Busy-website-tutorials-lots of stuff

Sorry for not posting for a few days. I've been very very busy and trying to do many things while battling the fatigue. As I wrote in my past entry I had a lot on my plate. I started slowly getting the issues solved

Paperwork for the probate has been mailed.

Video recording software glitch has not been solved yet.

I did manage to wipe the old glitchy platform and rebuilt the website from zero. It's far from done, but for now there is a section that has some information for beginners. Still far from being finished, but it's a start.

I have a lot more to add, of course. But it's a lot to write and a lot of coding.

I did install the online store part but it's not set up yet. Hopefully in a couple of days. It will take a few days, definitely, to upload all the pieces I have for sale and the paid tutorials (the ones that are done, of course)

I am also going to install a photo gallery as well as the possibility that you leave comments on the site.

There will be a member area as well for my sponsors. No more having to deal with the whims of youtube and facebook.

Look out for a few tutorials on youtube that don't seem to be tying in to anything, just put out there - they are not.

I have posted the part 1 of "how to create wearable art". Well, all of these tutorials that follow will be necessary to create an element of one of the three necklaces. Also, for elements for pieces of the other mokume gane techniques that I have posted to date.

Also almost done with the series of tutorials for my sponsors for the month of September.

So yes, I have been very busy.  You are in for a lot of surprises, haha.

Bits and pieces of tutorial work

Just as a little preview - bits and pieces of various tutorials on what I'm doing with those pretty mokume gane veneers. And some other stuff.

So let's call it eye-candy

combining the mokume gane from part 4 with the faux fluorite yes, that piece has a hollow thing in there

combining the mokume gane from part 4 with the faux fluorite

set with the "reversed colors" hidden magic

more of the green and violet mokume gane

reversed colors hidden magic bracelet

now THIS is not for a tutorial. I just wanted to see if I can make a rainbow mica powder bracelet

final experiment for essential oil diffuser pendant. Hopefully will be able to do the tutorial for you soon. I thought it would make a great Holiday gift for someone

heh not for tutorials. Just a set that needs finished

bracelet from the "not for tutorials" thing

bracelet "painted" with mica powders to get a faux heat patina effect

another "not for tutorials" thing

this is actually for a tutorial. I got a lot of requests for "Goddess pendants"

I used to make loads of Goddess pendants back in the day. Both with gemstone inclusions like the one above or like this, and other ways too. Now all my Goddess pendants are sold through the local metaphysical store, and only through that store. Owner is one of my best friends and she got monopoly on them lol

Mokume gane part 4

So that one is up. I'm still working on stuff but I'm starting to get tired.

As I said in the tutorial, not sure if I will be doing the 3d effects first or a couple jewelry pieces. I am running out of places to put the mokume gane veneers, and they might start getting dry.

I also do have some other things to do - nothing pertaining to the polymer clay world, just some official paperwork that has to be done but it stresses me out and stress makes me more tired.

Aren't you tired yet of hearing me complaining that I'm tired? Tehehe.

Check this Russian artist out. Her dragons are exquisite

Secret Jar

Oh yes and here's the tutorial

Bummer...

Well, I worked today on part 3 of the mokume gane tutorial.

Unfortunately, a  brief power outage made me lose the footage of the first part of the video. I tried and tried and tried to recover the file (usually when the computer shuts down unexpectedly and you were just taping and hadn't saved the video, the file is damaged) but it was impossible - I only recovered about the first 1/3 of it which still made it unusable for the purpose of the tutorial.

So, I am finishing the part 3 only with the second part of the video. I will be re-doing that first part and make it in part 4. Maybe it's better this way, as part 3 with that first part would have been about 40 minutes long. Now we have a part 3 of about 15 minutes and we'll have a part 4 of about 25 minutes.

Yes, there will be a part 5 too. And then there will also be pieces made with all those pretty mokume gane veneers and at least one of them will be combined with some translucent canes.

So. I will be finishing this part 3 and posting it tonight. Because tomorrow I have a dr. visit, so probably I'll be super-tired by the time I get back home, so the part 4 won't happen til Tuesday.

