My colorful mood

Everyone seems to be thinking about color these days.  Like everybody else in the clay world, I'm doing some of the exercises in Polymer Clay Color Inspirations by Haunani and Maggio, but in addition, I decided to mix up some colors from the recipes I've collected through my subscription to Cindy Lietz's Polymer Clay Tutor service.  Each week she sends out three recipes, two for people who get her free weekly newsletter (To receive this newsletter automatically by email each week, you can fill out the opt-in form at: http://www.beadsandbeading.com ) plus another one for paid members of her Bead Making Video Library.  I made 66 color chips, wrote the recipes on the back and put holes in the corner so I can keep them on a wire.  I like having individual chips so I can move them around and see how different colors work with each other.  Some of these are yummy and I can't wait to use them in a project.

In addition to the color recipes, Video Library members get a new video each week showing a clay technique or a project.  This week the video shows how to make extruded flower canes.  At only $3.32 per month, it's hard to pass up this great service.

Another Frame

One of my guildmates, Laura McIntosh, is having a baby and has decorated the nursery in a jungle theme using green, yellow and white. I made this picture frame for her but don't tell her. She hasn't seen it yet.

It's a Frame Up!!!

The infamous Daniels 12, my best friends in the whole world, got together again, this time in Niagara Falls. We were all freshmen together in a small dorm called Daniels Hall and after seeing each other every 5 years at reunions, we decided to start having our own private reunions. It has become sort of a tradition to exchange small gift items, so last time I gave everybody Altoid tins covered in clay. This time I decided to give everyone a picture frame - covered in clay, of course. I bought unfinished wooden frames at Michaels, baked them, sanded off any resin that oozed out, coated them with Modge Podge, and then added clay. This was a technique I learned from Gaby Orbach at Morrisburg. For most of them I used Bev Larose's texture sheets (which I think will be available soon through Shades of Clay) either covering the clay with PearlEx powder and then running it through the pasta machine with the texture sheet, or texturing the clay and then adding pigment. (Click on photos for larger views.)



















Even the ones made with plain gold or silver clay looked nice. Then I got playful - this is my first try at the extruding technique. Kewl.

Morrisburg, Day 2 and 3

Georgia Ferrell, aka Iggy, treated us to Fanciful Fabric and Other Stuff.
Georgia encouraged us to play with liquid clay and a variety of materials including yarns, thin fabrics, ribbons, sparkles and, essentially, anything we can think of.


Wendy Orlowski made a New Year's resolution to use up some of her stash before buying anything new, and as a result, came up with a class called Resolution Steampunk. We were told to raid our tool boxes and garages and to take apart obsolete items in order to find parts appropriate to the Steampunk trend. The results were spectacular.



In addition to workshops, there were a variety of swaps. Everyone was encouraged to clean out their studios and bring unwanted items for the "Table of Junque." It looked like Filene's Basement as we elbowed each other aside to find the good stuff. We also swapped canes and beads.






The queen of miniatures, Jacey Culham, showed us how to create a picnic of miniature hamburgers, hot dogs, fries and donuts. Yum. Then there is poutine - yuck - the Canadian dish consisting of fries, cheese curds and gravy.












Last year's mystery project was so much fun that we did it again. On the first day we were each given a small square of paper with a fragment of a photo on it. Our job was to duplicate the image in clay, matching colors and size. Then on Saturday night, we each stuck our square onto a larger canvas.



Margi Laurin supervised the project.


And we produced this masterpiece.

Rite of Spring

Once again I was lucky enough to attend "Morrisburg", the clay retreat held in Morrisburg, Ontario for members of the Quebec and Ontario clay guilds. Kudos to Margi Laurin and Violette Laporte for another well-organized, well-run, and FUN event. That's Vio having fun on the right.

As usual the workroom was a hubbub of creativity.



Gaby Orbach got us started with a workshop on interesting surface techniques including a silkscreen effect that doesn't use a silkscreen. We used the results to cover wooden picture frames or to make jewelry (jewellery for Brits and Canadians).



