Saturday, January 5, 2013

Can you feel it?

Texture... tactile art in polymer is always such a fun area to explore.  This is what my guild's challenge was for January 2013.  The artists were asked to come up with a piece using textural elements, made of at least 50% polymer clay; and we had a great amount of entries this month.  I had fun using a technique I've been playing with for a few months.  I'm calling the technique impasto polymer, though someone else out in the polymer world may have explored this idea also and may have called it something else; I'm not certain if this is something that has been done before, it seems so simple that I think it likely to have been done already...  Here's a photo mosaic of my entry and below that are the details on how I created the texture:



This pendant was created by taking a cut shaped slab of solid mint green polymer and dying it with silk fabric.  After the dying process, I then covered the one side entirely with navy colored polymer and scratched into the surface to reveal the mint green polymer below and creating the sunburst texture which you see in the largest of the photos.  On the reverse side, the silk dyed pattern was much more interesting so I simply accented that with some appliqued navy circle patterning (seen in the smaller middle photo).  After curing again, the textural elements were highlighted with some gold acrylic. I love unusual jewelry design with simplistic elements to keep the piece interesting yet not overwhelming; and it was with that view that I created the asymmetrical wandering seed bead hanging design, as seen in the top and bottom smaller photos.  More views can be found in my flickr photostream.  The piece is also available for sale in my etsy shop.

As I said, there were a lot of entries this month, all of them wonderfully crafted.  Here's a little look at them:

I'd say they're all winners!  Speaking of winners, you still have 2 more days to vote; so don't delay, go to the pcagoe blog and vote for your 3 favorite entries before midnight on January 7th 2013!  You could be one of the 3 lucky voters chosen to win a prize!