Twists on Technique

One of the fabulous things about polymer clay (and the internet) if that the material is flexible enough to allow for a range of experimentation; people are constantly taking a technique which they have learned, and adding to it--sort of like that old game of 'telephone', where a word or phrase passes from person to person, until it comes full circle in a nearly unrecognizable form.



Last year I published a tutorial on making faux twigs, after much experimentation on my own; I, of course, was influenced by looking at other artists--Kim Cavender, especially.

My take on the faux twigs was in pursuit of realistic looking lightweight polymer pieces that could be included in jewelry--and one of the weaknesses of the tutorial was that it required the artist to drill after curing--something that many people are neither set up for, nor comfortable with.


Of course I included sugggestions such as wirewrapping to add the elements, but still....

So I was completely delighted the other day to get a lovely email from an artist in Italy, who had come up with a brilliant and beautful way to overcome the drilling problem:

Her screen name is Primatoide Futile, and her work is notable for the sophistication that she achieves with simple palletes and shapes--but what knocked me out was her elegant solution for the non-drillers among us--she simply combined two techniques--creating hollow tubes in polymer, then creating the twig around it;

Voila!! A twig that can be strung lengthwise, easy-peazy.
Prima didn't say, but I suspect that she cures her hollow tubes after creating them on a knitting needle or other armature, then adds the raw clay to the surface, and molds and textures it
as instructed in the tutorial; the look is smashing.

As always, I learn as much or more from my students than they do from me....

Namaste,

Randee

Artists I admire.....

There are so many artists working in polymere that I intensely admire and take inspiration from that it would be impossible to list them--so I'll take the random approach and put the spotlight on Rebecca Watkins, who goes by the flickr name artybecca.

Rebecca's style is truly unique--you know her work the moment that you see it--and she is also one of the most consisitently generous artists on the web, sharing her secret techniques in detail. What shines in her gallery of style is a sweet and self-effacing humor, as demonstrated by her 'buttoned-up fish" series:

She apparently creates most of her distinctive pieces from scrap clay, letting the colors of the clay dictate the nature of the piece--a refreshingly unplanned approach very much in keeping with the meditative quality of her work. Much of her work is scribed and carved with an eye to following the patterns already extant in the clay. Sculptors like Michaelangelo famously claimed that they were merely freeing the form from the stone they carved, without conscious intention, and Rebecca does the same in the medium of polymer clay.

All of her work has a timeless, organic feel that invites the viewer to sit and rest awhile--doodle a bit and see what happens---and perhaps be surpised with the outcome. So often we struggle to 'create' something--get an idea or an image out--that it's good to remember that it's just as valid to relax and let the work create itself.



























Have a creative and fun holiday..









Namaste,



Randee

Make your own neckwire

Don't you just hate it when you're just about to finish a piece, and you find you lack the findings?!!
I do--when I'm ready to go, I'm ready to go. The other day I had finished a lovely pendant, reached into the drawer--and no neckwire to put it on. That meant ordering online and waiting, or heading down to the local craft outlet and hope it was on sale.

But Wait! there's a third option........I'm going to just load these pics on and you can follow along; sorry I can't think of a more elegant way to do this, but you'll get the idea...

Hope you find this useful....

Namaste,

Randee

Waste Not! ALice Stroppel's Brilliantly simple (and simply brilliant) cane technique

You hear all the time about things 'going viral' on the web--and few places demonstrate this better than the polymer clay community. Case in point? Polymer Clay Daily--THE weblog of the polymer clay world, recently featured a link to the website of well-known polymer artist Alice Stroppel.

Alice has been doing face canes for years--almost everyone who works in PC is familiar with her work--but she also came up with a simple technique for using leftover canes--ends, failed pieces in a unique and innovative way; she demonstrated this at a recent retreat to her table mate--seemingly as a casual afterthought--and once the genie was out of the bottle, it travelled over the world with the speed of light.

In and of itself, the technique is so simple that most artists (like myself) are scratching their heads and saying, "why didn't I think of that?!",

whilst busily working away making the beautiful canes that she invented. Most polymer clay is fun--it's why we love it, and stay with it--but this technique is PC fun on steroids.

