Stretching and personal growth

It's been a while since I've written anything here on the blog. Part of that is because I haven't really devoted much time to working in the studio since last October. I chalk much of that up to a general malaise over what's happening to this country, which has deeply affected my motivation. Another part of the picture was simply the hustle and bustle of the holidays, paired with parental hospitalizations, plus household ailments from cold and flu season. And lastly, late in 2017, I decided to turn inward and focus on self-improvement. At the end of October, I began a routine (near daily) practice of yoga, which has both helped my physical and mental wellbeing. And early in 2018, I decided to tame the nutrition beast and begin the journey of losing the weight that has crept on over the years since I turned 35,  that magical number when easy weight loss suddenly became unobtainable despite a regular fitness routine. I'm happy to report, after 2 months of dedicated whole-food nutrition, I'm down 12 pounds so far, and feeling SO much healthier! This year is shaping up to be the year of "me", focusing on re-making myself into the healthiest version of me.

But, despite all of the aforementioned obstacles to feeding my muse, I haven't been totally out of my studio... Back in the fall I committed to participating in an online design course (that was scheduled to begin in December), which was offered by Christine Dumont and Donna Greenberg, through Voila! This course was specifically focused on jewelry design and the design principle of balance using symmetry and asymmetry. The course was held online, and was attended by a fantastic group of polymer artists. Though we each worked on interpreting the course material in our own ways, the sharing of assignments in our online group not only spurred conversation and camaraderie, but also generated a bounty of inspiration. If you've read my blog before, you already know about my artist crush on the work of Donna Greenberg from previous posts mentioning her. Christine Dumont's meticulous graphic style is mind-blowing to me, and she is another polymer artist who I have admired. I had the good fortune to meet both of these ladies in person last August at Synergy4. When the opportunity to take this online class presented itself, I knew immediately that this was an experience I shouldn't miss.

Now, the class was supposed to wrap up within a certain time period, but because of holiday, health and personal issues, some of us did not complete our final projects until sometime later. Our instructors have graciously kept the group open and kindly continue to provide a final assessment of our finished projects. This past week, I was happy to finally complete the piece that I designed as a result of this course experience.

My jumping-off point for this piece was a necklace that I designed last year, with some of the cut polymer quilling strips. But I wanted to push the curvy swirls from that necklace into something more defined and sculpted. I've always been drawn to art nouveau styling and I wanted this new piece to reflect that design influence. My brain started to focus on the remembrance of the art nouveau styled metro stations in Paris. Perhaps this was because one of my best friends from my high school/college era, with whom I spent some time in Paris, was concurrently taking classes to reinvigorate his French. He and I enjoy reminiscing those years of our youth, and these metro stations in Paris have captivated me from the first time I saw them:

Here's the necklace that was my jumping-off point:

As you can see, my design changed quite drastically from the jumping-off point. You can see the stronger influence (including the color scheme) from the art nouveau metro station images. 

For those interested, below I will detail my full process for creating this piece. There will be more photos of the finished piece and a video which demonstrates the physical flexibility and position-ability of this piece. To start, I sketched out a few ideas. After pairing down features that didn't work, I chose the sketch in the next image to be the starting point. Also in the next image is the wire armature that I created, this wire armature is what allows the necklace to be customized by positioning it to contour the wearer's body. The wire armature is a 16 gauge aluminum wire. At the points where 2 wires meet, they are wound with a thin 28 gauge wire for joining.

The next step in the design process was a base layer of polymer. Keeping in mind that I wanted this piece to flex without breaking, I decided to go with a 50/50 blend of Cernit translucent and Bake 'n Bend white. Below is an image of the base layer before curing:

During curing of this base layer, some areas cracked. I'm not sure why this happened, perhaps from the heat of the wire, perhaps from the temperature of the oven... I filled in the cracks and re-cured until the entire piece was solid and ready for the decorative layers. 

