I'd rather be in the studio !

I have been enjoying making my art since 2006, but there was something missing in my development as an artist. Most of my artists friends talked about this, and I finally got the courage to take a workshop about "The business of Art." 

Learning how to market myself and my art has been a confusing and scary journey, but I learned to enjoy doing it as much as I love making my art.

I am always looking to find more information about marketing and self-
promotion. I am so happy to share with you this wonderful book, I'd Rather Be in the Studio!" by Alyson B. Stanfield. Alyson is a great communicator and coach in self-promotion, her book is filled with great tips and guidance.

If you are growing as an artist and your work is being accepted better and better, this is a great book you must have to learn how to self-promote your work.

These are some of her ideas in the book that I really like:

"No one is going to magically appear in your studio, wave a shimmering wand, and give you the success you want in your art career. You have to get out of the studio and make it happen." ~Alyson Stanfield

"In order to have a successful career, you should be able to define yourself and your art in a sea of artist. To do this, you must first find your style." 

~ Alyson Stanfield

Keep playing-Keep creating !!!

Love,

Lorena Angulo

Online Classes Coming Soon !

I was invited to be part of the wonderful group of instructors at CraftEdu. CraftEdu is an online art and fine craft university, and is going to give me the opportunity to reach students in places that I may not be able to go. 
Teaching in CraftEdu is an amazing opportunity to share my passion for what I do.
I already have an online classroom, Lorena Angulo's Classroom,where I will be sharing information about by classes and my work. The students can go in there and ask me questions and post their creations from my classes. I want my classroom to be a fun place where we all can share our love for art and craft.

At this moment I am working in my first class which will be recorded in English and Spanish. I never though editing and recording my voice will be so fun, it is a lot of work but I am enjoying it.

This is my Gallery of Work at CraftEdu.

I am embracing this new adventure with happiness and I am sure it is going to be a great journey !
Are you doing something new this year? I will love to know what are you doing !


Love,
Lorena

Love Birds

My LOVE BIRDS are home !

LOVE BIRDS ring

© 2011 Lorena Angulo

1.5 inches by 1.20 inches

Hand sculpted and carved Bronze Clay

My little birds have a home !

I sculpted two tiny birds with FastFire Bronzclay, one of them was my "Bird a Week" number 3.
After seeing them so fragile I decided they will make a great ring.

©2011 Lorena Angulo

I will post the picture when the ring is fired !!

Have a Great Day !!!

Love,

Lorena

Bird a Week # 3

©2011 Lorena Angulo

For this week I hand sculpted a tiny bird with FastFire Bronzclay.

This little bird was lonely so I decided to make a smaller one. 

©2011 Lorena Angulo

You will see these little birds in their home in a future post.

Love,

Lorena

Ring a Week (RAW) # 3

For my third ring for RAW (Ring a Week), I decided to create a mini altar for the Virgin of Guadalupe. I knew I will be getting in some trouble during the process but I wanted to do it.


My first idea was to make a hollow form and build the altar on top of the ring. My metal clay of option was FastFire Bronzclay and I did have some challenges during the making of the ring.


I managed to form the hollow structure of the ring, after having some difficulties in the process !!!!


Sculpting the mini Virgin was another challenge but I was surprised to see that it was not that difficult after all ! ;D

This is my ring before being fired in my kiln!

MINI ALTAR ring

© 2011 Lorena Angulo

2.17 inches by 1 inch

Hand sculpted and carved FastFire Bronze Clay

After firing the ring !

MINI ALTAR ring

© 2011 Lorena Angulo

2.17 inches by 1 inch

Hand sculpted and carved FastFire Bronze Clay

©2011 Lorena Angulo

©2011 Lorena Angulo

MINI ALTAR ring

© 2011 Lorena Angulo

2.17 inches by 1 inch

Hand sculpted and carved FastFire Bronze Clay

©2011 Lorena Angulo

Close-up of the Virgins (one is in each side of the ring.)

Bird a Week # 2

©2011 Lorena Angulo

For my second bird of the 52 I will be making during this year, 

I decided to draw one.

Even though drawing is not something I am very good at !! ;D

I have always admire people who can draw and I think part of this wonderful challenge, Bird a Week, is to try do make birds in different mediums.

I will try to challenge myself to make them in any medium possible for me,other than metal jewelry.

