Updated Etsy Shop Sorted!

Now Etsy has my whole new range for view.
Given that, I have to say that I am not relying on etsy very much at all for bringing in sales.
The fact that my wares are ceramic and therefore heavy, shipping rates from UK to the states are astronomical.  (This is one of the few times of recent years I have yearned to be in the states so I could take advantage of national postal rates!).
With such high shipping costs, I'd imagine most people are put off.  I guess posting my wares on there is more of a way of being seen.  I don't imagine it will amount to much and that's why I am pushing Folksy more.  If I was a jeweller or a textiles person, the Etsy world would be open to me, but for now I am just going to have to use it as a showcase.
So, here it is!

www.etsy.com/shop/jmlpottery

The woes of working with a homemade lightbox

As promised (okay, 4 months later - sorry!), I am here to report that finding lamps to fit those darned bulbs, which wouldn't cost the earth, was a painful process!

In the end, I settled on 3 of these beauties!

and one of these:

Ordered from The Lightworks (from one of the only suppliers I could find that confirmed the lamps were suitable for ES bulbs)at the lowest price I could find for £10.97each for the black and £19.97 for the white.

Note: The taller white lamp was ordered for behind the photobox to hover over the top for downlighting.

I gave up on finding the clip-on desk lamps because none seemed to have a big enough shade diameter or none would/could confirm.

Got 3 in total and ended up with this setup (insert picture here).

As for the pictures that resulted from the light box, they left much to be desired!!! No amount of hue/saturation editing in photoshop could get these babies light enough.

 

So, back to the drawing board. I figured there wasn't enough light.  So, I ended up ordering two more lamps to increase the brightness. Results as follows:

As you can see, they are an improvement, but when I photograph lighter coloured and white objects I still have some serious issues. You can see that the white and light pink suffer the most.

I'm not sure if I am drowning too much light now? 
Would a coloured background paper be better to bring out the object more? 
Where else can I put lamps to backlight the object?  I have such a small photobox, I fear needing to make a larger one!

All the blue, green and yellow items look pretty good for beginner's standards.  I am just not happy with the pink and white.  Looks like I'll be posting updates on this matter in the future!

For the time being, they will suffice.

Making up time

A new product in my range is clocks!!!

I have decided that my swirly slip patterns would look pretty slick on a round clock face and provide a really nice textural effect behind the clock hands - kind of like functional art!

The thing I love about making these, is that they are dead simple to make and fun! The hardest part is finding the appropriate movements to turn it into a clock! More on that later.

So, how do I make these things, eh?

First, I throw a wide shallow cylinder:

Then I wait for it to go leather hard and turn it into shape, cleaning off all the nasty bumpy bits.

Next I apply my slip texture, wait for that to firm up and add the central hole then fire! Vioila! Done!

Making it a real clock....

What movements do you need?

Well, from what I can gather from my research and some trial and error, you need to be certain of the spindle length of the clock movement. It's depth is super important.

My clock faces are about 3/8" thick (roughly 9.7mm) and the spindles (the shaft that goes through your clock face and connects the dails to the mechanism) come in 11, 13.8, 16.2 ,20.1, 26.2 mm lengths. You need to measure the thickness of your clock face and allow for a little length of spindle to stick out in the front of the clock face so you can screw the hands and finishing nuts on the spindle to finish off the clock.

With my clock face thickness, I chose the 13.8 length. Don't worry if none of the lengths seem to suit your needs, as the mechanisms come with rubber washers of various thicknesses to adjust the spindle's length accordingly.

Shop around because a lot of the hour and second hand movements I have been finding on the internet are quite old fashioned. After many hours, I finally found some suppliers who stock a bit more contemporary hands, so they are out there. I ended up choosing the B series hands from:

bude time enterprises ltd.

You need to choose hands that are the appropriate length to fit onto your clock face, and that decision is completely yours, as you may want to make an off-centred clock face or so forth.

What I can say, is you should be aware that the larger the face, the more powerful a motor you will need- more kick to get it around over time. This motor is called Model High Torque Euroshaft Movement, well it is called that in the UK, on this site, not sure about other sites! For the average sized clock, all you need is the Euroshaft Standard Movement.

Once fitted into the central hole and secured, one battery in and you have a working clock! You've just created time! Magic!

Resolution Number One - Sort out my folksy home page!

After taking most of last year to develop my new range of work, I was finally able to photograph the work in late November in my makeshift light box.
All in all, I have managed to document 80% of my range, with a few hiccups preventing completion of the remaining wares. I still have to load all my mirrors online and photographing them has become a real issue (more on that later....).
I know I need to improve the light quality on some of the photos, but for now, I am happy with a cohesive brand. Finally!!!
Let the sales begin!!! Please!!!
http://www.folksy.com/shops/jmlpottery

Dulwich Craft Fair

Okay, my first official Craft Fair was on 14 November at St. Barnabas Hall in Dulwich!

I was very excited, but after a Friday night drive into south London, after leaving central london to go home in the east, I was pooped by the time we got everything set up and got home at 11.30pm!

And, guess what, I forgot to take pictures of my stand!!! So, my photos of my setup the night before in my dining room will have to suffice.

For a first show, I managed to get a bit more than breakeven! But, that darned sandwich I bought brought me right down to zero profit! Learned my lesson on that one....

