Mariposa Primavera

I drew a design of a butterfly a long time ago and I made one in bronze clay but since that piece I did not do much with the design anymore.
I have always been in love with the beautiful symbolic meaning of the butterfly. In Mexico we associate butterflies with the soul. There is a saying in a little beautiful town in the state of Michoacan, where the Monarch Butterflies come every year close to Day of the Dead, that they represent the returning souls of their loves ones who passed away.

This was my first butterfly.
Mariposa
©2009 Lorena Angulo
Bronzclay

Finally a couple of days ago I decided it was time to come back with my design and create another butterfly and I have to say I really enjoyed the process of doing it.

A lot of my work is made by making a stencil in paper of my design and cutting my design in the clay, let it dry and start the magic !!
I love to work with my hands and hand sculpt and carve a lot in my pieces. This new piece is a reflection of this.


At the beginning I was not sure what the piece was going to be but since I am in a challenge this year called "Ring a Week", I decided this will be my ring of this week.

Mariposa Primavera
©2011 Lorena Angulo
FastFire Bronzclay

Since this ring is representing the last weekend of this month and because my birthday is Today. I wanted to give the ring a touch of color to light up my day.

Mariposa Primavera
©2011 Lorena Angulo
FastFire Bronzclay and Gilders Paste (Red, Patina and Silver)

Mariposa Primavera
©2011 Lorena Angulo
FastFire Bronzclay and Gilders Paste (Red, Patina and Silver)

My Bronze Clay Online Class is On !

I am happy to introduce to you my first class for CraftEdu. I wanted to start with a very simple project but it is so easy to adapt and transform into a more sophisticated piece if you want.
I will guide you in how to work with FastFire Bronzclay and be able to form a simple an very organic band.

As you can see in the picture with the bird on top of the band.
You can be able to transform this simple ring into a different piece just by
adding a little detail on top.

Here is a preview of the class:

Healing my heart with Love and Art

I just finished another ring for my Ring a Week Challenge (RAW). The love of my family and friends is an amazing healing medicine but also it is working in my studio and creating.


This time I chose to play with Creative Paperclay again and hand formed a "Mini Me".


When I start sculpting a piece, I can visualize how it will look like after I finished and this makes me very excited; and I can not wait until it is completed. It is like the feeling I got when I was a kid the night before "Santa" or the "Three Kings" will come to my house to leave some gifts for my sisters and me. 

Here you can see a little the transformation of my ring.

Healing my Heart with Love
©2011 Lorena Angulo
Creative paperclay, colored pencils, acrylic and a pearl

Healing my Heart with Love
©2011 Lorena Angulo
Creative paperclay, colored pencils, acrylic and a pearl

Family Time

After all we have been through during this summer, we did not wanted to cancel our plans to take the kids to Galveston before the summer was over. My kids had been so good at school and they are such great children that we knew they deserved having a fun time.
We, Jorge and Me, also needed some time to relax. 
It is amazing how much energy our children give to us. They are so positive and supportive, I am truly blessed to have the family I have.

My BIG loves in my life !!!

Veronica and Christian

Christian, making me laugh

Vero and Me trying to take a picture with one hand ;o)

Veronica modeling her hat !

Our beautiful moon on the last day we spent at Galveston

Ring a Day: 700 photos from 365 day jewelry challenge

As I have mentioned before in my blog, I was part of a group of artists who participated in a great challenge in 2010. All this started with a single jeweler in Brooklyn,Nina Dinoff, who decided to create a group called Ring a Day. The challenge was to create one ring a day for the entire year. No matter the material or the time each participant had, we all have to create a ring a day.
This challenge was a huge success, artists from around the world were creating and posting their rings at the group's page in FLICKR, Ring a Day.

Because of the great outcome of this challenge, Marthe Le Van (who was also participating in the challenge) decided to create a book featuring some of the rings.
Lark Jewelry & Beading senior content editor Marthe Le Van has written, edited, juried and curated more than 40 books since 2000. Some of her books are 21st Century Jewelry: The best of the 500 series (this book is GORGEOUS !!), 30-Minute Rings, 500 Wedding Rings and Masters: Gold. She is a member of the Art Jewelry Forum and the Society of north American Goldsmiths.
The Ring a Day book includes 700 rings created by the Ring-a-Day participants.
The format of the book is super nice because it is like a notebook with 365 days of wonderful rings photos. The book includes some of the most recognizable and memorable designs from the contest plus comments from the artists. I really enjoy looking at all the pictures and reading some of the comments the artists made about their experiences on participating in this great challenge and some of the inspirations for their rings.
I am proud and honored to have more than 10 rings featured in this fantastic book.
We all had a great journey during the challenge and got to meet so many wonderful and talented artists from different countries.


Thank you Nina for starting this great challenge and Thank You Marthe Le Van for making this amazing book. 


The book will be publish on September, 2011 !!! 

More Gilders Paste to play

I love to experiment with new ways to bring color to my work and Gilders paste is the latest one I have been playing with. Now I have more colors, mostly bright colors, which I love to use.

They come in so many colors it is hard to just choose one or two. I know I will have to spend more time playing with them but I am totally okay with that. Every new material or medium takes practice and time to really get to know it better. Experimenting is fun and in case I am not happy with how the colors look like, I can take them out with some mineral spirits. 

This cross is made with PMC3 and I added Gilders Paste
after it was fired.

For this bronze face I applied Gilders paste but I did not wanted
 to have a solid color covering the details. I applied the Gilders paste
and then I took some of it off to have a more rustic look.

Are you playing with a new material? What are you playing with?

Love,
Lorena

Saying good bye to a dear friend

This summers has been very challenging in lots of ways and last week I found out a very dear to my heart friend was in the hospital. I prayed for him to recover and be good, he was so young and with so much to live but sadly for me he passed away a couple of days ago. He was more than a friend to me, he was my soul brother, the brother I never had. He left behind two beautiful treasures, his kids, my nephew Andres (14) and niece Alexis (10). I know  Alberto will live forever through his kids, they both are such sweet and beautiful souls.
It hurts a lot to know he is not with us anymore, I love him so much. It has been hard for my family, my kids and my husband but I am surprisingly very calm. It hurts deeply but I feel in peace and I know it is because he is with me.
I do not consider myself very good at painting but since I knew he passed away, I have been painting, this has been my way of dealing with my sadness.
Alberto was so talented, a true natural artist. I remember all the years I saw him creating gorgeous Mexican folk art. He was so happy when he was creating, it was a great inspiration to see his work.

I LOVE YOU Betito !
You will always be in my heart !

For you my friend with all my love !!

My Angel
©2011 Lorena Angulo
Water colors and acrylics

Me and a yellow peacock
©2011 Lorena Angulo
Water colors and acrylics