I'll update this later with the link to the

video.

Some beautiful art finds

First of all thank you all for being there for the live event, it was a hoot! I just wish the chat was sound, I wouldn't have so many problems keeping up. It is so heart warming for me to see more and more people coming to be with me, it already feels like a meeting of friends.

Now, on this post, I just wanted to share with you a few of my discoveries I made while searching to make sure that what I intend to present wasn't already presented by someone else.

Now, you probably know more of these beautiful blogs than I do, considering the long break from art I took, but hey! you know what? Think that right now I'm like a child discovering the world. I've been a hermit for quite a few years and lived in pain and sadness, now I'm out and can only marvel at the beauties I discover. So please enjoy with me.

This French artist - she has some of the most beautiful mokume gane works I've seen. Also, the blog is 11 years of work worth. Plenty to feast your eye on beauty. And lots to learn from.

Another artist with beautiful work and she knows Jeff Dever!!! Personally!!!! OMG! Sorry but he is rapidly climbing towards the status of God of all delicate and wondrous things made out of Polymer Clay in my world lol

Also, someone definitely inspired themselves from polymer clay art when they created the print for this dress.

Pretty isn't it? I would love to get clothes with prints from my works! You know my spiral jelly roll mokyme gane technique, wouldn't that one be absolutely fab?

Look at the 3D effect on this! I've been mulling over something like this.

Ok done for now. I'm tired and I think I need to lay down a bit.

Translucent canes part 1 - chrisanthemum cane

This is just a short post to tell you about today's tutorial. It's the first one of my series for August on translucent canes. I touched the subject briefly in a couple of tutorials in the past couple of weeks, and used some translucent canes, and promised to talk more about this subject, so here it is.

August 1st

One of my best friends posted today "August 1 may be the day of new searches. It's up to us which road we'll follow. There's an old saying "measure seven times, cut once", so it would be good if we think well what we say and what we do."

It's the beginning of the end. Of summer, what did you think? The change of color in nature, we start seeing  more yellow and rust and the fall flowers will start blooming soon. So probably our creations will slowly change color patterns. Did you notice that? If you go look at most artists' work, you will see the change, following the seasons. It's something that is in the subconscious.

Anyway. IF (and only IF) I manage to do a tutorial today it will be either a very short one (maybe the caterpillar?) or part 1 of the color theory tutorial, because it's mostly narrated and I decided to make it on the laptop, so I don't have to sit up in a chair while editing it.

But I have a fairly busy day - as usual, before noon, because I have to do as much as I can before the potential narcoleptic stage of my days kicks in.

Let me see: 

1. get to the post office to mail the packages for the winners of the 1,000 subscribers contest (I know, it's been almost a couple of weeks, but budget)
2. get to Hobby Lobby - not just for buying the chain to finish the "clay with me" black and white piece but also it's a 30% off on polymer clay week so I have to take advantage of that.
3. a little grocery shopping - as I decided to go back on low carb diet for a while, just to make sure that it's not the carb thing that brought on these fatigue/narcolepsy spells. The three years I've been on low carb I felt so full of energy that I was really active despite the chronic pain issue. My body has been so messed up by chemo that it's very possible that is the culprit.
4. a few pieces that need sanded, varnished, put together. 

So that's quite a bit of driving around, and because I can't take pain medicine and drive, it's quite a bit of driving around in pain. That makes me more tired than normal.  

So that I do give you some useful information too, not just my daily woes.

Excellent information on what gauge of wire to use for what pieces of jewelry

Nice mokume gane tutorial in images. If you'd accept my color advice though: 1. the dark green I would use a 1:1 mix of jungle green and green Premo; 2 the lighter green I'd use the Wasabi Premo (or Souffle Pistacchio) 3. I'd only use one yellow, the Souffle canary (or a mix of 1:1 Premo white and yellow) 4. I would eliminate the silver/granite pearl completely. Try it

Heh multitasking

I feel so much better now with the house looking tidier. Well it's not completely, I still have to finish pieces and put them away, but the rest looks good. I managed to sleep til close to 6 am, that's a record for me, and even if right when I woke up I was still tired, about half an hour and 2 cups of coffee later I felt so much better.

