This weeks sneak peek is of wine stained necklace pendants I am experimenting with.  A friend of mine, Amy, actually gave me the idea of seeing what happens with a bisqued piece of clay (fired once) and wine.  I had already designed and fired these new organic pendants and on Monday, realized I had a bottle of wine that no one liked that was going to get thrown out. 

I used a cabernet sauvignon and will be curious to see what wines will create different shades.  The first one I did, I painted the wine on a few times.  The next one was put into a glass of wine and soaked for 30 minutes or so and the other two I let soak for 36 hours.  The black marks on those two I am assuming were a chemical reaction between the clay and the wine, but who knows for sure. I'm an artist not a scientist, although playing with chemicals in the glaze lab is fun! Have a great weekend!  I will be back on Monday!

After today's class critique, I am going to get my interactive book ready to travel.  The hope and goal is that the book will be written in and passed onto a friend, family member, a stranger in the coffee house ect... and filled up.  I am going to add an envelope that holds cards with TWLOHA website on it to take away.  Once the book gets back to me, I will type up excerpts from the book to my blog.  This experience reminds me of the stuff animal in grade school every kid got to take home one weekend from school, and how we wrote about his adventures.  It is the same kind of interaction of sharing and passing around an object and hopefully making a difference in someones life.  I realize that it a HUGE goal but it is the thing I think about.  If the book doesn't come your way, I hope you email ([email protected]) me your story so I can add it in.  Everyone's story, BIG or small is important.  What's Your Story?

This will be short and sweet! Every friday morning I go and teach two mommy & me art classes.  This week both classes did bubble wrap paintings with cool colors (and no... they were not totaly cool or awesome colors, but blues and greens.)  Even with the little ones we are working on some basic art terminology and even a little color theory.  I describe cool colors as water or ice colors and warm colors as fire colors and use the two descriptions while we work.  This is such a fun project to do with two years old and up.  All the moms helped paint on the bubble wrap and together they flip it over onto the paper... tap, tap, tap and then pull back to see the imprint.  The first time the kids pull it back, each child got really big eyes of surprise and usually a big smile.  It's a little messy and most of my moms had more paint on them than the kids, but a lot of fun!  This project can grow and change with the child for a few years, browns and greens could make a turtle to be cut out, different size bubble wrap could be used, or like the ones we did today will be our backdrop for the fish we color, cut and glue next week.  I will post pictures next week of this great kid project.  I didn't have my camera with me today.  Have a great weekend and I hope you do something creative!

This weeks sneak peek is a look at an interactive sculpture using text.  The inspiration behind this piece is a message very close to my heart.  For the past two years I have been wanting to create something that addresses suicide and the pain those around suffer and then I thought, what if I could address this issue like TWLOHA organization does.  So I am creating an interactive sculpture that will get people to think, write, and read each other's stories.  Everyone's story BIG or small is important.  

For those of you not familar with TWLOHA,( To Write Love on Her Arms)" is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide.  TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery." ~Mission Statement

They also are there for people that have lost family and friends to suicide.  I encourage you to go and check out their vision statement and website. 

So this sculpture will tell people's stories, introduce TWLOHA, and hopefully open up conversations between friends, family, and strangers.  If you are interested in telling your story and will not be able to physically write in my book, feel free to handwrite and scan or type your story and then email it to me at [email protected]. There are no rules or limitations it can be short and sweet or as many pages as you like, just be honest.  Remember everyone's story is important.  What's Your Story?   

Hi everyone! I just wanted to share a link today.  The video on the page is about 10 minutes long and has some great tips for adding texture to thrown pottery.  If you are an artist, go check it out and if you are not go learn something new about ceramics!  I hope you enjoy!

click here to view Fong Choo's texture demo

New sculptures and necklaces are now online in the portfolio sections.  The heart and the boxes with the maquettes are a continuation of my exploration of my faith.  They feature scriptures written in cursive with a black underglaze pushed into the script and then wiped away.  The globe is heavily textured and finished with layers of watercolor.  I want to thank Kira Miles for photographing these pieces!  If you have any questions about any of the new posted work, please leave a comment or email me at [email protected]

This weeks sneak peek is actually more of the process of my wire sculpture (which I finally finished!)  After all the cuts, scratches, and sore muscles from working with this type of metal... clay wins and the metal lathe loses this round.  I will say I am please with the finish piece and will probably forget the blood and frustrations and try the wire again, it just might be awhile.  I only have a few pictures of the progression of the piece.  It has been hard to get in a habit of photographing the process, but something I am working on.  