All in all, crappy weather but great organisers and fellow stall buddies. Fabric Nation and her fabulous set-up (with mince pies thank you very much) were an inspiration on how to fit a table full of kit into an amazingly reduced travel set (without a car!!!)!

Light up my life

Last time I tried to take photos of my work, it took me 4 hours to photograph 10 items.

The sun moved too much that the position I setup in was useless midway into the "shoot" due to shadows from hanging branches.

Those little damned green flies kept sitting on my background paper and wouldn't go away when I blew at them (whilst kneeling on one knee with one hand on camera reaching awkwardly over to rid the scene of them!).

The background paper I had taped into position to some lawn chairs had seperated from the wind howling and bending and tearing the paper.

I nearly lost all feeling in my legs while kneeling on the concrete bending over and peering into the camera.

I had enough! Time to get myself a professional photography studio and leave all that drama behind....

you know how much that would cost? Forget it. I needed to figure out a much cheaper alternative....a light box. Not just any light bow, but a homemade one!

After scouring the internet, I found several amazing sites with instructions on how to build a variation of light boxes with plumbing tubes, boxes, lamp shades and ikea products....to name a few.

I settled on the Ikea option with instructions from PlanetJune, as seen here:

http://www.planetjune.com/blog/light-tent-for-better-product-photography/

I thought I'd send along my step by step progress of assembling my photo box to show you how I achieved it!!

1. Get the Antonius Hamper Frame from Ikea http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/10103804. Only £5 - what a bargain.

2. Get some type of white fabric. I chose a cotton sheet from Ikea because I was there and it was cheap. You could get white fabric just about anywhere, but in the UK, no Joanne's Fabric or Michaels to hop to in craft emergencies - so Ikea it had to be...

3. Cut 3 large rectangular pieces from the fabric, using the frame as a guide, cutting 1.5 inches or so bigger than the actual frame size. Do the same for the two ends, cutting smaller more square pieces. Start pinning them together on the frame to get a good snug fit.

4. After pinning, start sewing your pieces together. Put it on the frame to check the fit and adjust where necessary.

5. Start figuring out the lighting!

This is something I haven't had much luck finding! Many thanks to all the Etsians and countless blogs that I have reviewed for some more insight into the appropriate bulbs to use for this light box.

Being in the UK reading US blogs means I cannot take advantage of the great product suggestions available at all those great US hardware shops. In London, B&Q and Homebase without the Lowe's, Home Depots and Walmarts, don't seem to even have a small portion of the selection of bulbs I would have available to me!

I have resorted to online ordering which isn't so bad for ordering the bulbs. However, finding the appropriate light fixtures has proven to be much more difficult!!! Can I ask all of you out there, where did those clunky old clamp-on desk lights go? That is a blog entry for another day...

However, for the bulbs, I can gladly report my decision based on the advice of loads of Etsians:

I am ordering the trumpet low energy compact fluorescent daylight photo bulbs.
They are a bit wider than the usual bulbs, but it seems loads of people have had a lot of luck with them. They have a kelvin temp of around 6000, close to daylight as possible.

The width of them makes finding a lamp more difficult, but I am determined. More on that next time.

I'll post photos of some test shoots as soon as I sort out the lighting!

Does training for a 1/2 marathon and potting mix?

Hmmmn, that would be a big fat NO!!!!
Every morning that I train, I cannot help but be extremely exhausted and useless the remainder of the day! Sadly, with my impending race next weekend, more training sessions means more useless days.
I did have one to two really productive days this past week.
First, I managed to clear 118 test batches of glaze. Yes, you read correctly, 118 batches of 100g glaze pots, built up over 2 years in my endeavour to find that perfect glaze and slip. Can you believe it took over 3 hours to scrape clean into plaster batt (to dry for easy dumping into toxic section of my local recycling/waste centre) and scrub the pots clean. Man, that was a workout in itself! However, what a great feeling it was. Not only did it open up space in my already cramped pottery, but it was a realisation that I had reached the end of my journey of researching, developing and testing.
Once thought of as the unreachable goal, I find myself emerging on the other side of that excrutiating long dark tunnel I have been crawling through for years. I feel like I can finally start enjoying the creative process again, now that I have some decisive conclusions about the clay, additives, slips and glazes I will be using going forward. No more juggling between 22 strains of stain concentrations tested amongst 6 different types of slips which lie under the choice of 15 different glazes, all of which can be applied on top of 11 various white clays. You get the point. The variables have narrowed to a manageable amount.
I have my chosen materials and batches of slip/glaze.
I know how my kiln fires - knowing the hot and cold spots and how best to fire my chosen materials.
I know the forms I want to make and sell.
I have even managed to simplify what it is that I am making - reducing the types of forms on offer, streamlining the making process to a more suitable level of ease.

This leads to the second productive day of my week: I actually started making my new forms and it felt so good just to create, knowing exactly what decoration I was going to apply rather than settling with some undeveloped glaze cover for the sake of finishing the form off. How great did it feel!!! Now I just have to fire and assemble the goods to see how they look!

So, from now on it is time to keep moving with my prototypes and emerge from my long retreat and show everyone what it is that I can offer the world.
A very exciting time! Perhaps all these years of slogging it behind the scenes with scores and scores of okay ideas always seemingly resulting in bad outcomes will actually start paying off!

So, after next weekend's big race, I can only imagine what more energy from reduced running will bring to the potter's wheel! I cannot wait!