I started by covering the piece in another blend of Cernit (this time in the Shiny green color) mixed with Bake 'n Bend in the green color. This blend was approximately a 75 percent (Cernit) to 25 percent (BnB). I decided that the best way to cover this piece was to start with the back. I wanted a line inscribed texture for the back and scratched that into the surface before curing. Here's a shot of the backside of the necklace:

 After the backside was sculpted, it went in for another cure. Once cured, I began the decorative layer on the front. I worked one half of the necklace at a time, as seen in the next photo, and cured the necklace after the first half was sculpted before starting the decorative layer on the second half. 

Once both sides were covered and sculpted to my liking and put in for the final curing, I added some antiquing using a matte polymer varnish with Paynes grey acrylic paint to the green areas. The gold rounds were treated to a dusting with gold mica while raw, but after curing they were then painted with a coating of a gloss polymer varnish, some metallic bronze paint was added to some of this varnish for painting around the bottoms of the rounds to give depth and simulate pearls. 

I am quite pleased with the finished piece. I've already worn it when we went to a concert on Saturday, and happily report that it is very comfortable to wear, which is an important factor. While this piece will likely remain in my permanent collection, I think there is a strong possibility that I will create other iterations of it in the future. 

This was my first time using Cernit. I chose this brand based on what I saw at Synergy4 in the pieces of Marie Segal (another polymer artist and kind soul who I admire). I was impressed with the strength and flexibility of the Cernit pieces that Marie brought to Synergy, many thanks go to Marie for discussing the benefits of Cernit with me. And thanks go to the generous Maria Alexandrou for demo-ing her flexible cuff tutorial at Synergy4, it was from that demo that I learned the possibilities of mixing bake n' bend with regular polymers to add flexibility. Speaking of which, here's that video showing the flexibility and position-ability of this piece: 

My experience with the Voila course was superb, and I plan to participate in the next class offering by Christine and Donna, which is listed on the website as TBA in 2018. I am already looking forward to how that class will stretch my design skills and knowledge even further. Another huge Thank You goes out to Christine, Donna, and all the other polymer artists who participated in this course. If you are a polymer artist, and you are wanting to push your design skills to another level, I highly recommend taking one of the upcoming Voila courses. Please do take some time to view Donna's and Christine's amazing work at their respective websites. 

If you're still with me (I know this was a long blog post), and if you have any comments or questions for me, I'd love to hear what you think about my latest creation.... Please do leave me a comment below! I do plan to get back to creating on a more regular basis; at the least, I hope it won't be another 5 months before I have something new to share. Until then, Thanks for stopping by my blog!

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Scrapping Around

This month's PCAGOE showcase theme was Minimalism. I had a couple different ideas floating around in my mind, but in the end I decided to use up some polymer scraps that have been sitting around my studio waiting to be put into action.

Because I'm an environmental advocate, I have a hard time throwing out things that I might someday use to create something. This can be tough to live with, especially as I generally must do a huge reorganize yearly just to keep track of what's what in my studio. And yes, I also save scraps of polymer that just didn't make the cut, or were actual cuts off of pieces that have since been finished. One half of the pieces I'll be showing in this blog post are an example of those kind of scraps, the other half of the pieces in this blog post use a completely different type of scrap. So, let's start with the first, the cured scraps...

These scrap strips of polymer that you see in the images above were cut off my polymer printing textured wall art that I made back in June of 2015. Here's a shot of those pieces:

Texture plate and Polymer Art Prints

I created those art prints with slabs of polymer that were then pressed with a handmade texture sheet and then colored. The pressing of the texture plate created edges that weren't quite even. So, once all three of the art prints were cured, I used an Xacto knife and a straight edge to make them perfect rectangles of the same size. The thin waste strips that were cut off the art prints still had the color and interesting textures, and I decided then to keep the strips and put them to use in some jewelry. These jewelry pieces were at the back of my mind for a long time, this guild showcase proved just the right moment to dust off that idea. I decided to bend some of the strips back onto themselves to create loops, and I grouped them together in mismatched groupings of loops and straight pieces, and one piece created with just the straight pieces. Each necklace is given a slightly different treatment for hanging, one is beaded, another wire wrapped silk sari, one has a single strand of aqua art yarn and the last one has 4 strands of the same aqua art yarn. Here are a couple close-ups of each piece in this collection:

