the newest work

Thank you all for all the kind words about my little show off. Looking at all that past work I feel like I had a better grasp of color and the technique in general then than I do now. Or maybe it's that nearly two year break I took.

I'm just not happy with the Luna moth piece. Beside that big clear spot behind the caterpillar that I managed to only partially allay by using a diamond bit to rough it up on the back and then spot paint with white, the only color I think I got right was the pink in the wings. The moth is just too blue. It was a combination of juniper blue and spruce green equal parts when I should have used maybe 1 part blue to 2 parts green. And it's too pale, needed a much thicker layer of color. And I'm not that happy about the color of the leaves either. I used a mix of a lot of different greens, leftover frit from previous castings that I label 'miscellaneous green'. The intensity of the color is good, just too speckled. I'm unhappy enough that I'm thinking I might try it again which would entail making the model again. We'll see how I feel after I do the next two models in the queue.

Anyway, here's a quick snapshot I took and it looks fine I guess except for all the things I don't like about it. Glass only approx. 7"w x  8"h.

And I decided not to try and take a new round of pictures of the trumpet flower pieces. I just don't have a good setup for wall work and these are good enough for my purposes, to document the work, though probably not for professional use. I've only had a few pieces professionally photographed with the right lights and backgrounds because it's expensive. They take awesome photos but just not in my budget. So here they are framed and I'm not completely happy with that though my brother made them to my specifications. Too much black, should have only had about ⅛" of space around the glass instead of ¾" between the glass and the frame. Guess I'm feeling very critical today. I'll start packing them tomorrow to send to the gallery. Glass only approx. 5"w x 8"h.

Now comes the hard part which is trying to determine a price. Calculate the cost of materials, guess at the number of hours and come up with an amount I'd like to get for it, come up with the least amount I'll take for it and double those numbers (remember, I only get half what the gallery sells it for), get input from the gallery and try to find a happy medium. Most people don't know this technique and have no idea how much time and skill is involved to justify the price but I'm not willing to low ball my work just for a quick sale, not right away anyway.

I'm staying out of the shop today, planning on seeing the baby whom I haven't seen in at least 3 weeks.