This figurative wire sculpture was inspired by my drawing and clay sculpture of "Eve" (2010).  Orginally, I was going to do a rendering of "Eve" in metal, but I began to struggle with proportions, and just in general with the material.  I choose the metal lathe versus chicken wire or hardware cloth because I was drawn to the surface area of it.  In retrospect, the chicken wire would have been more flexible to work with as well as handled better for me considering I was trying to handle the metal lathe like clay.  Logically, I understand metal does not handle the same as clay, but it was still the approach I used for this figurative sculpture.  

I worked on the thighs first with a loose pattern and created clean edges that I later took a thin wire and sewed up the seam of the metal lathe.  The body torso was created next with the same sewing approach, although I did not get as clean of lines as I did on the thighs.  I attached the thighs to the torso which was very difficult.  I used very thin tweezers to run the wire in and out for the attatchments.  I created the bottom part of the legs next and basically eye-balled the proportions.  The knees were formed separately as well and then were used to attach the two parts of the legs.  I feel that it became a pretty rough transition, and my approach will be a bit more calculated next time.  I formed the feet out of the leg wire and only had to add on to one of the legs to complete the foot form. 

The finish piece has the addition of fabric batting inside the torso with a ceramic model of "Eve" sitting ontop of it.  The project was to use the metal as the exterior and something soft, fragile, or breakable in the interior space.  With the use of the fabric batting I get the textural soft element and the ceramic model brings a breakable element, but together I feel it takes on a deeper emotional element of how people bury and protect their feelings and thoughts inside themselves.  This was an unexpected turn in the meaning of my piece that I discovered. 

I hope everyone enjoyed the behind the scenes look for this weeks sneak peek! Tune in next thursday to see what other surprises I have up my sleeves!

Today was my first day of teaching my 6-9 year olds drawing class.  I have five kids in the class.  Kids really do say the funniest things.  I had all the kids say what they wanted to learn in drawing and my only little girl of the class said, "I want to learn how to draw dinosaurs!"  It was very cute and got the attention of the boys!  She is a girl after my own heart.  When I was a kid, I loved dinosaurs and always spent the most time looking at the fossils at the museum and making my parents take me to anything that had to do about dinosaurs.  It also was very exciting to hear that drawing makes this one little boy very happy and he likes being creative!  Last semester all my kids could talked about, thought about and even what they were drawing was video games.  I am thrilled that not one of my kids today talked about video games or the t.v.  Its going to be a great class!

This first friday art walk at Sunset in Amarillo, TX had a great turnout! Everyone was so glad the weather had turned from negative wind chills to the 20's!   It was a bittersweet night for me as the owners of Vastu gallery were doing their last first friday and turning their gallery space over to David, a photographer.  I have been very blessed to have spent the past 2 years and 3 months as the three diminsional artist in their space.  I met some wonderfully interesting people as I almost always do and got to share the experience with one of my friends from Texas Tech! 

Although I am currently not showing in a gallery, I feel this will give me not only an extra motivational boost, but also the time to create and build up my portfolio.  I am also going to be looking into juried expositions and art fairs to attend.      

I almost didn't get this weeks sneak peak in! It is a little later getting posted than I planned, but I got caught up in my wire sculpture and waiting on my pipes to get unthawed so I could have cold water! 

This week's sneak peak is part of the new pendant designs I am working on for my jewelry design line.  The pendants are still made from clay, but instead of being carved, stamped, or watercolored I am doing image transfers onto them.  It is a bit of a process, but so far I have been very pleased with the results.  What you see on the pendants are my ink drawings of rope knots.  I am keeping the necklace design simple and very natural by using leather and hemp.  Keep a look-out for these on my website and facebook!  They will be coming soon!