Book Review: "400 Polymer Clay Designs: A Collection of Dynamic & Colorful Contemporary Work "

This book is an absolute delight. Art piece after art piece, in the most diverse styles possible, in a way, it is also a history of polymer clay. Great names of the polymer clay art, from Nan Roche to Barbara McGuire to Kathleen Dustin to Sandra McCaw - and many many others - take you through a journey of inspiration and delight. Pieces made in imitative techniques, pieces inspired by the Art Nouveau or Art Deco movement or by the carvings of the neolithic man, alien looking plants by Jeff Denver, Kathleen Dustin's handbags, figurines, tables, decorative objects, canes like you've never thought a cane may look like before, exquisite jewelry - you will be hooked for hours.

A must have.
You can find this book in my Amazon Influencer store, click HERE.

3 hours

Yay. 3 hours. This is how long it's left on the first part of the patina jewelry set. But at least it will be uploaded today for sure. I will try to get the part 2 uploaded before evening as well. Because otherwise it won't get uploaded til Monday.

Tomorrow is Sunday and I have started the "clay with me Sunday" and I will be sticking to it. I am actually thinking of making a live thing starting next week. Announce what is needed 3-4 days in advance, then make an easy jewelry piece so people can actually really "clay with me" live. And who doesn't get to be online during the live event, the whole video gets automatically recorded and posted by Youtube.

What do you think? Would you like that?

9:50 am update

50% uploaded.
Time remaining: 2 hours 50 minutes.  That makes this Saturday a record. The video is 25 minutes long. So it comes to an average of about 1 hour for each 4 minutes of video. Youtube. I'm at a loss of words.

4:20 pm, 39% of the part 2 is uplodaed. Youtube doesn't want to tell me at all how much time is left.

Dragon's eye

No idea what's up with me posting late on my blog in these past few days.

Anyway, as usual, late in posting but not late in work. I did most of the tutorial for today, just got the back and finishing touches to do after it bakes.

I decided - with Game of thrones season 7 starting soon and all the hype, that I, like a self-respecting die-hard fan of GoT, have to make my small contribution to the hupe, right?

So today I will upload a tutorial on how to make a dragon's eye pendant. No, not my old style ones, a new design. The old style ones already got stolen and people made tutorials about how to make them... lol

Anyway. It's going to take a while for it to bake as it's relatively thick and I want it to be sturdynot fall apart. I can assure you that it's pretty.

This afternoon I will just keep working on my other pieces. Maybe I'll post a pic or two.

Hollow beads

Yes, yes, I know, I've been talking about the "dimension and distress" tutorial.

But, considering that it's chilly and the barometer still holds in areas that are uncomfortable for me so I'm still in quite a deal of pain, I might actually work on two tutorials today. I don't promise I'll post both of them today though.

I've been watching a number of tutorials on how to make hollow beads.  And I think I can add my two cents to that, just a bit of knowledge that I got through experimentation and experience. Who knows, maybe some of you might enjoy it. How does "hollow pod with seed inside" sound?

Ok I'll start working on the "dimensions and distress" tutorial now.  Probably show the technique on a couple tiles, a bead or two and a pendant.

Will update later during the day as usual.

12:10 (ish) update

Oh well. I did the hollow beads tutorial first. Just because the other one takes a while. You know me, I must have pieces already done, then pieces that are half done, before I start the tutorial. That, and the editing takes the longest.

OTOH, 1 hour 8 minutes upload duration for a little bit over 7 minutes video. I am seriously going to look for some solutions for that today. I found a couple open source converters and recorders that are special for streaming and live recording with optimization for the web. I guess we'll have to wait and see how they work.  The Stormtrooper can take whatever I throw at it.

 2 pm update. It's up.

2:50 update.

SCULPEY HAS A 40% OFF SALE!!!

https://www.sculpeyproducts.com/

High risk

The Norman Weather Service has upgraded the severe weather risk area to "high". That's the highest. There is a severe tornado outbreak predicted for today. As much as it is true that my side of town is still in the "slight", that doesn't mean it can't get hit. Weather is unpredictable and mother nature doesn't really care about lines people draw on a map.

This being said, I might be updating a lot. I tend to be hyper when I'm worried.

Back to polymer claying.

I found a way to do the home-made alcohol inks. FINALLY. That's one of my pet peeves, that with my income I can't afford so many of the goodies out t here that would allow me to make prettier jewelry. Oh well. With careful budgeting I'll get there. One day.

And as I don't think I'll ever make a tutorial video about it - i t would be too risky with my hands medical issues, I'd probably topple stuff left and right and can't do that in the office room, I did the inks in the kitchen and there's no way to rig the camera there anymore - I'll just tell you.

Get a few smallish jars or if you're sure that you won't bump and topple, even plastic one-ise cups. Alcohol (the higher grade the better). Those fine tip applicator henna bottles work the best for storing (I just had a whole bunch in the house as I do henna tattooing from time to time). And.....  *suspense building*..... permanent markers. Well. Should have thought of this earlier, the permanent markers DO give that strong odor of alcohol when used, right? So, wearing gloves (a must, otherwise you'll stain your skin something fierce), break the markers open, remove and unfold the felt-y thing inside, and let it soak for 5-6 hours in alcohol. And voila! you got your alcohol ink. You can get the markers at the dollar store for quite cheap. I had around the house a few sets of many many colors so I am still in the process of making many, many colors of ink. Why did I have so many? No idea. I don't remember buying them - I don't do marker art and drawing - so probably someone got it for me.

