Happy Holidays and a great New Year !

I want to wish you all a wonderful holiday season and all the blessings, health, love and work for the new year.Thank you for reading my blog and being part of my artistic life. I have loved reading your comments !Peace and love for all.

Love, Lorena Angulo

The best little gifts for any art book lover: Lark Studio Series

I am so happy to share with you these little treasures.
As I mentioned before in my blog, I am a big lover of books and these small books are just the best I can imagine to give away to your friends and family.

Lark jewelry and beading had a great idea by making these small size books from their 500 Series.


The Lark Studio Series have 100 images from a corresponding title in the 500 Series. What I like best about these books is the beautiful pocket-sized, this makes them a perfect gift for this holidays and great stocking stuffers !
It is like having a tiny gallery in your hands !!

Each of the books have wonderful images and great print quality. You will love to see each one of them, the work is so inspirational and beautiful. No matter what type of medium you use, you will love them all.

My little Catrinas: Veronica, Dolores and Carmelita

I finally finished my little Catrinas and I am very happy to see them with their own personalities and charm.

I present to you my "Little Catrinas."

Catrina CARMELITA
©2011 Lorena Angulo
Creative paperclay, acrylics, watercolors

Catrina DOLORES
©2011 Lorena Angulo
Creative paperclay, acrylics, watercolors

Catrina VERONICA
©2011 Lorena Angulo
Creative paperclay, acrylics, watercolors

Here you can see better their faces.

Catrinas DOLORES, CARMELITA and VERONICA
©2011 Lorena Angulo
Creative paperclay, acrylics, watercolors

Before and after images.

Catrinas CARMELITA ,VERONICA and DOLORES
©2011 Lorena Angulo
Creative paperclay, acrylics, watercolors

Pin It

PMC Sterling

I got the great opportunity to play with the new PMC Sterling in November and I will love to share with all of you my experience and what I think about this new type of clay.
The clay looks very similar to the PMC Pro, the color is darker than the original PMC.

When I took the clay out I noticed the texture is great and very easy to work with, I decided to make a ring first and I made a snake with some of the clay to form the band for the ring. I used a plexiglass to make a long snake and I rolled it around a mandrel.

I went 3.5 sizes bigger to get the size I was looking for, a size 9.

I do not used any inserts in my ring when I fired it.

The PMC Sterling has a longer working time than the PMC3 (this is the type of clay I usually use in all my silver work.) In case the clay gets dry, you can add a little water and it gets soft very fast, almost immediately.

Carving is also great in this type of clay, it goes very easy. This is something I was very eager to try since most of my work has carving into the designs.

It carves very smoothly and with no problems at all.

TIP: Always save the carving scraps, these can make a great texture in your work, you will see it in my finished pieces at the end of this post.

Hand sculpting and forming is fantastic because the clay does not dry fast. This gives you the perfect time to hand form flowers or other things. I hand sculpt a lot in my work and I was very happy to see how easy it is to do it with PMC Sterling.

I also made earrings and a pendant. For the earrings I decided to add some fire in place CZs and I embedded two sterling jump rings into each earring.

I used my carving scraps to add texture in my heart pendant.

Because my pieces were more than 3mm thick I decided to fire them to a longer time that the suggested time in the package.

I first fired them in the open shelf, like we do with any other type of PMC (except PMC Pro), fast ramp to 1000F and hold there for 40 minutes. I waited until the pieces were cool inside the kiln; I also waited until the pieces were cool because I had fired two CZ Hessonite Garnets and we always have to be careful not to take the pieces very fast because the change of temperature may crack the stones.

The second firing was done with a steel pot and activated carbon. I added half an inch at the bottom and added my pieces in one layer, covered them with another half an inch and added the top of the pot.

I fired them inside the pot fast ramp to 1500F and hold for 45 minutes.

I left the pieces cool down inside the pot in the kiln before I took them out.

This is how the sterling looks like when you take them out of the kiln

I brushed them with soapy water and a brass brush. After this I added LOS Gel patina and brushed some of the patina off before I added the pieces inside a tumbler. 

I usually use a rotatory tumbler but this time I decided to give it a try to a magnetic tumbler. I was AMAZED at how fast this wonderful polishing machine can give your pieces a beautiful shine. I will have to start saving money to get myself a bigger size, since some of my pieces are bigger and do not fit in this size tumbler I have now. It is worth it !!!

These are all the pieces I made with 25 grams of PMC Sterling. They are not very thin, so if you make pieces that are thinner and small in size you will be able to make more out of the 25 grams of PMC Sterling.

