Well, how about the one piece of “bad” news first. Roundabout cob resin sales are pretty slow, and I was hoping for those resins to both pay for their own production costs and help raise funds for chinas production. Since that is not happening, I decided to cancel the English bone china version of the Roundie, at least for this year. I may yet have them made in bone china down the road, because I personally love the medium and would like to own a few myself.
It is just too expensive right now to have the bone chinas made—my per-piece costs are pretty high before I can even put glaze on them. Plus I can tell at this point in my lazy life I am not getting into the studio as often to glaze things; I don’t want to be under pressure to “crank” the glazing out on bone chinas just to get my money back. That is not a recipe for quality work at all.
On to the good news. I WILL be getting earthenware Roundabouts into production soon. I’m so excited to tell you that Joanie Berkwitz of Pour Horse AND I will be glazing Roundies for sale. She’s making molds for me and I’ll cast my own and so will she. The molds are being made this month! I will be doing some claybody-customizing too, where Roundie will get things like leg feathers and long manes and tails. That’s a great thing to look forward to this fall, when the season changes. I’m always eager to do something new in the fall.
Speaking of the Roundie resin front, yes sales have been slow but I also haven’t done the full-court-press marketing campaign for him. The most recent batch of 10 was reserved for the UK special shipment and I’m glad to say that I sent 8 of them Over the Pond today. I also sold the other 2 to customers in the USA who asked for them directly. I have put in another request to BearCast LLC for 10 more resins. When those arrive I will set them up in my Etsy shop for a nice easy way to buy, and promote them to the wide world a bit more!
I am going to paint a Roundabout resin! Yes, believe it or not I am going to deign to contaminate my airbrush with acrylic paint instead of ceramic glazes (gasp!)! OR I might try painting one with oils. One way or another the first one I finish will be sold as a 100% benefit for a hobby friend in need. If I paint a second one, it will be an UNrealistic color like metallic blue pinto. Just because I want to.
I am sure there was something else I wanted to mention, but I can’t think of it so I guess it will have to wait for the next posting. Enjoy the rest of your summer!
Westerly Design 