Simple brooch re-do

This month's PCAGOE guild challenge is "Re-do", or basically to revisit an old idea or project and improve it by changing the old piece or re-designing a new piece based on the same idea.  I didn't have a whole lot of time for this challenge, because as usual, I left it to the last minute and in that last minute I was sick with a cold. But I didn't want to mess up my streak of consistent entries (I think I've had an entry every month for the past 2 years + 2 months!). So I grabbed one of my older pieces that I wasn't quite happy with and quickly did a revision. Here's the original brooch design:

The original piece was designed around a piece of metal window screen that I had moulded into a dome using a jewelry block tool. I never quite liked the red on the outside of this piece, and as you can see above, that red portion ended up breaking... so I decided to pry it off and redo the outside of the piece. Unfortunately, when I pried off the red outer layer, the 2nd pink and purple outer layer also came off, so I lost more than I had intended.

I decided that a nice glossy black would compliment the purples best and I set to work with one layer of black, then added another layer. I decided that I wanted to make the edges of these new layers more organically shaped. I then added a touch of silver ink to give contrast to all of the edges. A coating of verathane added that glossy shine that I wanted.

I do like this version better than the first. I like that it looks more pod-like, but I'm still wondering if it needs something more... What do you think? Leave me a comment below. Voting opens for this challenge on December 1st and is open untill December 7th at midnight EST. I'll post a reminder here on the blog! 

11th hour work sessions and other disasters

Disaster!  At exactly 11:15 last night, with a midnight deadline looming, and after spending most of the afternoon/evening working on my guild challenge piece, I made one move that spelled disaster for the entire project... well, almost.  I did manage to make a huge alteration and somewhat saved it... So here's the story, and the method of how I created (and partially destroyed) my latest challenge piece:

 

The theme this month is "Little Black Ball" - each entry must include a 1" black ball somewhere in the construction.  Plus, as a bonus theme, to celebrate the anniversary of The Polymer Arts magazine, we decided to ask each member to incorporate a technique or inspiration that they received from reading either The Polymer Arts magazine or the blog.  

I had the idea for this challenge well in advance of the month (of August) which should have been used to create it.  I'd been toying with the idea of liquid polymer coated string for well over a year, with nothing worthy of showing until last month, as my friend Line Labreque guessed correctly in the comments of last month's post... that challenge piece, my Rays of Summer lacy soap dish, was based on the string coated polymer idea that had been stewing in my head (after a brief experiment I did a year+ ago, that was unworthy of being shown).  As a subscriber to both The Polymer Arts magazine and daily blog, there was an overflowing fountain of inspiration from which to choose.  My inspiration from The Polymer Arts blog came from two blog posts, one about mandalas and one about repetition.

Idea set in place, all I needed was the time to bring it to life.  August is always a tough month for me to get any work done in my studio.  This time of year, the garden is really starting to rock; so I'm harvesting, preparing and preserving lots of veggies almost daily.  Plus, August brings with it the last chance to enjoy summer to the fullest; before the school year kicks our life into the regimented schedule, stress and limited "couple" time for me and my hubby.  So it was no surprise that this challenge piece would be a last minute work session.  I began working on this yesterday at around noon, after my usual Monday work (i.e. laundry and internet business) was either completed or "in process".  

I began by gluing my dowel rods together to form the supports.  I then built up my 1" black ball of polymer in the center.  This was cured to ensure a strong and stable base.  Next, I started to form the mandala by winding string around the rods and the center ball, and adding polymer layers here and there.  The string was coated with liquid polymer.  From this point, the entire piece was spot cured with a heat gun, at each addition to the mandala.  Here are some shots of the back of the piece:

The original size of the mandala was to be 12" in diameter.  I built out the entire thing and somehow had it in my head that this should have all the colors of the rainbow, thus, the red first colored layer, orange next, yellow was the third... at this point I was really happy with how it was developing.  But I thought the liquid polymer coated string should be covered in color also.  I started with the outer string layers, painted one with blue LPC.  I should have heeded my inner voice, that said... "I don't know, I really love the natural color of the string, combined with the warm colors of the spectrum..."  (I also should have taken a photo of it at that point so that I could show you how lovely it really would have been) but I went ahead and cured the blue and immediately hated it.  So, I then added purple, hated it more, by now the yellow parts also contributed to what I disliked.  So, I then took black acrylic paint to "antique" the yellow wrapped clay, blue and purple parts and to paint the exposed dowel areas and one strip of the LPC string.  Big Disaster!  I just kept hating it even more with each change I made.  I wanted to turn back the time to before I touched that blue LPC paintbrush to the natural LPC string, I wanted to scream or maybe cry!  But, by now it was 11:15 PM.  My photo of the finished project was due at 12:00 AM!  Panic ensued,  I decided to cut my losses, literally.  (this next photo, with the ornament sitting on top of the cut-off portion is kind-of how it looked)

I took my wire cutters and hacked off the outer layers of the mandala, cutting it down it to the central black, red, orange and natural colors, also cutting the size down to 3" in diameter.  I decided instead of a wall hanging, this would be an ornament.  I added little black balls to the ends of the mandala, to cover where I cut off the other part.  A final curing in the oven, and I called it quits on this project. I did save the hacked off part, which I'm already brainstorming how to alter and save for something else.... hmm, what do you think I'll make with this?