I used to make a lot of metal embossing pieces and I just let them on the side when I started making my jewelry. I think I will make my third bird with metal embossing, it is going to be great to go back to something I really enjoyed.

Here are some of my pieces I created with this technique !

I taught myself how to work with this technique and I am sure I may have been doing it with my "own" style ! 

One day I will love to learn how to do this with a professional artists.

Ring a Week (RAW) #2

I will be posting my rings from RAW every week.

The second ring is made with bronze clay and brass wire.

I made a lentil bead with bronze and added a rose on top with a leaf.

©2011 Lorena Angulo

The band was made with square brass wire.

©2011 Lorena Angulo

I posted my first ring last Saturday. 

Here is the link if you want to see it. RAW #1

Bird a Week 2011

If you have been looking at my work, you have notice that I make a lot of bird designs. I love them, and when I saw a good friend talk about creating a group to make one bird a week for the whole year I was happy to get into this project.


Ruth Baillie (Birdland Creations) is the artists who is leading this wonderful adventure. We have to create a bird a week in any media we want.
If you want to join us in this adventure here is the link for the group in flickr, Bird a Week.


My first bird(s) are very colorful and I made them with polymer clay. Of course they have my Mexican influence and I decided to create a tree of life with my birds.

©2011 Lorena Angulo

©2011 Lorena Angulo

This is going to be a very fun challenge and I hope you will join us !!!

Love, 

Lorena 


You can click on the links bellow to see what other artists are creating for
 "Bird a week".

Why I love creating my work.

It is 2:36 a.m. and I am still working in my studio. I have been working like this for more than a week already and even though I feel tired, there is always something that keeps me motivated to keep on going.


I am overwhelm by something I saw posted in Facebook just a couple of minutes ago. I got into my profile to look for something and to my surprise I noticed a post by a wonderful artist and someone that I admire a lot, Angela B. Crispin. 


Angela wrote in her blog about a piece of jewelry she got from me a couple of months ago.
She was cheering me up during my design process of this piece and when it was finally done, she send me an email telling me she wanted to have it.  The symbol of my piece was close to her heart and I was more than happy and honor to know she will own it.

©2011 Lorena Angulo

This piece is close to my heart too. It symbolizes my big love and passion for what I do. The hand is a strong symbol of labor, craft and work but also symbolizes friendship, kindness and healing. The wings are the freedom to do what I am passionate about.


Angela, thank you for you beautiful post.
Moments like this make me keep on working and creating pieces that come from my heart.

Merci beaucoup Angela !!

Love,

Lorena

Ready for RAW (Ring a week) 2011

Since I liked so much the experience during RAD (ring a day), I was more than happy to join RAW for 2011. In this case we are going to be doing a ring a week. 
The group has already 111 participants and I am sure it is going to be another wonderful journey.

My first ring for RAW is made with PMC Pro (silver clay alloy).

I formed the ring with the clay.

After firing the ring in a kiln at 1400F for one hour,

This is the final result.

©2011 Lorena Angulo

©2011 Lorena Angulo

RAW 1 of 52 for this year!

Do you want to join us in this adventure?? 

Came and take a look at RAW.

Love,

Lorena

25 grams of PMC Pro

Happy New Year my friends !!!


Here I am, writing my first post for 2011. I finished 2010 playing with the newest PMC in the market, PMC Pro. After finishing the whole package of 25 grams I though it will be nice to show you all what I made with the 25 grams.

My first piece was this BIRD ring.

©2011 Lorena Angulo

The total weight of this piece is 8.1 grams.

My second piece was a LOTUS flower ring with a lab made ruby.

©2011 Lorena Angulo

The total weight of this ring is 6.1 grams.

My third piece was an ALCATRAZ ring 

(this is also my last piece I made in 2010!)

©2011 Lorena Angulo

The total weight in this ring is 5 grams.

My fourth piece was a CORAZON(of course I have to make a heart!) ring.

©2011 Lorena Angulo

The total weight in this ring is 3.3 grams.

I still had some little clay left and I made this flowers with it. 

©2011 Lorena Angulo

I will rivet this flower into a piece in the future.

 I used all the clay and have some carvings scraps that I will 

use in future pieces as a texture.

I did have fun !

Love,

Lorena