Standing Up for What You Believe In
My strength came from lifting myself up after being knocked down.
Bob Moore
What do you do when someone bullies you? Do you sit back and cry or do you stand up and fight for what you believe in, fight for your truth? The answer to these questions is based on your life’s history - your childhood experiences, where you come from and where you are at in the moment.
I have faced a lot of diversity throughout my life. It has developed me into a person who stands up for herself and her principles.
Last week, I was challenged by a cyber bully. This person accused me of copying one of her online classes. She took every opportunity to discredit me and my work, with the intention of destroying my reputation as an enameling teacher. When I stood up to her attempts to intimidate me, she had no choice but to back off. I thank God I have been given the tools to stand up to people like her.
I also want to thank and acknowledge all of the wonderful people who stood up for me and acknowledged that I was being falsely accused of copying, of plagiarism. You were amazing and strong! We all need to hold each other up, not knock each other down. Having a small business is hard enough without being knocked down by someone who I thought of as a colleague.
So, if you are at all curious, the class in question, Enamel Surface Design, is being hosted in a Facebook group. This is a new format for me. In the past, I have created PDF and video tutorials and sold them on Etsy and on my website. They are great for people who can’t take the time or spare the expense to travel for a class. However, I miss the interaction of teaching in person. Having such a small studio makes that really tough. I am choosing to produce some of my classes using the Facebook platform so that my students and I will have the opportunity to interact. I’ve taken several classes using this platform, from painting to marketing. As a student, I love the ability to come and go as my schedule dictates, to have interactions with the other students and the teacher and to make new friends from all over the world. Facebook is where my peeps are and I’m just trying to reach out to them in a meaningful way.
To learn more about the class, see the description below…
Scarab Necklace by My Brown Wren
Garden of Posies by My Brown Wren
I’ll show you a video of my tiny studio. It’s a total mess, but I figured I’d keep it real…
My Enamel Surface Design Class will cover using graphite, enamel crayons, acrylic enamels and watercolor enamels together to create rich imagery on your enamel work. It will help take out some of the mystery of working with these mediums that can be very fussy on their own, let alone in tandem. The class starts October 15th and runs for 30 days. The videos will be hosted on Vimeo, where you can have access to them for as long as you like. The PDF’s will be downloadable so you can refer back to them whenever needed. I want you to get a lot out of this class and have fun as well!
What is Sgraffito?
I recently learned of a technique that was developed by John Kilmaster. It's called granular spray enamel. It is very exciting to have a new way to create design and texture in enamel in a free an exacting manner.
Sgraffito is the art of scratching through to a layer below. Potters and ceramic artists utilize the technique, as well as enamelists. I learned the technique from Angela Gerhard several years ago, using liquid porcelain enamel.
Scratching through liquid porcelain enamel is delicate business. If it's too wet, you get little squiggles that roll up and are difficult to irradicate. If you let it dry too much, when your lines cross, large chunks can flake off. So, creating fine textures are difficult. I recently learned of a technique that was developed by John Kilmaster. It's called granular spray enamel. It is very exciting to have a new way to create design and texture in a free an exacting manner. In the picture below, you can see me spraying a steel mask that I fabricated in a class I took from Alisa Looney, a student of John's.
Here are some process pics of one of the test pieces I made in Alisa's class. We taped the steel tiles to cardboard to make it easier to work on. The last photo is of the piece after it was fired. It was slightly underfired, so there is a lovely, bumpy texture to it.
I went to Alisa's class planning to make jewelry. We spent three days making test tiles and fabricated one large piece. We made a few token pairs of earrings. I had to come up with designs on the fly - flying by the seat of my pants - ha, ha. Knowing that I am going to be exhibiting a collection based on The Day of The Dead at Whidbey Art Gallery in October, I decided to create a sugar skull. However, my sugar skull somehow turned into a more life-like skull.
The ease of creating lines with the sprayed on enamel was so freeing! I really enjoyed creating fine detail and shading with cross hatching. The photo above left is pre-firing. The middle photo is just after the skull came out of the kiln. In the third photo, I'm applying watercolor enamel to the skull to add more shading and visual interest.
Here, you can see the little scratching tool we made in the class. I'm using it to remove some of the watercolor enamel before I complete the final firing.
This is the skull after the final firing. I'm pretty excited about how it came out. Now, I have to figure out how to do this process at my studio. It's messy - not something you can do inside. I have the spray gun, but I don't have a compressor yet. So, I'm still doing sgraffito the way I learned from Angela. Here's a little video of how it's done.
If you are interested in learning how to do sgraffito in porcelain enamel, you should check out my Beginning Sgraffito Enamel Technique Tutorial.
Make Your Own Charm Necklace