longer I was trying to figure that out last night, but if Victor is ten, and I started when Bronki was alive, it is at least 10 years for sure.

. Going to get these tea cups into the guild, don't know if they will get done in time, can't promise they will turn out, so I am not even going to mention them. IF they do, I will set them on the table by the teapot at the auction. There isn't time to make more, get them dried and fired twice before the end of August.
 

smkie

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#12
My son is going to go with me to the patron dinner so I feel much better now. I think I have the clothes thing worked out.

Two of my pieces have beginning bids on them which is awesome. I told them I would make cups to match with the bidder's choice of animals for handles. THat will be easier then trying to get theres through the kiln process at the guild in time for the final auction.
Here is a preview of what is available.

https://qtego.net/auc/2013artunleashed/index.php
 

noludoru

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#13
Smkie, I love the teapot. . . and I think the idea of making cups to match is much cooler - and will give you more time.

Your work is fabulous, and you should go to the event. You'd have fun! And a skirt if find-able at the thrift store - go for a long one with an elastic band. One size fits all.
 

smkie

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#14
I titled the teapot My sticks not yours. More time, sighs, that is what I need bucket loads of. THat is why I always make February the month I work on their donation because if anything is going to go wrong and so often it does, there will be time for a do over. With the babies here, I Coudlnt' get a thing done all summer. I have had two bids on the water bird, 75 dollars, and 25 to start Cinders which surprises me. THe water bird is a classy piece if I say so myself, and the best bird out of all of them, the pic they took does it no justice. Cinders however is just a little bitty thing I threw in. Only about 4 inches high.
Wish that lab hadn't blown up. I meant to re do it. ANd I wans't happy with Tester boy one or two so I am going to hold that idea for next year and improve on it. A do over. I asked my teacher at the Art Institute when I woudln't have to do do overs anymore and he said whe I didn't want to be a designer any more. Uh huh. Kate Russel my vis lang teach told me "You don't always know how to do it right, but you know when you have done it wrong". And when I said "oh boy..sighs" She said that was really a good thing. I wish I could get things right the first time, that's all.
 

smkie

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#15
Cinders has gone up 10 more. This is fun to have happen even before the silent auction starts. :)
 

smkie

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#16
Better pic of Cinders...i just threw that in for something extra. I am quite surprised it has had two more bids. THe pic is about life size.


Ended up spending all day and back this evening with my son in the er over an eye injury. His toddler was jumping on the sofa and made a dive at Dad. His fingernail gouged a strip across his cornea. Like a big pencil eraser is what the dye looked like. Then knowing he was allergic to morphine, and codeine and had asthma, they gave him a narco tab which should have never been given to him, so he had an allergic reaction to the already pain he was in. So it didn't matter what I wore. I didnt' get to go. We had to go from the Er to the eye specialist who luckily took him right in. Hopefully this week will be uneventful and I and Hyia can still attend the auction next week. How I hate being in ers and all the worries that go with it.
 
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smkie

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#17
I told them I would make two custom cups. I tried to make a dog as a handle, for my test one, but it makes a better sugar bowl than it does a cup, so maybe I will throw one of those in too.
 

smkie

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#19
I realize i made more work for them, I am not good at bios. And I am not organized in the slightest..but I have followed through on every commision type donation. 2 dog portraits, and the totem top times 3. So they know I will honor what ever they decide. I told them and I will draw it out the options. 2 cups and a sugar bowl, the cups could have a small toy, a dog collar, a tag with the name on it, for ideas. THe sugar bowl could have a dog or cat on one or both sides OR just a couple small sculpture table pieces to go with the setting like Hyia's two small groundhogs. I sent the pic of the ground hogs for example. They pulled the pic off of the preview to change it, I left it up to them to do the wording, and what the options can be. I don't care, one is as difficult as the other, I only promised it would be first up on my table. IT is a slow process. Drying time, and two firings, and at the guild that can take a while, because I only want my work in the kiln when Paul Storm is firing it. SOmeone else was doing the firing and I just watched one piece after another after another be destroyed, something something about carbon coring. Either that or they came out with too little reducing. I would give anything to have my own gas kiln, and to be able to learn the last of the process. I have notes and notes and a book, but there is nothing like trial and error for an education. Cinders is up to 60. Yay. I wasn't expecting that.
 
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