"The essence of a polymer clay artist - we'll cover a wooden box with polymer clay and then work hard to make the polymer clay look like wood." ~ Me
Note: if you want to see all contents of this blog please scroll down and click "view web version"
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.
I managed to finish the entire tutorial for sponsors/Patreon patrons. Divided in 7 parts, so facebook wouldn't hiccup, but it still did at part 6 which was longer than 5 minutes. Well, quite a bit longer.
What is the most irritating is that I started uploading it, no message of "'ello this is no good", but after an hour and a half, upload stops and I get the message that the codec is wrong. I said "ok" and started re-working the codec, but then I looked and saw that it had the same encoding as the other 5 parts.
So it's the length. Uhhh. Re-editing the last 2 parts to make them into 3 parts. Hopefully it will go smooth.
And hopefully I won't fall asleep. I did manage to not fall asleep all day! and it's past 5:30 pm! This is a small victory for me.
I guess I might have to make a charm tutorial. Gayle Thompson did a few charms a little while ago - if I'm not mistaken, a ladybug, a bee and a green caterpillar. They are all cute, but I kept thinking that the caterpillar would look awesome in a tall hat. I kept pestering her about making it with a tall hat and today she said that I should do it.
Right. It's about sculpting. Like I needed any kind of challenge for that! haha. So I might make a small tutorial with a "Hat on the cat(erpillar)".
I also thought of including the varnishing technique Elizabeth asked me about in the bracelet tutorial but then I realized that 1. it would make it way too long. and 2. this is actually a tutorial that should be by itself.
Ok. Back to editing those videos before I fall asleep.
Here's two photos (as good as I could get them with my crappy phone) of tiles that are part of the bracelet.
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...
Almost finished taping. Just waiting for the sample piece to be baked. This is a "natural" or "realistic" (however you want to call it) feather cane.
Part 2 will be with decorative jewelry-style whimsical feather cane.
Will update in a bit with the teaser photo and then with the video link after it will be uploaded.
Got to do a short errands trip first though. But it's early enough for me to be able to get everything done in less than an hour and that will still leave me enough time to upload before noon.
Update 2 pm
Sorry. I had to redo the whole thing. I messed up. I don't want to talk about it lol.