Pick-up sticks necklace

Pick-up stick necklace pendant

Loopy necklace pendant

Loopy necklace

Simple loops necklace

Simple loops necklace pendant

Little loops necklace pendant

Little loops necklace

The next grouping of pieces I made with another kind of polymer scrap, these were raw scraps that came from the blades of my pasta machine. I took my pasta machine apart to clean my blades (I hadn't done that ever, so it was many years of thin polymer bits that had accumulated under the scraper blades of my machine). When I cleaned the blades there were these lovely pieces of multicolored polymer that I just had to save to use for something. Here's a photo of the pieces that came off the pasta machine blades, you can see one side is smooth and looks almost agate-like or resembles Fordite, and the other side has this interesting minuscule layered texture.

Smooth side of scraps

Textured side of scraps

I found the layered texture side so interesting that I used that side for all of the pieces that I created using these scraps. As of now, these pieces are unfinished... some of them will be brooches, some of them pendants and some of the will be convertible brooch/pendants.

I really had a lot of fun creating these pieces and using some of my polymer scrap stash. I think my favorite piece is the Loopy necklace, though... I'm looking forward to putting some time in the studio to finish up the pasta machine scrap pieces. I'm not sure if I've done Minimalism any justice, it's much harder to do Minimalist well than one would ever think! I always love to hear your thoughts on my work, so be a dear and tell me in the comments which piece is your favorite and why! Most of these pieces will eventually turn up in my CreateMyWorld etsy shop. I'm hoping to get the finished ones listed over this weekend. Be sure to check out all of the other Minimalist pieces that my guildmates have created at the PCAGOE Facebook page!

Whirligig wind spinner

I take a lot of walks through the little town in which I live. From spring through fall, gazing balls, wind chimes, plant stakes and all other manner of garden-variety art abound in this little borough. I love seeing the personal touches on the homes of people who put extra care into their dwellings. My favorite pieces of outdoor art are the ones that are meant to catch the wind and spin around displaying mesmerizing patterns. When the theme for this month's showcase for the PCAGOE (Polymer Clay Artist's Guild of Etsy) was decided to be outdoor art, I was fairly set upon coming up with a wind chime or a wind spinner design.

I came up with this three sided mobius design after observing some whirligig wind spinners in a shop. I figured that it could easily be done in polymer, and wanted to give it a try. It took a trial and error session for me to figure out how to construct the piece... still not sure what I'm going to do with the first iteration, which was more error than trial, Ha, Ha! After working out most of the kinks of that first iteration, this little sea green one was born.

The polymer mobius part is only about 6" in diameter, so it's not a very large piece, but still large enough to catch the eye. I decided to add a large polymer clay swirled lentil bead at the bottom and coordinated some glass beads for more decoration. 

I love how the swirly lentil bead echoes the swirls of the mobius, and I believe that I will incorporate that feature into future iterations of this design. I do plan to make more of these, because I really love the idea and the look of this piece. I am also considering creating a project tutorial of these for selling in my etsy shop. Lots of ideas are spinning around in my head, must be the whirligig influence! ;)

With those hopes of creating more of these whirligigs (and also a tutorial for them), I'm reminded of my hopes for the new year. Once again, my #1 New Year's resolution is that I want to spend more time in my studio creating. While I really plan to focus much of my energy on larger-scale art pieces that I've been dreaming up (just for the sake of making myself happy and decorating my studio space), along with those wishes comes the hope that I'll also find time to create some smaller items to put in my etsy shops.... sigh, if only reality will work with the schemes in my head! For anyone who's curious, here is the top-down view of the whirligig:

So, what do you think of my latest project? Is this something you'd be interested learning the details of how to make and construct? Do you have any New Year's resolutions that you're hoping to carry out in 2017?... leave me your comments below, I always love hearing your thoughts!