The cost is very similar to the PMC3 and I feel it is great to have it like that. Now you will be able to create pieces that can be mark as .925 (sterling) and they will be stronger than fine silver.

I do want to mention I will be firing for almost two hours on the second step firing of the PMC Sterling. I want to be 100% sure they are totally fired to their best strength. I am saying this because I tested the little Calla Lily and I felt the piece was not fully sintered when I tried to curl up the point of the flower after fired. I will let you know of my future firings.

The pieces are beautiful and easy to polish and I am sure you will enjoy working with it.

EL CORAZON
©2011 Lorena Angulo
PMC Sterling
photo: Speedy Peacock

ROSAS
©2011 Lorena Angulo
PMC Sterling
photo: Speedy Peacock

FLOR
©2011 Lorena Angulo
PMC Sterling, pearls, CZ Hessonite  Garnets, embedded jump rings
photo: Speedy Peacock

Pin It

My little "Catrinas"

I have been making little figurines with Creative Paperclay inspired in the dead of the dead lady figurines called, Catrinas. These are my own interpretation of the Catrinas and I am falling in love with all of them.
The first two I made were my Little Frida and Catrina, they both have new homes now.

Little Frida and Catrina
©2011 Lorena Angulo
Creative paperclay, acrylics and watercolors

What I like the most about making these figurines is that every time I hand sculpt one, they each have their own personalities. I never draw a design when I start, I like to create them in the moment, this way they tell me how they will like to look like. Yes, I know it sounds crazy but that is how I feel when I sculpt them.


My first step is to hand form the heads, I think the form of the head guides me in how the "catrina" will end up looking.

Depending on the form and size of the head, I hand sculpt the bodies that I will attach to the heads. As soon as I have the bodies, I can start visualizing the dresses.

©2011 Lorena Angulo

©2011 Lorena Angulo

©2011 Lorena Angulo

Little by little they start coming alive and it makes my heart warm and very happy to see them transformed in from of my eyes.


I will post later the three finished pieces. I can not wait to see how they will end up looking !!


Love,
Lorena

My last shows of the year, 2011

Today I am going to the Opening night of La Noche del Broche exhibition at the beautiful Equinox Gallery in La Villita. This exhibition will display 100 brooches from 86 artists and I am sure it is going to be incredible.


I can not wait to see the brooches and mine on display !

VIRGEN MORENA
©2011 Lorena Angulo
Copper, acrylic and silver

My next event for this month is the fantastic third Bracelet Show at Kathleen Sommers, I have been honored to be invited the three years in a raw. This is another wonderful event in San Antonio and a portion of the sales for the bracelets will go for the Scholarship Fund at Southwest School of Art.

CROSSES
©2011 Lorena Angulo
Pure Silver

MARIPOSA
©2011 Lorena Angulo
Pure SIlver

On December 10 from 9:30 am to 5 pm, I will be at Articopia in the beautiful Ursuline Campus of Southwest School of Art. This is my third year participating in this wonderful show.
I am always very happy to be part and to promote this beautiful art school in San Antonio, if you have not been there this is a great opportunity to visit.

My last show of the year will be at the University of the Incarnate Word, the Christmas Art and Craft Market on December 16 and 17. I am more than honored to see they chose two of my pieces to promote the event.

Wishing you all a BEAUTIFUL Holiday Season !!!!


Love,
Lorena Angulo

Lorena Angulo Art - Etsy Store

I am happy to announce the opening of my second Etsy Store dedicated to my paintings and figurines.

It has been a very interesting journey creating these pieces, all started as a way for me to cope with the sadness of losing a dear person in my life, Alberto, this past summer. 

Alberto was an extraordinary artist and he is my inspiration for not putting any breaks in my creativity.

The Bracelet Show at Kathleen Sommers 2011

I am honored again to be part of the Third Annual Collective Show, "The Bracelet" at Kathleen Sommers.
The show will display over 100 pieces by 60 artists; 10% of all proceeds will be donated to the Scholarship Fund at the Southwest School of Art.
The reception will be on December 8th from 6 pm to 9pm at Kathleen Sommers located at 2417 N. Main San Antonio, Texas.
The bracelets will be on display and available for purchase through Saturday, December 17th.

These are my two bracelets I made for this incredible show.

Mariposa
©2011 Lorena Angulo
PMC3 (Pure silver)

Crosses
©2011 Lorena Angulo
PMC3 (Pure silver)

Please come and support this fantastic event, and at the same time give back to the community by giving someone the opportunity the enrich their lives with a scholarship from Southwest School of Art. 

