We Happily Stumble Right into a Clayton Beck Demo

Last month, three artist friends Laurie Mueller, Kristen Dukat, and Patrica Lyons Ansert, I were in Carmel, IN for a workshop for artist Qiang Huang's (Chong Whong).

While exploring the cute little artsy town of Carmel's shops and galleries. We came upon a gallery hosting a Clayton Beck III demo that evening! What a treat the demo turned out to be.

The model for the evenings demo was not just there to pose.  He was an extraordinarily talented musician.  Clayton and his muse, (I'm sorry I didn't get his name) had a lively discussion about music between songs.

The beauty of watching someone of Clayton's caliber paint is watching the compositional decisions, paint choices; and all the thought process that he goes through as the portrait progresses.

 There was a great re-pore between musician/sitter and artist which led to song requests and some great musical remembrances by both parties.

Clayton's finish portrait was well received and the the sitter truly seem to approve. This close up shows it was a lively beautifully done likeness.

In a candid moment, when the painting and photos were done, Clayton was finally then able to really check out the guitar. Thanks to Jerry Point, our host, for allowing us to join the group for what was a great evening!

Sgraffito Drawing Techniques in Fused Glass Workshop



8 x 10 Sgraffito fused glass by Gloria E. Moses

 

Artist  Kelly Crosser Alge of  Modern Ancient Glass gave a workshop to introduce us to Sgraffito Drawing Techniques in Fused Glass.

 

 

 

 

Personal Note:Taking a workshop and learning something new gets your blood flowing and your neurons firing!  But when you take a workshop with friends and fellow artists Kristen Dukat and Laurie Mueller all bets are off, anything and everything with 24/7 of nonstop LOL!!

After a introduction to and demo of materials. Kelly then handed out a multitude of  mark making and drawing tools for us to try while explaining the more technical side of fusing glass. We started with these small 2 x 3 inch pieces just to get a feel for learning how to draw with the powdered glass. So this was my quick little design, and it will soon become a nightlight (when I put it all together).

We then worked on our large 8 x10 inch masterpiece, while the first demo pieces were being fired in the smaller kiln.  These larger pieces took quite a bit of time and effort no one wanted to stop working on them for the night. We continued perfecting our drawing techniques the next day until we each were satisfied with how we thought it might look when it was fired. Here is how it looked pre-fired.

Workshop peeps Shirley Cole, Laurie Mueller, Gail Stanforth, pre-fired pieces looked so good, the fired amazing finished pieces can be seen on Kelly's website. Modern Ancient Glass

 

 

 

 

Then Kelly introduced us to color, lots of color, in free form expression making Cityscape's!!!
She let us play with all her beautiful glass pieces and scraps that she made for use in her large Cityscape. We used bits of copper and also silver, stringer, Frit,..... I was like being a kid trying to fit all the pretties on one small glass sheet!

This is one of my finished Cityscape's and I love it!  Thanks Kelly for all the work she did when we left, she added the extra glass pieces to fuse them, she fired, packed, and mailed us the finished masterpieces! Thank you Kelly for what you taught us and for allowing us to play and use the pretties! Can't wait to go back for the advance class!!!!
You can find Kelly at: http://www.modernancientglass.com/