It has all the elements we love--Frugality (we hate to throw those old canes away, if there were only some good way to reuse them..) Beauty (just take a look) Ease of construction (The canes are ridiculously easy and fast to make) And above all, the sheer Serendipity of it--you never know what you're going to get, but odds are seriously in your favor it'll be great.

Alice, of course, could have reserved this knowledge and sold it in the form of tutorials, which most of us would gladly pay for; but instead, she chose to generously share it with the rest of the PC world for free. And this is one of the things that makes the PC world such a great place to be--a generous, sharing, supportive community of artists all encouraging and inspiring each other.

How cool is that.

I'll be teaching the Stroppel Cane technique at the November meeting of the Austin Polymer Clay Guild on Saturday, November 5th at 2pm at the Ralph Yarborough Library, 2200 E Hancock Drive. Please check our yahoo group and facebook page for details and supply lists.

Namaste,

Randee

Julie Picarello Workshop

I don't know how longs it's been since the Austin Guild hosted a visiting Artist workshop, but it must have been too long!

This last weekend, some very fortunate members of the guild were able to attend two amazing days of instruction with JuliePicarello of Yellow House designs, and follow her down the lazy river of polymer clay.
Though she had considerable difficulty arriving--after months of drought, wouldn't you know it, an errant thunderstorm over Dallas caused her plane to divert to Oklahoma city, and she didn't get to her hotel in Dallas until 3a.m.--She arrived bright and chipper at the classroom space and went to work.
Now I must confess that I have only taken one polymer clay class in my life, years ago, and really had no idea what to expect; but whatever expectations I had or lacked, she blew them all out of the water. Not only is she an incredibly knowledgeable, organized and lucid teacher, she is also one of the nicest people you'll ever want to meet. Up close and personal, her work is stunning, flawless in execution and finish, and her teaching style is incredibly easy to follow. Even the least experienced of us was able to complete work worthy of boast. (One of the cooler aspects of Julie's take on colors--everyone mixed up their own blends following her basic process--was that almost everyone in the room, consciously or not, ended up making tiles that matched what they were wearing).

The workshop went step by step through her signature technique, "Lazy River Mokume Gane", and all long the way she filled us in with dozens of tips and tricks on how to get perfectly smooth and rounded tiles, how to cut one's clay for absolutely precise joins, how to texture clay with the simplest of materials; on the second day, she focused on finishing the work, and for those of us new to drilling, showed us the niftiest tricks for getting your work drilled clean and straight--which is not nearly as easy as it looks! She also shared some information that many of us didn't know--that for example, no polymer clay is fully cured until it reaches 300 degrees, despite what the manfacturer recommends-- the lower temperatures cited on the package are to protect the colors from changing--who knew?!

Most importantly, however, for two days, as she guided us through all the steps to making beautiful work, she was unfailingly gracious, kind, and encouraging. She made even brand new clayers feel wonderful about their efforts, and all without a hint of insincerity--when she told you your work was lovely, you believed it because it was true. She empowered everyone in that room, gave them the confidence to go forth and try new techniques--and that is what great instruction is all about; striking the sparks that catch into creative fire, long after the teacher has gone her way.

The shy Artist

I have a friend--I'll not mention names, because she's a self-effacing sort. This despite the fact that her work is manifestly brilliant, meticulously crafted and just sings with a unique voice.

She hardly ever publishes her work--for that matter, when she brings it to meetings she simply slides it onto the show and tell table without comment, leaving it for the rest of us to discover and squeal over.

I've noticed that this --for the lack of a better term--reluctance, to promote one's work-- is not unique to this lady; several polymer artists I know, and whose work I greatly respect, share the same trait. For some reason, we feel we have no right to claim that our work is in fact 'real' art; that we should be legitimately proud of it.