Remember, portions of the sales will go to the scholarship fund.

My RAD Journey book-Giveaway

Hola my dear friends,
I want to giveaway my little book I made with my RAD (ring a day) rings and my experience during this great adventure.

Post a comment in my blog about someone or something that inspired you in your creative work.
My RAD Journey book giveaway winner will be announced on November 24 as a way to give thanks to all of you who follow my blog and my work.


Love,
Lorena

La Noche del Broche

I am honor to be part of this wonderful exhibition La Noche del Broche at Equinox Gallery in La Villita in San Antonio, Texas.

The exhibition will display 100 brooches from 86 artists. La Noche del Broche is curated by Alejandro Sifuentes and guest artists Jillian Palone, Laura Wood and Gary Schott.

The opening reception is December 2 from 6 pm to 9 pm and the exhibition will be in the gallery from December 2 to January 5.

The exhibition can also be viewed online in the Equinox Gallery Website.

"The inspiration for La Noche del Broche came from an idea of having one night to commemorate the brooch and its art form in a festive atmosphere where Spanish Music and Dancers would collaborate to create an atmosphere of Celebration !!! Models would be colorful and adorned with brooches celebrating the human spirit. This exhibition is an opportunity for artists to honor and celebrate the art form of the brooch. For this vision to be appropriately achieved, we would need a large collective of brooches each one expressing the multiplicity and individuality of the creative essence. Equinox Gallery serves as a meeting place to showcase Jewelry and Metalwork in San Antonio. Our Mission is to exhibit and educate the community by providing a platform for the diversity in the field of Metalsmithing."  
-Alejandro Sifuentes


Here is my brooch.

VIRGEN MORENA
©2011 Lorena Angulo
Copper, Acrylic, Silver

VIRGEN MORENA
©2011 Lorena Angulo
Copper, Acrylic, Silver

Come and visit the exhibition ,I am sure you will have a great time !

Here are the names of the artists:

Abigail Heuss  Alejandro Sifuentes  Amy Tavern  Andrew Kuebeck

Angela Bubash  Anne Fiala  Annie Pennington  Arthur Hash  Ashley Buchanan

Atsuko Taniguchi  Autumn Brown  Beverly Penn  Billie J Theide  Bob Ebendorf

Caroline Gore  Claudia Rush  Corey Ackelmire  Courtney Starrett  

Cydney Romano  Linda Kay Darty  Dejan Jovanovic  Elizabeth Crandall

Emily Marquis  Galatea Kontos  Gary Schott  George Schroeder  Hannah Stein

Jacob Martin  James Thurman  Jason Stein  Jason Polasek  Jenn Wells

Jillian Palone  Justin Klocke  Kat Cole  Kate Codsen  Kathleen Janvier

Kelly Robinson  Ken Bova  Krista Coleman-Silvers  Laritza Garcia  Laura Wood

Leia Zumbro  Lin Stanionis  Lindsay Hendricks  Lisa Johnson  Lisette Fee

Liz Steiner  Lorena Angulo  Louise Oppenheiner  Lydia Tjioe 

Lynette Andreasen  Margot Wolf  Margit Morawietz  Marissa Saneholtz

Marjorie Schick  Marlene True  Mary Hallam Pearse  Masako Onodera

Melanie Smith  Melissa Walter  Mi-Sook Hur  Michael Dale Bernard

Michael Gayk  Micheal Parrett  Nathan Dube  Nicole DesChamps-Benke

Pat Gavin  Paulette Myers  Rachel Shimpock  Renee Settle-Sterling

Robert Diaz de Leon  Robert G Jackson  Robert Longyear  Sandra Zilker

Sara Brown  Sarah Holden  Sarah Roberts  Sarah West  Shalena White

Stephanie Voegele  Sun Kim  Sung Yeoul Lee  Tara Locklear  Tim Lazure

Tina Lazzarine  Tova Lund

Wonderful class at Glen Rose, Texas

I just came back from teaching a wonderful two day class in Glen Rose, Texas. CAST Across Texas gave me this incredible invitation to teach in their annual Artist Retreat. It was a pleasure to meet all of you and you all made me feel very welcome.
The class was full of energy and all my students were very talented.
I enjoyed teaching and meeting new people all the time, I am not only teaching them but learning a lot from every one of my students.
Here are some images of my class and the work my students made during the class.

Trying new ways to express myself.