Happy Holidays to all during this season of giving. I hope for a Happy, Healthy and Peaceful 2017!

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Night Owl

This month's project brought me inspiration to upcycle some DVD-Rs and to put my sculpting brain to work. The theme for the PCAGOE September challenge is "Owls". I can remember when I was a kid, when owls were very popular, and they've made a popularity come-back once again over the last handful of years.

I'm not quite sure when the inspiration struck to use the DVD-Rs, but perhaps it hit me when I was in the studio looking at the massive stack of them. You see, my husband makes a lot of recorded DVDs from our over-the-air broadcast movie channels (we don't have cable or satellite, just a big old-fashioned antenna). He records movies so that we'll have a catalog of interesting things to watch for the future, since we don't really watch television programs but we do love movies. Many times, he gets a "bad" DVD-R that just doesn't record the information, or in some cases the online television guide that he uses messed up the broadcast schedule. When these mishaps occur, he tosses those DVDs into the trash. Since I am the one who empties the bins every week, I find them and keep a stack of them for "someday I'll turn these into something" projects. Well, I got to make a small dent into my stack of dvd-rs that have been piling up for the last 5 years or so.   

The sheen on the recorded side of most of my dvds is a lovely hue of purple, then I have some that are a lighter hue of purple and others that are a silver with iridescent purple sheen. Because of that color variation, I decided that these would make a perfect night sky, if I were to add a thin layer of liquid polymer painted with alcohol inks. I didn't quite like the holes in the centers of the dvds, so I decided to add some clay centers, which I think also add some interest. I made them graduating colors of purple (darkest at the bottom going to lightest at top), with one pearly white center at the top right, to be the moon. I also made sure to paint the liquid polymer in gradation from lighter surrounding the moon dvd to darker for those further away from the moon dvd. After these were cured, I drilled holes in them and strung them together with wire. 

Next came the owl sculpt. I had decided on a barn owl. Although I love all owls, I have a particular fondness for the look of the barn owls. Because I didn't want him to be too heavy, I first made a rough form out of aluminum foil. I draped a large sheet of raw polymer over the foil and cut it to the shape I needed. This first layer was cured, then I started to add the details. I added the black eyes and the beak, and then cured that layer too. Then began the sculpting of the feathers and his legs. The larger wing feathers are where the most of the work was done, handcutting each individual feather. The talons were made by bending a heavy gauge copper wire and cutting it at an angle to make the ends look sharp, these were thrust into the sculpted feet. The beak and eyes were treated to a coating of clear liquid Kato, to give them a glassy shine. 

After he was fully sculpted I used a cotton swab with varying alcohol inks to give coloring to his wing feathers and to accents of his face and chest. He then went in for a final cure. After he was fully cured, I used some burnt umber water soluble oil paint antiquing to add definition to the wing feathers and to the dimensionality of his body. I didn't notice till after the photos were taken that I need to add a little more of this antiquing to the area between his legs. The sculpting of this area is dimensional, with the back leg is slightly behind the front leg, but because of the white coloring, that is hard to see. I will be adding more shading in that area, to define it better. 

I had planned to sculpt a branch for him to perch upon, but I ran out of time... so I ran outside and grabbed this small branch from a storage of tinder that we keep on our property. I actually quite like the way it looks, but I may still sculpt a branch for him (undecided).  