I've already been working on both tutorials - the public one and the one for my sponsors and patrons. If all goes well I should be able to post both towards early afternoon. I wanted to do this early, because, again, we're having a scorcher. Tomorrow too. So I wanted to get things out of the way before it gets too hot.

The public tutorial is a pretty necklace, with an amber effect obtained with alcohol inks and gold foil, and some delicate flowers on top. I hope you'll like it, it's not that hard to make.

For the sponsors tutorial, it's the bracelet base. It's got a few tricks, if you want to get it right, and not get the tiles mismatched. Nothing worse than do all the things and then realize that the tiles don't align properly, eh?

Last evening though I realized how addicted to claying I am. The idea was for me to get things finished and put them away, right? Right. Well late afternoon, I was checking the small folder with pieces of scraps - just a small organizer I have where I put bits and remnants of colors from various pieces - I found about a dozen small pieces of various colors, and I felt sorry about putting them in the smusher to make mud clay. So I went ahead and made a mokume gane, then with the metallic remnants all mashed together a mica shift. then I've put them together and made a full set, pendant, ear rings and cuff. Just one more thing to finish. Grrr. Addicted, I'm telling you.

They did come up nice, though. I only need to put a back on them and findings.

Pretty, aren't they?

Unfortunately I had a bad surprise too. I had made a long fat bead for one of the asymmetrical necklaces. It looked fine Sunday evening when I got it out of the oven all cooled off. This morning, when I was putting to the side things I have to sand, I noticed it was cracked. The only thing I can think of is that probably I should have left it longer in the oven to cool. Or maybe dunk it in ice water? I've never had a bead crack like this before. The truth is that the mud clay I used for the base was a very old sticky one. Maybe that was the culprit. I'm sorry for the bead, it was a very pretty bead, all with mica shift and appliques of leaves. I still have the leaves cane and it's not hard to make it again, but still...

Look at it

Oh well. Back to work. I heard the oven ding.

Update:

Here's the tutorial for today:

Colors...

I am almost done with editing the tutorial  for today - well to be honest, I taped stuff for three tutorials at the same time - but I will have to leave the house soon for my weekly foray with my best friend. I will also stop at Hobby Lobby to get clay - it's the week with discounts on it, and with both me and my BFF having the 40% coupon, I intend to get a texture and a silk screen as well.

I am sorry I didn't do stuff earlier. For one, last evening I narcolepsied again. Woke up around midnight but I felt like a zombie, so I pretty much dozed on and off until close to 5 am.

Then I worked on the tutorials but also I have a few commissions to finish. One of them I am quite proud of. It was ordered by someone for a lady who has been diagnosed with breast cancer and is starting chemo soon, and it's supposed to cover the port she has. The idea is that it's supposed to be something "empowering". So I thought of this. I usually don't use molds, but I had this mold of the Goddess Athena, so I thought, what better "empowerment" than the warrior goddess? Then I used the "extruder stripes" to make the necklace look like waves of power radiating from the central figure.

So first in line for uploading today is a short tutorial on making a pair of ear rings from the spiral jelly roll mokume gane. No, not the same cane, I actually made a new one with a blue/green color swatch, because the original one I have it earmarked for a tutorial for my Patreon patrons. Also, I wanted to deform the cane for the ear rings as I wanted them in a long triangle. I don't fully finish them because they need resined, and no UV resin. So it would have been hard to resin them up if they were already with the findings on.

But they came up pretty. I made a necklace to go with them too, used as filling some left-over veneer from that busted bangle I made when I made the brocade effect tutorial. I also wanted to show one of the combinations of colors I was talking about during the tutorial.

Should I make a "how to choose colors" tutorial? There have been a few comments about how to choose colors on several of my tutorials, so I wonder if I should make a tutorial about that?