Most of what I do when I create a new piece is self-taught. I find more enjoyable to explore without any limitations and learning a little by little how to improve what I am doing. I am a very visual person and this helps me a lot when I venture into a new technique.
I mostly make jewelry but I do not limit myself to that only. Since I lost my soul brother this past August, he was my inspiration to start painting. He was an amazing artist who lost his passion because of life changes, I still remember how happy he was when he was creating. He was my motivation to not be afraid to explore new things even though I have not taken any watercolors classes or sculpting.
He was always very supportive of what I was doing and his support was very important to me.
These are some of my new projects:

Frida's Yellow Bird
©2011 Lorena Angulo
Watercolors

Flores
©2011 Lorena Angulo
Watercolors

Queen
©2011 Lorena Angulo
Watercolors

Painting these pieces has been a great therapy and I enjoyed a lot when I painted them.


My new adventure is this new paper clay piece. This is the biggest piece I have sculpted since I started playing with paperclay and it was great to make it.

©2011 Lorena Angulo
Creative paperclay, acrylics, wire,
watercolors and Gilders Paste

©2011 Lorena Angulo
Creative paperclay, acrylics, wire,
watercolors and Gilders Paste

Say Si's 5th Annual MUERTITOS FEST

I have been teaching some of the students at Say Si to create jewelry with Bronzclay (metal clay) for their 5th Annual MUERTITOS FEST this year. This is my third time going to Say Si to teach the students and I am very happy to do it. These kids are so talented and I love how Say Si provides them opportunities to develop social and artistic skills.

Say Si's 5th Annual MUERTITOS FEST will be held on Nov.3-5. This is a wonderful family event that you can not miss ! The festival will include local artists, exhibition of traditional folk art, altars created to honor the deceased, family workshops, food booths, live music and much more.


These three days include:
Muertitos Fest Fiesta is on Thursday, Nov. 3rd from 7 to 10 pm
(opening night fundraiser, tickets $25 per person)
Feast on Mexican delicacies and enjoy live music as you preview the students artisan work and altars. Play Loteria (Mexican Bingo) with local celebrity callers.


Muertitos Fest First Friday on Nov. 4th from 6 to 10 pm
(FREE and open to the public)
The festivities continue with a Dia de los Muertos First Friday Celebration. Enjoy the exhibits, altars, live music and dance performances, festive food and artisan booths, and a Day of the Dead Procession.

Muertitos Fest Family Day on Saturday, Nov. 5th from 12:00 to 3:00 pm
(FREE and open to the public- a special day just for families)
Enjoy musical and dance performance by local cultural groups. Get hands-on with various family folk art workshops and shop for treasures from one-of-a-kind artist vendors.


These are some of the pieces my students made for this great event, we still need to finish them and add chains and beads. I am still firing more pieces and I will post them when they are finished.

Color, Texture & Casting for Jewelers by Carles Codina

I was so HAPPY when I got this wonderful book in the mail. Carles Codina has been one of my favorite artists since I started taking metal smithing classes, his books are in my bookshelf and I always go and look back at them all the time. One of my first books I got was The Complete Book of Jewelry Making and I knew Carles Codina is not only an amazing artists but an incredible teacher and book author.
Color, Textures & Casting for Jewelers is published by Lark Jewelry & Beading (Sterling publisher) and it is a book that covers wonderful ancient techniques as keum boo, mokume gane and granulation.
As Carles Codina says in his book, the truly best way to learn and understand jewelry making is to practice it directly in the workbench. This is why I think this book is going to be a great source to have in any studio because it shows hands-on demonstrations and ways to put all the techniques covered in the book into practice.
The book has beautiful pictures which makes it easier to understand every technique covered in it. 

Mokume Gane involves creating a block made up of different sheets of metal without using solder. This has been a technique I have always admired and Carles Codina explains and shows every step of the process to create it in this book. The images are very clear and I am sure you will be eager to try it just by looking at the pictures and the wonderful gallery images.

Granulation is a technique that involves joining small granules or balls of silver or gold together or on a precious metal surface. I have seen so many wonderful pieces made with this great ancient technique and the book demonstrates very clearly how to be able to do it.  


A big part of the book is dedicated to modeling and casting, which is one of my favorite things to do and learn.
I have done lost wax, sand, cuttlebone, water and tufa stone castings but this book covers much more than that.

You will learn about modeling, microcasting, working with waxes, ceramic coatings, bronze casting, mold making, casting in a closed crucible and much more.


This book is a source of great information with incredible images that will make any jeweler eager to get into the studio and start working and practicing. I know this because that is the way I felt when I finished reading the book.


Great book to have !!