 While I do like this little mandala ornament, it is so far from what I had envisioned, that I can't help but be disappointed in this project.  I did learn many things from all of this, not the least of which is not to procrastinate my project to the very last day... I wonder just how many time I need to relearn that lesson! ;)  I'd love to hear any thoughts you might have about this piece, or about your similar experiences... leave me a comment below!

Voting for this challenge will open on September 1st.  I'll try to blog a voting reminder about it, as well as a reminder to check out our guild facebook page in September... because, we are doing something special to celebrate the anniversary of The Polymer Arts magazine!  Happy Anniversary to The Polymer Arts, and it's very talented creator/editor/publisher, Sage Bray!

Labor of Love

My latest piece was truly a labor of love.  I wonder if I jinxed myself in the post about my last piece, when I said it just went together without a hitch.  Not so with this one.  The May challenge for my guild is the theme of bowls.  Immediately I knew 2 things, I wanted to make a yarn bowl and I wanted it to have a different design, perhaps 2 levels that were separated by space.  I made some sketches and came up with a design and shape that made me swoon.  I decided to use hammered metal spirals to support the upper level of the bowl.  While this idea was fun, it proved a challenge.  In hindsight I would have made the bowl and drilled holes into it for the metal supports.  I had actually considered doing this, but was wary of how thick I'd have to make it for drilling and was worried that I would drill through the bowl, so instead I tried to build the bowl around the metal supports.

I began by making a first layer of the basic shapes I needed to create the look I wanted.  I used a glass vase to form my shape.  After the first cure I wanted to sand down any bumpies, and in doing so cracked the top piece right in half.  I guess it wasn't cured well enough, as that should not have happened.  Super glue to the rescue and onto the second layer for strength.  This layer went off without a hitch.  Next up, was to build the hammered metal spirals -  I shaped these with my round nose pliers and hammered them on my anvil, and during that process I once missed and hit my thumb with the hammer.  Did I mention that this piece was a labor of love? ;)

After a few choice words and successfully forming and hammering all of the spirals I glued them to my pieces, which was a feat in and of itself!  Once I had them glued, I had to create another base layer to bring the clay to the same level as the metal.  In this next curing the cracks started.  I had 3 cracks from where the metal was straining while the piece rested on the vase for support.  I patched up the cracks, added another layer and back into the oven for another cure.  This time the cracks were healed, but I still wanted one more layer.  Imagine my disgust after the additional layer was cured and I pulled the piece out to find 3 cracks in the same general area as before!  One more patching and a layer of black lpc fixed that issue.

Next I gave it a good sanding all over to eliminate the bumps and fingerprint marks, then another layer of lpc for one more full polymer coating.  I wanted a surface treatment on the bowl that was just as unique as the shape, so I opted for a version of what I call impasto polymer technique, which I did in the Premo Bright Green pearl color, straight from the pack because I love that color so much. 

One final curing to harden the surface treatment, as I held my breath and watched over like a mother hen for fear of more cracking.  It survived with no issue! YAY!  I gave it a nice coating of a polymer gloss sealer for extra protection.  The interior bottom of the bowl, I forgot to mention, is a slab of mokume gane polymer done in black, silver, wasabi pearl and white.  You can get a glimpse of that here:

As I said, the idea for this was to be a yarn bowl, and the 2 layers askew were meant as a place for the knitting needles to rest as seen here:

And the yarn is meant to feed through the metal spiral like this:

Yes indeed, this one was a labor of love.  Lots of work went into it and while it is not perfect, I do love this piece.  The design of it is very "me" and I was so pleased with how the surface treatment turned out considering that part was totally unplanned.  I love it when pieces come together with something that just "happens"! :)  If I ever revisit this project again, I will definitely make the base parts full thickness first and then drill the holes for the wire support, that's the lesson for this one.  But overall I'm quite pleased!  What do you think of my funky bowl?  Have you ever had a project that kept giving you problems all through construction but you stuck with it and it turned out as good as you had originally hoped? Tell me about it in the comments!