Next Sandy Willis showed us how to have fun with flakes, although at first we weren't sure if she was referring to us or the stuff from Grummer. It turns out we colored little iridescent flakes and used them to make sparkly surfaces which could be used in many applications.

Finally, Violette Laporte showed us how to create lovely books using covers made of clay. We tore or cut paper and then bound everything together using a needle and thread in a technique called Coptic stitching.



More on Day 2 tomorrow........

Playing with Liquid Clays

I've been experimenting with liquid clays recently, trying different brands and mixing different substances into them.  I've used Translucent Liquid Sculpey (TLS) a lot, especially for "gluing" baked clay to baked clay, but it isn't as clear as I want for a project I'm working on using sort of a cloissonne effect.  I'm looking for clear, vibrant colors to use for translucent butterfly wings and I want some subtle variations in colors.  To figure out what to use for my project, I compared Fimo Gel with Kato Clear Medium.

 Fimo Gel starts out the clearest and is wonderfully clear after baking at normal temperatures, i.e. the 265° specified on the bottle.  I was disappointed with Kato Clear when baked at 275°, the temperature specified on the bottle, and even after using a heat gun on it.  But then I read a paper about Kato Liquid that was handed out by Tony Aquino of Van Aken at the Synergy Conference.  "When cured at 275° it will give you a flat finish.  The recommended curing temperature is 300° for 20 minutes.  This temperature will result in a matte finish.  To increase gloss and clarity, cure an additional 10 minutes at 350° or wave a heat gun over the area until gloss is achieved."  When I followed this procedure, I got a nice glossy and clear result  with the Kato Medium.  

I found some "artist's pigments" at a local store and tried mixing them into the liquid clays. These are "no name" pigments from China and I don't think they are ground as finely as some more expensive ones may be.  I got a nice clear yellow and a bright red when mixed with both Kato and Fimo liquids, but the blues were grainy and mixing two pigments did not produce very nice secondary colors.  I found that oil paints worked very well although some of them were more opaque than others.  There are lots of colors and they blend very well, so I could get a nice range of hues.  Pinata Inks are very translucent and some of the colors really pop, but the color range is limited.  I had problems with bubbling when I baked the clay right after mixing, but letting them sit for a couple of hours until the alcohol evaporates seems to solve that problem.

When I tried making my butterfly wings (small example in the first photo), I found that the Fimo Gel was difficult to get into the tiny spaces formed by the black ribs where they come together.  I used a toothpick to apply the liquid clay, and although the Kato tended to drip, it flowed very easily into the smallest spaces.  The Fimo Gel wings had some problems with bubbles, although I haven't had that problem in the past when I applied the clear gel with a brush.  

It turns out that all three liquid clays have their advantages and I will probably use them all for different purposes.  TLS is great glue.  Fimo Gel works very well as a clear sealer over mica powders and gold leaf and does not have to be baked at high temperatures, making it safe to use with translucent clay.  Kato blends well, flows into small spaces and had no bubble problems, but having to bake at 350° or use a heat gun at the same temperature could cause problems in some situations.

In my next post, I'll show you my prototype butterflies.  And in the future, when I can get hold of some Kato Color Liquid Clay, I will see how that compares to my homemade mixes.

My first, um, .....

I call it Reef Dreams, but I'm not sure what it is - a sculpture, a miniature, a cute knick-knack? It is about 5 and 1/2 inches across and about 4 inches tall, so it's larger than dollhouse scale.  The image just popped into my head and I felt compelled to make it.  Now the question is: would anyone buy this?  Apparently people buy little scenes with fairies and dragons or mermaids.  Scuba divers would like it, I think.

Everything, including the large shell the scene sits on, is made of clay except for the string of "pearls", the jewels on the crown, and a few beads in the chest.  If I make any more, I would probably try to make everything out of clay.

(For those who don't scuba dive or snorkel:  the purple thing is an anemone with a clown fish peeking out of the tendrils.  It is poisonous, but the clown fish is immune.  The tall, thin lavender thing is a sea fan.  The green ball that looks like a brain is Brain Coral.  The tall red thing is a sponge and so is the yellow thing behind the sea fan.  You really do see those bright colors underwater.)