And I wonder; do other artists in other fields suffer from the same inability to promote their work? Is it because the field of polymer clay is overwhelmingly women, who tend to be diffident about seeking recognition? Would we feel any different about displaying our work if it were from longer established medium, like sculpture, painting, photography? It's a puzzle to me--because the work is so good, so exciting, and in a new field like polymer clay, all of us have the potential to be the new Picassos, Vermeers, and Monets.

Polymer clay is still the undiscovered country--and everyone of us who work in it the pioneers. There are some upsides to this hiding the light beneath the bushel--as a group, polymer clay artists tend to be the most supportive and sharing people I've ever encountered---if jealousies and rivalries exist, they are handled with the utmost civility--I've not witnessed the kind of turf wars made famous by Renaissance painters, or modern photographers. I've not heard many artists dissing the work of others--even in their most unguarded moments.

These things are all to the good--but maybe we could all allow ourselves the luxury of a bit more pride--a sense that we are in fact legitimate artists doing new and wonderful things--and blazing the trails for those we hope will follow.

Namaste

July meeting- Pinch Petals

This month we had a fun little project. We learned how to make pinch petals. We started out by making a nice pastel rainbow blend. Taking a slice off of a rainbow skinner blend, we stepped it down with a block of translucent. It's amazing how little of the original blend you need to tint the translucent.
the next step in the process is to roll the blend into a snake, with the color blend running from head to tail. Notice how in this example the color is not thoroughly blended? It should make for some interesting petals!
Can't wait to see how these all turn out! I'm hoping next month for show and tell we will have many pinch petals leis to ohh and ahh over!

Yore Cheatin' Heart Gradient Blend

All of us owe a debt to Judith Skinner that we can never repay: She originated the idea for a seamless airbrushed-looking color blend that is the basis of almost every worthwhile technique involving color. Her method, available anywhere on the net for free, has inspired countless variations; Here is one:

I like to find shortcuts to everything--and I hate to measure; I'm just having too much fun creating. This is true for the basic gradient blend as well-- the version I call, 'yore cheatin' heart'.
This method is exactly what it sounds like--a cheat; (And I'm sure the idea did not originate with me) but it's a good cheat. Rather than sheet, cut and measure triangles of clay, I simply take the colors I like best--in this case, the holy trinity of Red, Yellow and Blue, and condition them thoroughly--not really necessary, but it's always nice to warm up a bit, and there are few things more therapeutic than mindlessly cranking clay through a pasta machine. Once soft, I roll them into fat logs of the same length, and lay them out into a pattern I want; in this case, light in the center, so that I will get some nice secondary colors on each side as the blend develops.

I flatten these logs until they are a comfortable thickness to go through the pasta machine set on the widest setting without straining; never saw the benefit of blowing out those gears!

This sheet then goes through the pasta machine ONCE. This is where I pause for reflection--or possibly just a fresh water bottle :). I fold the big striped sheet from bottom to top, like colors together, but with a tweak: I offset the colors just slightly by angling the top of the sheet over the one beneath. I find that this just makes the blend go a bit faster--honestly, it probably only saves a few passes through the pasta machine--it would all end up as the same blend anyway, but as I said, I like to cheat just a little.

I send this folded sheet through the pasta machine, then settle down for the long haul; no more offsetting, I simply roll, fold and send through again on the same setting, over and over again, until the colors do what they do best--the clay, of course, expands lengthwise as it goes through the machine, but it also expands sideways--and would indefinitely, if not for the constricting sides of the machine; this is what creates the seamless blend. Formulas vary--a lot depends on the saturation of the colors, etc, but generally about 20 to 25 passes yields a good blend.

Sometimes, especially when I have light colors in the center of the blend, I find that it's a bit dark--and here is where polymer clay is so wonderful: I can simply add a pure color to the process by sandwiching it into the blend where needed; after a few passes, it shows through.

Once the blend is satisfying--the hardest part of polymer clay (all together now!) is knowing when to stop; I just pick a place. Then it's a simple matter of lengthening the blend by folding it one more time, and turning it one quarter turn so that the fold is on the side--still on the thickest (widest) setting of the pasta machine, and roll it through; this not only gives me more sheet to work with, it also 'polishes' the blend and gives it that perfect airbrushed look.

