Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

Flowers in the Wind I’ve been experimenting and taking online classes again!  Terry Kovalcik has a great class on www.craftcast.com    called ‘Painting and Sculpting using PMC Paste’.  It is well worth taking because there is so much information on materials, tools and technique.  Terry explains and shows details and shares some tips.  After watching the video once, collecting the materials needed and deciding what design I wanted to paint, I watched the video again! Terry uses PMC clay but I had FYI silver clay on hand and used it for the foundation shape and PMC paste with lavender oil for the painting.  I was concerned about the extra shrinkage of the FYI silver but the two worked well together.  I’m sharing the stages of my creations with you but you need to take the class for the real substance.  Shapes and Designs - FYI Silver Clay Out of the kiln  This technique requires a steady hand and some patience.  Layers of paste build up the image and it is so ea

As a child, I loved making bubbles.  As an adult I still love making bubbles. I love watching the sun hit the clear bubble and turn it into rainbow colors, I love watching the bubbles float on the wind.  I love watching them glide to a tree and disappear.  I can watch bubbles for a long time! On a recent trip to Walgreens, I found long tubes filled with liquid and a long wand for making bubbles.  I bought three of them.  One for me, one for a friend and one for a hostess gift!  The three of us made bubbles in the hostess’s back yard and laughed while we played.   I brought mine back home because the want could make more bubbles!  I found it again this week and yes! I made bubbles on a windy day.  It was so much fun to see them floating on the wind to neighbors yards.  I wondered if anyone else saw them!  Then I wondered if I could take pictures.  I had to try and this is the result!  What a fun hour playing with the bubbles in the wind!

This past week has been about care giving to my guy.  Peter fell and fractured his ankle and needed lots of help with getting 'the boot' on and off and with icing.  So creativity took second place! One evening I looked for something in my stash of stuff to inspire me.  Like most jewelry artists, I have a lot of stuff and it is not all organized and comes from many places including a yard sale plastic box filled with all sorts, shapes and lengths of chain for very little money.  It's been sitting on a shelf since I bought it and that night the plastic box fell on the floor and everything in it scattered.  I had a choice - gather them up and stuff them back in the box or look at this as an opportunity to see what I have. I started separating the chains into gold color and silver color; then separating them in to types of chains and lengths and pretty soon it became clear that their was not enough time or space!  I really wanted to just stuff them back in the plastic b

Largest exhibit in the U.S.  - Phoenix AZ   Picture walking into a large lobby and being submersed in large plastic butterflies hanging from the ceiling.  I was reminded of a time when I wanted to wake up in the mornings with sunshine highlighting butterflies hanging from the ceiling over my bed.  Now I know how that would feel and I am so sorry I did not hang those butterflies.  A friend and I joined a tour group with Master’s Touch Tours to Phoenix AZ in a very comfortable bus.  We arrived at Butterfly Wonderland to spend the morning enjoying and learning about a variety of butterflies.  www.butterflywonderland.com   They receive butterflies from farms all over the world.  They have from 1500 to 35,000 in any given week depending on shipments and hatchings.  I learned the difference between cocoons and chrysalis (moths make cocoons and butterflies make chrysalis).  Good to know.  We watched an excellent 20 minute 3-D movie about the migration of Monarch bu

What have I been doing this week?  Setting some of the Mojave Stones that my dad cut and polished into my silver metal clay settings  I’m really happy with these two pieces!  I’ve also read an e-book that just might be of interest especially if you have an etsy shop or a website store.  When I received an email from Hunting Handmade asking if I would like to review the new ebook, ‘The Art of Audience Building for Etsy Sellers’, I said ‘YES, please!’  I’m always looking for ways to improve my two Etsy shops and I’m always interested in new ideas.  The book was written for Etsy sellers but after reading it, anyone with a business on the internet will find it interesting and  useful.  I also enjoyed their website and thought you might also:     http://www.huntinghandmade.com/ If you have shopped on the Etsy site, you know that there are thousands of shops represented.  It is so easy to get lost looking for something or selling something.  There is so much so see on the

Don’t you just love seeing colors change when sunlight makes the color sparkle?  When I decided to play with translucent polymer clay and use alcohol inks to make color, I had no idea where that would lead me.  I just started conditioning the translucent Pardo polymer and passed it through the pasta machine.  My alcohol inks were lined up ready to be brushed on the flat surfaces.  They dried and I started blending the colors.  Then I made shapes, all kind of shapes, stacked colors, made designs and cured them in the convection oven. I sanded and polished and arranged them in groups – still not knowing how I would use them.      Before curing After curing Holding the pieces to the light fascinated me by the color changes.  The more I looked at them in the light the more convinced I was that they needed to be hung by themselves and not worn as beads.  Sun Catchers!  Perfect use of shape and color and light.  I drilled holes and used glass beads and jump rings.  Bough

August in Phoenix means that it is time for Art Unraveled!   Once again my good friend/artist Judi Dalton ( http://www.artplaylaugh.com/ ) and I attended 2 classes at Art Unraveled in Phoenix. For those of you who are not familiar with this conference please take a look at their website.   http://www.artunraveled.com/ARTU15/AUindex.htm   Judi and I have been going since it started and have taken an array of art classes.  There is also a Shopping Extravaganza that should not be missed!  Every August we sign up for some new class and time to spend catching up with each other’s news. This year I opted for the class ‘Dremel After Dinner’  http://www.artunraveled.com/ARTU15/Workshops/Dremel%20After%20Dinner.html   Thomas Ashman is a mixed media artist http://www.blacksheepartist.com/ and had lots of solid information to share.  I learned the difference between and how to use diamond drills and carving tools.  I have all my attachments for flexshaft and dremel in a plasti