What do you think?

Cane Slicing

I'm pretty good at "eye-balling" measurements, but I wanted to be even more exact for slicing canes.  Anything to lessen sanding requirements, right?  I've tried different cane slicers, but none have given me the precision and uniformity I desire.  The Precise-a-Slice from ValKat Designs worked the best for me, but I was still having problems.  The stiffer blades are thicker and had a tendency to mash down the cane and make marks on the slices, while tissue blades are so flexible, I kept getting curved slices of varying thickness.   My hands couldn't hold the tissue blade rigidly enough.  Then this morning I had a brain storm - my jewelry saw might hold the blade!  Sure enough, it did, and it worked especially well when I cut the blade to the shortest length possible.  For paper thin slices of canes with translucent sections, I'll probably still hold the cane and blade in my hands, but so far, this method is working very well.  (The Precise-a-Slice is available at Polymer Clay Express.  Scroll down the equipment page to find it.)

Here's how I did it.  I used tin shears to cut a tissue blade to a length of 3 1/4 inches.  It was very easy to cut, but be sure to wear eye protection!  Then I put the blade in my adjustable jewelry saw, making it as taut as possible.  Again, be careful doing this because the cutting edge of the blade will be up while you are pushing against the saw to tighten it.

I centered the cane in the Precise-a-Slice and stabilized it with some Super Sculpey (putting some on top of the cane, at the back, keeps it from rising when you slice), and then I sliced by holding the saw so that the blade was against the guides and angled slightly.  So far, I've had good luck slicing at the thinnest increments marked on the device.

Another vessel

Here is a second vessel from Seth Savarick's class.  I'm quite pleased with it.  The top and cord are navy blue, which is the same dark blue in the mokume gane.  It just looks a lot lighter in the mokume gane.

I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling some creative malaise lately, probably as a result of a much too long winter.  Libzoid has been feeling the same way.  If you check out her blog, you can take a peek at the studios of different clay artists.  She features a new one each week.

Oh NO!!

The polymer clay community has been consumed recently with issues of copying, infringement, ethics, inspiration, etc. So imagine my distress this morning when I followed a link on a blog and found this photo (right) on Tina Holden's blog. I was upset because, totally on my own, without ever seeing Tina's lovely work, I have produced almost identical items! Since Tina posted her image sometime yesterday, even if I had seen it then, I would have had to scramble to find shells and a sand dollar, make molds and produce polymer clay copies. Proof that great minds think alike. Yet, if I put my items for sale on Etsy, I'm sure someone would accuse me of blatant copying. (However, I seriously doubt the two of us are the first to make PC shells from molds.)

My shells below:
I returned from scuba diving in the Caribbean a couple of months ago with some shells and a sand dollar and immediately made molds of them. My sand dollar isn't perfect, so I need to do some more work to make the mold the way I want it. I finished some small shell earrings (center in photo)and experimented with different coloring for the big shell. I put a ring in the white one so I can string it. In addition to my plans for making some simple earrings and necklaces, I also made some faux black coral and I was planning to make a starfish and some other creatures, like sea fans or sea urchins, and then combine a bunch of the pieces into an elaborate necklace. I just have some preliminary sketches of that. But I checked out Tina's Etsy site today and she has some nice starfish and fish items and Just Jewelry showed sterling silver sea fans on the 18th. I was going to try making them with liquid clay....

I know all the discussion of what constitutes copying is having a distressing effect on me as I struggle to "find my own voice" and I hope it is not causing anyone to forego pursuing their ideas.

My First Vessel

TA DA! Here it is:








my first vessel ever. This is one of the three I started in Seth Savarick's class. Not bad for my first mokume gane and first attempt at a vessel, but I know I can do better. It should have a cord attached to make it wearable, but I don't think I will bother. The turquoise clay had some plaque that I didn't notice until it was baked. And I don't care for the TLS surface over the mokume gane. It is still too cloudy for my taste even though I used a heat gun on it. My TLS is old and a bit thick, so I don't think the coats I applied were thin enough. I'll try the Fimo Gel on a future project. It came out much clearer in my tests.