Where it goes from here depends upon the use I intend for it; If I'm making a plug for caning, it gets accordion folded and squared into a block; if I'm making a bold jellyroll spiral cane, I'll leave it as is; if I'm going for the gradient bulls eye cane, then I'll sheet it down to a medium thin setting.

Whatever use I find for it, There are few things more satisfying than contemplating a perfect rainbow blend; may you have as much fun with yours.

Namaste, Randee

Basics of polymer clay—exerpt from upcomingclass/tutorial

Not all clays are suitable for all purposes. Sculpey III, soft, easy to work, and readily available in a huge variety of colors, has its uses—but not for jewelry; it simply isn't strong enough. (The one exception to this is the translucent clay, which is one of the most transparent of the block clays and is a staple in every experienced clayer's repertoire—both in its own right and as an additive—more on that later). Most 'house brands" of clay—Michael's A&C has an entire line—are so similar to SculpeyIII that you should leave them to the kiddos.

For most jewelry applications, especially for beginners, the clay of choice is either Premo or Fimo Soft. Other clays on the market include Fimo Classic, Kato, Pardo, and Cernit—which are all wonderful products, but are somewhat problematic for beginners as they are more difficult to work—try those later. When you are starting out in polymer clay, you want to enjoy the process—not spend hours trying to coax a stiff block of clay into a useful form. (I have seen newbie students reduced to tears trying to condition a block of Fimo classic they bought by mistake. When you are learning to drive, it's just not helpful to start off at the Indie 500). For me, the clay I use the most is Premo, because of its strength, work properties and most importantly, it comes in a true artist's palette—the deeply saturated colors are perfect for blending into other colors—just like paint—and literally any shade or hue can be created from them. Its mica colors are also some of the most dramatic on the market. Can you mix different brands of clay? The jury is out on that one. Some artists recoil at the thought, some embrace the notion—but I confess that I do, have been doing it for years, and nothing bad has happened as a result. One theory holds that so long as the clay is THOROUGHLY mixed, and you cure to the specs of the highest temperature clay in the mix, you can add clays to each other without incurring charges of heresy. To store your clay, ordinary plastic food bags or any plastic container marked recycle 1 through 5 is perfect.

As a general rule, properly cured polymer clay is remarkably strong—remember that it's just another form of the PVC pipes in your home (ever tried to break one of those?) and most of the time it will endure for years—still, you should keep the principles of good jewelry design in mind when forming your shapes. While polymer clay is infinitely suitable to organic branching forms, keep in mind that anything that can catch and snag can also break, no matter how strong it is. It you intend to wear it, shape it accordingly; form follows function.
Conditioning your clay:

All polymer clay requires this—kneading and working until it is soft and pliable. Think of your block of clay like a box of cereal—certain components of it, the plasticizers that make it so strong, for example—migrate and settle during shipping and storage. They need to be redistributed in order to make your clay strong and flexible, and there are several ways to do it:

First, just use your hands and a roller (do this on a NON-porous surface—ceramic tiles are great)

Slice your clay into slabs and roll with a tool (a brayer, rolling pin or metal pipe) until it softens a bit, then begin working it with your hands into logs or snakes that you twist and combine until you can bend the whole lot in half without breaking.

Alternatively—and this is the preferred method, use your pasta machine:
Note—always clean your machine with baby wipes before you begin and after every color change, and roll your clay into slabs thin enough to go through your pasta machine on the thickest setting—where the rollers are the farthest apart—without straining. There's no benefit to blowing out the gears on your machine!

Send your slabs of clay through on the thickest setting to soften and even them out, then begin combining them two by two until you have combined the entire lot into one slab; fold this slab bottom to top and send it through the rollers fold first.

Now—and this is one of my favorite discoveries—as the sheet comes out of the rollers, fold it again, and send it through with the fold to the side.

Why the turn? Because when you turn it, it changes the direction of distribution—in plain English, it conditions the clay twice as fast as sending it through in the same direction all the time. Doesn't matter which side the fold goes through (I'm a lefty, so this is my preference). The only way you should avoid sending your clay through the machine is for the fold to be at the top—and the embarrassing sounds that it makes as those air bubbles burst if you do, will remind youJ.