Pretty mokume gane tutorial for you today and more

So, I was up early and was ready to do it relatively fast. Well, it didn't involve any baking either so...

That more than a week of me being in one of my fatigue episodes really put me behind even more than I thought. On the other hand, I do not dare to push myself out of fear of pushing myself straight into another fatigue episode.

I have pieces that I didn't finish putting together. And if for some there is a very valid excuse - either the orders for the various parts I need (i.e. cords and fastenings) either didn't arrive yet in the mail or are waiting for the 1st of the month for me to have money to order them, for other ones there is no other excuse except me not getting around to do it yet.

The thing is, the fatigue episode has gotten me behind not just in the polymer clay area, but in everything. I'm almost caught up with laundry, Managed to mow the front lawn but still have the back yard and dog run - and unfortunately that can only be done early in the morning, due to the heat. But early in the morning is also the time when I do the tutorials the best - or work, for that matter. If I have to handle that weed-eater for an hour, my hands are pretty much busted for the day. I can't use a regular lawn-mower so I mow with the weed-eater.

I didn't yet get around to vacuum the house. I know, right? It's been almost 2 weeks. I can barely believe it myself, because I have a rather pronounced OCD when it comes to cleanliness. Which makes things, otherwise, not so bad, because you can not really notice it. Unless you sit on the carpet and get Conor hair on you. I did manage to mop the kitchen and dust around though.

What I am trying to do now though is to get a few tutorials done so I can just schedule the posting, that way for those days I can just focuseon everything else and finally catch up with stuff.

Oh yes I didn't finish packaging things for the store either. That is the main reason I didn't finish uploading. I dont' want things to get sold and then have to frantically search the house for proper packaging so it doesn't look like crap wrapping when it reaches the buyer. Meh. OCD.

Also, I posted the winners for the 1,000 subscribers contest. I'll make a separate post for it.

Third tutorial ready for upload and don't forget live event today

All right, I got the third tutorial that I had shot right before my fatigue episode all ready and it's uploading now. Should be up in one hour by what youtube says.

Here it is.

Don't forget the live event! Starts in about 2 1/2 hours.

On another note, after the live event - which will get recorded and published on youtube automatically - I think I will not make another tutorial until either Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning. My hands are killing me, we keep having all these storms around and that is not easy on me. On Tuesday I see my spine and pain care doctor and I will get a set of my cervical spine shots that usually reduce inflammation on the arms/hands nerves that are severely pinched in my neck, and that makes my hands hurt less and be more "responsive". Depending on how fast the shot works - the next tut will be either that afternoon (I go early in the morning so I have time to rest afterwards) or Wednesday morning.

Managed to get everything resined up last evening. Finally.

Now I need to get some more pretty cardboard to pack the pieces I made that are crowded on the kitchen table.

"Quilted" mokume gane

This is the "Clay with me Sunday" today. I hope you like it. I will probably finish the piece in a couple of hours - just because it needs to bake two more times. I always prefer to just do an extra bake step if there is any chance of messing up a piece by shortcutting a bake. I hope you will like it. It's a little bit on the unusual side when it comes to mokume gane - well, not even sure if you can call it mokume gane to be honest.

Anyway. The event announcement is up. Was up last evening late but by the time it got uploaded I was already narcolepsied on the couch. So I didn't manage to put up the poll cards and review the close captioning til early morning.

As soon as I finish the video for today I will get back to working on the watercolor and on the first paid tutorial.
To announce it, it will be about... raku. What else? I am almost done with the necklace, just have to put it together, all the pieces are done, backs on, varnish where it needs to be, just to put them on their chain and the clasp.And the earrings. It's a necklace and earrings set.

Once I'm done with all that - and in the little break bits I will start the move of the store on facebook. I woke up early enough to take care of the other websites. So the rest of my day can be dedicated to polymer clay.

I am really looking forward to see the pieces that will be posted for the contest. I love seeing peoples' creativity. I will announce here, and on facebook, and on youtube when the contest starts.

I will update later as things happen, as usual.