Where to Begin???

I'm back home after three weeks away and trying to figure out where to start. Paying bills, of course. Unpacking my goodies from Synergy. I have new toys to play with - some "Pro" bead rollers, faux bone (no idea what to do with that yet), new mold/mould making materials (don't know whether to use American or Canadian spelling), my "Mona-fied" pasta machine, and some new videos and DVDs. I'm full of inspiration but trepidation too.

I consider myself to be an intermediate clayer: definitely not a beginner, but still learning and searching for my "voice." I was already concerned about how to use all the techniques I'm learning without imitating other people's work, and the discussions at Synergy and in recent posts on clay bulletin boards only reinforced those concerns. I tend to paralyze myself. If I can't do something totally unique and original, then I can't do anything at all. Which is a bit too much to expect from someone who is still learning. I'm sure I'm not the only one struggling with these issues.

So, my first project is to finish the vessels I started at Seth Savarick's class. Stay tuned.

And best wishes to Ponsawan, my Synergy roommate, and her daughter.

Beyond the Blend

My marathon week of claying finally came to an end and I am recovering at my mom's house in Pennsylvania. I darted out of the Synergy gala dinner just before the live auction, which I heard was a lot of fun, and drove back to Damascus, Maryland to get ready for Dan Cormier and Tracy Holmes' two-day workshop called Beyond the Blend. Dan is a very analytical and precise kind of guy and he has spent much of the last two years working with clay blends in the pasta machine. He has come up with an interesting method for achieving complex, predictable and repeatable results. He also likes developing tools and introduced the SHARK, a device for limiting the spread of clay in pasta machines. It helps when you want to make a narrow blend or just a narrow strip of clay. Griffin Cormier was there as well, running around in his jammies, and he kept us all entertained.

I can't say enough about Rob and Wilma and Devon at Artway Studio/Polymer Clay Express. They gave the students the run of the store and instantly provided anything we needed for the class.

I'll be offline for awhile. I'm driving my mom down to North Carolina for a big family reunion and probably won't be blogging til I get back to Canada around March 8. Unless, of course, you want me to show photos from my cousin's 50th wedding anniversary.

Synergy, Day Three

My first seminar of the day was Christi Friesen's Art Jewelry Designing. She gave each attendee a pen and a little booklet called "doodle your way to amazing wonderfulness or: how to design art jewelry without hardly trying," and encouraged us to scribble and doodle everywhere we go, even in her lecture. She showed how her inspirations lead to doodles and then to more detailed designs for her elaborate jewelry, although she said her finished pieces often vary quite a bit from her sketches. Then she told us her techniques for assembling her unusual shapes.

Jana Roberts Benzon gave a very detailed demonstration on how to construct her breathtaking dimensional caned pieces and showed how dimension catches light, creates shadow, and results in interest and intrigue. To make it easy for everyone in the room to see what she was doing, she had a video camera pointed at her work surface and sent the image through a projector onto a big screen. I also liked her outfit and the little elf condoms she was wearing on her fingers.









During the afternoon gathering, Tim McCreight got 200 grownups to play with little pieces of paper. His interactive presentation was called Design Decisions: Good, Better, Best, and he started out by challenging us to improve upon a design he put on an easel. Seth Savarick and Donna Kato were forced to do this in front of everyone. Then the people at each table arranged their pieces of paper and talked about their design decisions. Fun.











My last seminar of the conference was Karen Woods "Unconventional Polymer." I was feeling a little sleepy but Karen's amazingly energetic presentation woke me up and kept me fascinated all the way through. She had so much information to share that she talked a mile a minute and ended up quite out of breath. She showed us real items borrowed from other artists and lots of pictures of unusual and different ways of using polymer clay. In addition to looking outside the clay world for inspiration, she told us to "take a class in something you don't want to do," such as basket weaving or mosaic tiling or some other skill that might possibly suggest a use in clay.

Kudos to all the people who put Synergy together. It was a wonderful experience for me, and everyone else I talked to seemed very pleased as well.

Synergy participants at the end of Day 3