When conditioning your clay, remember to work with the lightest colors first, and finish with the darkest ones—for the purposes of this lesson, the order is White, Yellow, Blue, Red, and Black—yes, I know that blue is darker than red, but red—well, just look at your hands after you've kneaded it a bit—it stains like crazy! All reds do. It disappears on the black, whereas on the blue…….

And clean your rollers after significant color changes! Really press hard against the scraper plates at the bottom—that's where all the scrap accumulates.

Sometimes your clay flakes and sticks to the rollers—what to do? Ignore it. Yes, ignore it. Don't spend 10 minutes cleaning it off only to have it happen again on the next pass—just fold the flaky side to the inside and keep rolling—SLOWLY and GENTLY. By the time the clay has conditioned into a nice pliable sheet, all the clay stuck to the rollers will have vanished; really really.

And while we're on the subject, a little safety tip from me to you: Never roll your clay backwards!!! Always move those rollers forward like an organ grinder. Why? Because if you roll the clay backwards into your machine, it will disappear right under the guard plate, never to be seen again—and eventually, it will gum up your machine until you can't move it, at which point your only alternative it to take your machine apart and clean it—and believe me, you'd rather take algebra again than do that. J

Scrap Clay

Each month at the Austin Polymer Clay Guild meeting, we enjoy a project presentation by one of the guild members.  For one of the first meetings I attended, I was instructed to bring some “scrap” clay.  I was new to working with polymer clay and I had no scrap clay like the others.  Did that mean I had to use “good” clay? At about seventy five cents an ounce, I couldn’t imagine the harm.  And I wondered, how do you end up with scrap clay?

After a year of trying to make all the wonderful things I saw on the internet, flower canes, mokume gane, etc. and experiencing several failed attempts, I watched as my stash of “didn’t quite work out” grew into a pretty sizable hunk of scrap clay.  And there’s all those little bits we cut off the ends of canes and sheets.  Now I see the problem, not how do you get scrap clay, but how do you get rid of it?

First, don’t hide it away like some ugly step-child --see it as a challenge and not as evidence of your shortcomings.  See it with a fresh perspective.  The really nice thing about scrap clay is that it’s already messed up and you can’t mess it up any more than it already is, so play!  Here’s a few suggestions:

1.        Mush all the dark clays together until it’s a solid, sort of a purple grey, color.  Shape it into an Easter Island man (or woman!), give them hair, make them smiling or singing, or playing golf, whatever.  Roll the whole thing in sand before baking and vollah, you have a lovely “stone” garden statue.

2.       Mush it all together like in #1 and then thin it slightly with some liquid clay.  Roll it into medium width sheets and spread it on a planter.  Now, run a sheet of any other color clay, slice up some small squares as tiles and imbed these in the clay on the planter. Once covered, bake it.  If this is too large for your small craft oven, you can bake it in a roasting bag in your regular oven.  Now you have a beautiful mosaic planter.  Oh and don’t forget, you can cover you tiles with emobossing powder or glitter.

3.       Scrap clay can be used to test various glazes and varnishes to see which are easier to use, produce the most uniform and smooth finish.  Simply make a few disks, bake them, paste them to a piece of cardboard and then try all your different glazes.  Just make sure you label each one.

4.       Take similar colors of scrap clay and mix them together.  Now use this new color as though it was new clay.  Those dreary, grey greens can make wonderful leaf colors.  Or how about that hideous orange, maybe it’s a terra cotta?

5.       Use it to make molds for pendants or your own unique texture sheets or stamp pads.  Just spray your model with water and spread the clay on the model to make the mold.

6.       Make your own wall art by collaging many colors together or how about a big sun/moon face that you can hang outdoors.  Polymer clay is really durable outside and won’t lose it’s color in the sun.