As I can't get any stuff until the first of the month, and for the faux Tiffany I need either more liquid polymer clay or an embossing ink pen, I was thinking to do a tutorial today on canes for Coleus leaves. Even if you don't know what Coleus is, you've seen it for sure. It's an annual decorative plant, with the leaves prettier than most flowers. There are many kinds, each of them with a different design on the leaves.  Here's a few:

Yes, there is a way to replicate those beautiful patterns. And there are dozens and dozens of them. Even without using it as a leaf, you can still use it for a pendant or beads.

So yes I will get on that today.

Will update later

Update 2:55 pm.

Storms have started to fire up in the southwest of the state and are already becoming tornadic. Uhhh

I finished the coleus tutorial, it's uploading. 2+hours for about 16 minutes of video. Seriously, youtube?

Result

Trying to find my syringe needles. I saw something really cool involving alcohol inks and I want to try it but I need a very controlled and tiny dripping. It's a huge difference working with an A4 sized yupo paper and working with a 1square inch of surface.

Yes I have syringe needles. You can find them at feed stores, the kind that have stuff for cattle. Syringes too. That's what I always used when rescuing kittens. The syringes, without needles, doh.

Update 5:50

Yes the tutorial got uploaded but I didn't have the time to update this as a first wave of severe storms passed overhead. Just a slight stuff for what has been around the state today - got some quarter size hail and lots of wind and rain. My poor shorthair cat is terrified of storms. He starts yowling loudly and if I don't go pick him up and cuddle him he gets in a kind of shock state and pees himself while screaming in terror. Well he might still pee himself if I don't get to him in time.

Yes. Not much polymer claying today, besides the cane. Sorry, bad weather.

Anyway, here's the tutorial

Sunny with dragonflies

Gods above and on Earth I'm tired.

I woke up a little after 2 am. Storms moving through. Very noisily. At least on my side of town there was no wind damage. Well, at my house. I didn't get out of the house today so I don't know about others, but the West and North sides of OKC had wind damage.

So I told myself "I'll take naps during the day". Well, I will. So there.

Until then though, I finished the "make a dragonfly necklace out of your scrap clay" tutorial. It's uploading now. But it's 42 minutes long. So... 4 hours, maybe?

Anyway. It looks good. I'll take a nap and then I'll work on the other one I have in mind. I intended to go get something but I decided it can wait. Until the week-end.

This is how the necklace came out:

Edit 12:15 pm

Youtube is sneaky. Now it doesn't say anymore how much time remaining for your video to upload. It only says the %. Because of course you might forget that you started the upload an hour ago and it's only gone to 20%. "Four hours? Us? Naaaaa! Here, look at this %! See how good we're doing?"

Edit 7 pm. It's finally up. I realized I did a little mess up and the eye cane section was repeating, I fixed it but it takes a while for youtube to process that (in case you were wondering)

Anyway, here it is

Edit 4:45 pm. It started showing time remaining. 2 more hours. I think I really need to divide any videos into 10-15 minutes at the most and just upload "part 1" "part 2" etc. This is ridiculous. Again it's youtube not me. It does seem to go faster at night, but I'm sorry, I am not going to leave the Starship trooper on for the night. Not so much about power consumption but about noisiness.

Now I feel like

European suppliers

I do quite often purchase things from Europe. And most of the time it may take just a day or two more for them to get here compared to purchasing US only. Yes, the shipping is a tad more - but not by much, and even so the prices are still lower than the US prices.

One of the stores I've discovered is in the Czech Republic. So many things I want to buy from that store that - can I win the lottery please? Look at all this stuff. Keep in mind that 100 CZK (Czech crowns) is just a tad over $4 (today it's $4.13 to be exact). No wonder European artists create so much more than us in the US of A or even Canada.

Nemravka store

Weather and polymer clay

Artists who have worked a while with polymer clay know how much the weather can interfere with your work.

Too hot? Soft, stretchy clay. Too cold? You have to work a lot to condition it. And the worst is when it's too humid.

Yesterday was a stormy day. Well, it's Oklahoma and it's the end of April. Nothing unusual here.

I decided to set my "mosaic" flowers in bib necklace type settings that would be reminiscing a little the old Byzantine jewelry.

I had to take several breaks while I was working during which I had put the polymer clay in the freezer between paper towels. Hot humid weather.  Well mostly humid, didn't really need to turn on the A/C - I'm quite comfortable at 76F, thank you. The clay isn't.

Anyway, I decided to make one in ancient bronze look and the other one in a more copperish look.

They're at this stage - the ancient bronze one already got a brushing of mica powder, the other one is lagging behind a little.

What I wanted to do is to give you a tip - it doesn't show much in the photos at this stage, but when the pieces will be finished it will show properly.

Most people when they try to imitate metal, they will use that respective shade of polymer clay, then enhance it with mica powder then use some acrylic paint for patina

.

There's a way to make things look with a patina from the start.

If you take an old piece of jewelry (or any other metal work for that matter) and you look, there's a specific shade of patina depending on the metal. Right? That is why we use a green-ish paint for copper, black for silver, etc.

Well, try to do that to start with.

I normally mix different colors of the polymer clay to get the color of the patina directly. For example, try mixing the Premo peacock blue with gold and a smidgeon of bronze. You will get pretty much the color copper gets when it's oxidized. I used to mix silver and black until Premo came up with the metallic granite. It's perfect for silver pieces. For bronze, mix bronze and gold with a smidgeon of black. Then you won't have to work so much on applying a patina on stuff - the mica powder slightly brushed on will make the metal pop up and you won't have to worry about the aged look - it's already there!