Progress on recent work

I have been working on themed piece for some time now and it is approaching fruition. Because artists oil paints are featured there is considerable time lapse between  stages of execution while drying times are observed. 

The centre piece is a bowl form. a couple of pics below show some of the stages gone through including under painting and texturing. Final surface finish and assembly is close and includes found materials.

Paragon SC2 Kiln and new possibilities.

I have had a Paragon kiln for firing various materials for some years now and have never fired it. It was originally purchased to fire metal clay but up to now I have torch fired my experiments. I contacted a local artist who runs art and craft workshops to see if my wife's embroidery machine would be of interest to her and eventually donated it to her. During my discussions with her she showed me some of her work which included miniature porcelain pots.She expressed she had always wanted to incorporate silver decorations on these pots. I knew there was a suitable product and arranged to take the kiln out of hibernation and meet her to swap knowledge, she had previously studied and worked in silversmithing so a mutual passing on of knowledge would occur.

The firing was successful, fine silver was indeed fused to the porcelain and we arranged to meet again to look at the possibilities of glass fusing as well. I was pleased, to say the least, that some learning of kiln programming took place and it has encouraged me to look at metal clay again. I have a stock of silver, copper and bronze to work with as well as glass and earthenware clay all of which can be fired in my kiln.