7.       Make a 3/8 inch to ½ inch sheet by rolling several sheets at the thickest setting on your pasta machine and stacking them together.  Cut several rectangles from this sheet about 3 by 5 inch.  Use this piece as a canvas and some scrap clay to form any vegetables or flowers you may have in your garden.  You can even extrude a small snake of black to write the name of your flower or vegetable.  You can make rust proof ground stakes from cutting up old tomato cages.  After your clay is cured, drill a small hole into the bottom edge to accommodate the metal stake you just cut. Use some epoxy to glue your stake into the hole you drilled.  Now you have a lovely garden marker.

There’s an uninhibited joy in scrap clay that can’t be found in a pristine block of Moss Green.  There are no preconceptions of what it should represent like “moss” or “something green.” So drag that box out from the bottom of the closet and look again.  You see, what I have really learned after this year is that there really is no such thing as scrap clay, there is only the clay, you, and your creative spirit.

Happy claying.

Namaste

Cherry Taylor

Polymer Clay to the rescue!

In addition to being a polymer clay addict, I also have an addiction to beadweaving. I love beading around cabochons, and ammonites are one of my favorite things to work with. Imagine, I can hold in my hand an actual fossil that is aged to 360 million years ago! The problem that arises is that the ammonite is not flat.

As you can see from the photo, the ammonite sits at an angle. In order to bead around it, I would like the darn thing to be level. How to fix this? With polymer clay, of course!

I condition and run it through the pasta machine to a thickness that comes close to leveling out the piece. Next, on a tile, I squish the ammonite into the clay and keep playing with it until it is level. Next, I take out an exacto knife and cut around the ammonite, keeping the blade straight, not at an angle. Bake the piece on the tile. After baking, test to see if the clay is firmly attached to the ammonite. If it isn't, use a little E-6000 to glue it in place. And Voila! you have a level piece that can easily be beaded around!

Happy Claying (and beading!)

Nora Pero
President, Austin Polymer Clay Guild

Polymer clay is the Rodney Dangerfield of the art world. Sad, but true: it gets no respect.

Most of the time, even people who have heard of it will often say, "oh, you mean that stuff that kids make refrigerator magnets from?!"---And those of us who love the medium and think it's the most exciting art form of the last century try to turn our pained winces into smiles.

And let's not even detail the dissing that it takes from artists working in other mediums; the painters and printmakers and yes, even the ceramicists, whose eyes glaze over when they hear that we work with the stuff. It's taken decades for it to be even considered worthy of museum and gallery exhibits--this despite the constant promotion of the luminaries of the of the craft--The Kathleen Dustins, Elise Winters, the Jeffrey Deavers. (See the top two illustrations: 1st is Kathleen,, 2nd is Jeffrey Lloyd Dever--they're like, demi-gods).

Polymer clay is the redheaded stepchild, relegated to leftovers in the kitchen.

Part of this is of course the fact of its youth--though the material itself has been around since the thirties, it has only become the voice of talented artists in the last twenty years or so, with the explosion of new colors and varieties. The internet has allowed the sharing of techniques and ideas, and the more people work with it, the more the knowledge of its infinite possibilities grows---it is fair to say that new ways of working with polymer clay expand at about the same rate computers shrink--my son carries the capabilities and capacity of my 2001 desktop in the the palm of his hand. Image sharing sites like Flickr allow artists to see what other artists are doing--and the ideas generated, the tweaks and variations on technique enrich us all.

In many senses, polymer clay is just like paint: the same materials go into the Picasso as the $19.95 sofa -sized genuine oil painting available this weekend only! What matters, of course, is who's wieding the brush. And yes, a lot of PC offered up every year is lamentably tacky--it is both the blessing and the curse of the material that literally anyone can produce satisfactory results without training or special tools. The skills needed to work with polymer clay are those from dozens of different disciplines that are already second nature to most people. Rolling, stretching, poking--we all know how to do this. Its basic simplicity is a big part of its problem--you don't have to suffer for this art or take years of lessons before you can produce recognizable work; it's just too easy, perhaps.

And like all simple things, it can be easily generated into incredibly complex forms--Just take a look at the canework of Carol Simmons, or Sarah Shriver. It's a lot like nature itself, a single cell mutliplied over and over; and that is one of the most exciting things about it--very often those of use who wake up every morning itching to get into the studio have no map of where we're going----we just follow the muse.