This is probably the largest sized project I've ever completed, the entire wall-hanging is about 20" by 15"! The owl is about 11" tall...  I'm really pleased with this piece, overall.  Though, I haven't decided what I'm going to do with him yet. He may become a permanent resident of my studio space, but then again, he might fly somewhere else.... ;) What do you think of my night owl wall-hanging? Do you have any good ideas for how I might use the other multitude of trashed dvd-rs that I have remaining (which are bound to accumulate further)? I'd love to hear your thoughts! Please do take a moment and leave me a comment below!

August Vote (only 2 days left!)

So once again, time has slipped past me and I nearly forgot to post a reminder to for the PCAGOE monthly challenge! But, there are still 2 days left, so all is not lost! ;) If you follow this blog, you might remember from my last post that this month's theme is "Seaside", and as is usual, the participating members have all come up with completely unique and inspired pieces. Have a look at all of the loveliness:

I had a tough time choosing my 3 favorite pieces, and you might too! Please head over to the PCAGOE blog and cast your vote for your 3 favorite entries. Remember, one lucky voter is chosen every month to win a prize of their choosing, it could be you this month! Voting is open until midnight on August 7th, so head over to the PCAGOE blog now!

Sea Tossed Shell Necklace

It's been a rough month both physically and emotionally, for varied reasons. I nearly bailed on the PCAGOE challenge for August. I think I'm close to a 3 year streak for consecutive months of entries, so I really hated to miss a month. I haven't been in the studio since last month, and I could feel edginess setting in... this is never a good thing! Luckily, I manage to squeak in some time in the studio last night and today to come up with an entry. The challenge theme for August 2016 is "Beach".

When I originally thought about what I might do for this theme, I had planned to do a piece with a whelk shell and I intended to either film or take snapshots of the process. The plan was to embed a tutorial on my blogpost about the piece. Alas, with the lack of time and last minute studio work, I did not have a chance to do a video or photos, plus, the shell I decided to create is different from the whelk shell that I made for my She Sells Seashells Fairy House, and so the creating of it was another session of trial and error. 

Sometime yesterday I had resigned myself to skipping this challenge, because I didn't have any ideas for this shell piece... I simply wanted to make a seashell but didn't know how that shell would be used. Then I dug around in my stock of unassembled pieces, that I have in a bin, and found the 2 blue circle stacked beads that I had left over from my Cloudy with a Mix of Tyvek Necklace. These blue beads kind of reminded me of cascading waves, or even fish scales... and I started thinking about a necklace that would incorporate these beads and a shell pendant. I didn't want the shell to be too dimensional on the wearer, so I decided to create a worn shell, one that was tossed about and weathered by the ocean. I liked the idea of being able to see the various layers of the interior spiral. 

I set about making the shell with a blend of Premo translucent and Premo white. This piece was created in layers and various bakings, starting with the thin core first and working out to the outer layer last. After all the layers were attached and fully cured, I then used alcohol inks to add some coloring and and white acrylic paint to give a water-weathered impression to some of the areas The inner salmon layers were also treated to a thin layer of liquid pc and a shot with the heat gun to give a glossy look, similar to that of a real seashell.

Next I drilled a hole in the shell bead and strung it and the blue beads onto a strand of silk sari. The sari necklace is made to be tied to secure it, and so 2 blue glass beads were added to the ends to weigh them down. I think the sari strand gives a nice boho feel to the piece.

Excuse the last photo, of me modeling the necklace, I ran out of daylight and couldn't get the focus as sharp as I want. I'll try another day this week, to take a better photo and will update the post with the new photo as soon as I can...

Overall, I'll pretty happy with this quickie project. I do love how the shell turned out. I'm not convinced that I like it with the blue beads, at least not as much as I thought I would. Someday I hope to make a tutorial on how to make the whelk shells. If you're a polymer artist, is that something you'd be interested in learning? What do you think about the contrast between the blue beads and the shell pendant? Would you swap the blue beads for something else? Leave me a comment below and let me know what you think of my Sea Tossed Shell necklace.

Voting will open for this challenge on August 1st and will run through till August 7th at Midnight. As always, I'll try to post a reminder here on the blog!