Friday 6 January 2017

Start as you mean to go on. . . Ho yes! - featuring My First Tutorial



Well It's 2017. Let's hope it's not as turbulent as 2016 was. For me I mean, though I hope the World calms down a bit too. Lots of disruption and not altogether welcome change went on in all sorts of places in the last twelve months, causing anxiety, bewilderment and high emotion. . . Interesting times, as they say.

For us, the turbulence was caused by a stressful, but ultimately rewarding house move, as regular readers of this sporadic blog would have gathered. We've no intention of going through that palaver again so we've agreed that the only way we are leaving this place is in a box. Not the same one of course, two boxes would be required, but you get me drift.

Our house from across the fields - back view. Originally the front view apparently, circa 1780. . .

Anyway, I've been mentioning in passing how, at some unspecified point in the future I would probably be trying to make a tutorial to do with image transfer and it's use in my bead making, well, guess what? Listening to my inner Yoda ("Do or not do, there is no try") I went ahead and made one.

The pics link to it, and so does this TUTORIAL text link.

These are the beads in question

It was an interesting project, breaking down a process into a logical and repeatable sequence, then documenting that sequence, step by step, clearly enough for a clayer of any ability to follow and end up with a pleasing result. Having carefully followed that procedure, I hope I succeeded in that aim.
If not, it's all Ginger Davis Allman's fault! ;-)
Just joking. . . Obviously. . .

I approached Ginger for an opinion of my first draft, and she was very helpful, pointing out things that might confuse US readers, calling me out on bits that weren't as clear as they might be and helping with copyright stuff and disclaimers etc. All vital and extremely useful stuff, so many thanks Ginger!

I chose a simple technique for making tube and round image transfer beads in my usual rustic style, including some tips on successfully navigating the time honoured 'water and rubbing' image transfer process and avoiding the dreaded 'stickiness' problem which can occur.

the dreaded stickiness. . .

It's up in my Etsy shop should you feel the irresistible urge to buy it.

It feels good to have started 2017 with something new, for me at any rate. Something to coax me out of my comfort zone.

Well, start as you mean to go on. . . I hereby give notice that I fully intend to keep upping my game in various ways in the the weeks and months to come, and to thoroughly enjoy the process. Yay!

Here they are again

Until next time,
Happy New Year!

Jon x

ps - And I still haven't told you about the jackdaw in the other chimney. . . Ah well, next time.

2 comments:

  1. Happy New Year Jon!!

    Only one comment at present.

    Could you go back and include a link to your Etsy shop please?

    😄

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah, OK. The pics all link to the tutorial, but I forgot an actual text link. Consider it done ;-)

      Delete