Which brings me to a point; polymer clay is above all things a delight to work in--it's colorful and sensual and fun. And even as we struggle to get the art the respect it deserves, we need to remember to not take ourselves too seriously. The act of creation should never be grim.

And every once in a while, we should allow ourselves to make the durn refrigerator magnet.

Namaste,

Randee

May meeting

This month we worked on a fun little project- Framed Flower Pendants, presented by Cherry Taylor. You can see that Nancy was having a great time! Cherry is giving some pointers to Jaynee.

Here is a finished example of the project made by Cherry.

In case you missed the meeting, a copy of the instructions will be uploaded to our Yahoo! group.

Cherry shared several good tips for this technique, here are a few that I overheard:

-when applying the border, start at the point you will be attaching the bail.

-instead of a bail, use a 3 to 1 necklace connector and sink the three loop side into the top of your pendant (she used one on the example). Then you can use 2 of the same connectors to make a matching pair of earrings.

-after stamping your ink image, lightly heat with a heat gun to dry the ink a bit so it won't tend to smear so easily.

- Swarovski hot fix crystals work really well with the clay. They have a heat activated glue on the back, so they glue in when you cure your pendant.

- to get the look of canvas, imprint the top layer with a piece of cloth with a coarse weave, or a fine mesh screen.

Other news: we are still finalizing the details for our next clay day- we'll keep y'all posted through our Yahoo! group. Next month, we will be working with wire- how to make your own clasp and ear wires, and a beaded link. Supply list will be posted- you guessed it- on our Yahoo! group, closer to the meeting date.

Happy Claying Everyone!

Nora

Guild Meeting this Saturday

The May meeting of the guild happens this Saturday at the Yarborugh Library, 2200 E Hancock, 2:15--4:30.  


The program this month will be presented my member Cherry Taylor.  Cherry is going to teach how to make a beautiful flower pendant.  Feel free to join us.  Non-members are welcome to participate or to just observe.


Supply list for Framed Flower Pendant
Demonstration by Cherry Taylor

Small amount of liquid clay TLS, Kato Clear medium, etc.
Heat gun
Stamp (your choice)
Stamp pad (black or other dark color)
White clay
Black Clay
Colored clay (your choice)
Small amount of different colored clay for the flowers—your choice
Hot fix crystals
Krylon gold or silver leafing pen (optional)
Gloss finish (any brand, optional)
Bale for pendant (or make hole in top)
Tools:
All the usual clay tools pasta machine, blades, work surface, etc.
Additional: Clay extruder with all discs


Kim Schlinke
Vice-President

A Trip Back in Time

 Faux Carnelian

Faux Faience with Faux Carnelian

Last month, when I borrowed the book Faux Surfaces in Polymer Clay, by Irene Semanchuk Dean, I had no idea where it would lead.  As I flipped through the pages of techniques, I was particularly intrigued by the chapter on Faience.  Since I had never tried this technique before I decided this would be my first project.  Whenever I try a new faux technique, I turn to the trusty internet to get a look at the real thing.  Well, I hit the motherlode.  I have always been interested in all things ancient Egypt and when I found this page I knew how I would use Ms. Dean's instructions.  Go here to see what I'm talking about.  Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the necklace that inspired me.  http://www.ancienttouch.com/egyptian_faience.htm

I was completely enchanted by what I found.  I've spent hours looking at ancient Egyptian jewelry. It's all so beautiful and historically significant AND prohibitively expensive.  As much as I would love to own the real thing, they are out of my reach.  I'll  have to be content with the ones I make.

It was so much fun sculpting the faience beads and figuring out how to recreate the carnelian beads.  I loved how the carnelians looked so much with the faience, I had to make one that was all carnelian.  I've worn that one a couple of times already and it has fooled people until they touch it.  Success!!

I have a couple more similar ones in progress.  In fact, I'm off to the kitchen sink to sand a batch of beads now.
Kim Schlinke
Vice-President