Spring has sprung

For a long time, I have been wanting to do an art vessel focused on negative space as the major design element. The theme for the May PCAGOE challenge is "negative space".  So, the PCAGOE challenge was the impetus that I needed to bring one of those ideas to life.

I had the idea to make a continuous spiral as the body of the vessel, combined with some side supports to buttress the spiral shape. I decided to try this with a method that Donna Greenberg generously shared on facebook. Donna used an epoxy clay as the under support for one of her wonderful openwork sculptures. If you're not familiar with Donna's work, you should definitely check her out. She is, without a doubt, one of my polymer heroes. You can find her facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/Donna-Greenberg-Arts-151594531536806/?fref=ts

 I had some epoxy clay on hand so I decided to give Donna's method a try. Unfortunately, I initially only made the spiral, my thought was that I'd cover it with polymer before adding the side supports. Well... I wish I had realized that once separated from the form I was using to mold the spiral, it could potentially just become a great big epoxy clay slinky... needless to say, I didn't think of that. I guess I  assumed that the epoxy clay would be sturdy enough to hold it's own, but it wasn't, big epoxy slinky is indeed what I got.

I then had to put the slinky, I mean sculpted spiral, back on the mold form and try to add the side supports. When I finally was able to cover the epoxy clay with polymer it was a tricky undertaking. Difficult first, because the lower spindles of the spiral did not have a lot of space for my fingers to get in and smooth out the clay; and second, because the epoxy clay form (because I removed it from the base too soon) was a little wonky. Yes, that's a technical term. ;)

I decided to wrap strips of black polymer around the epoxy clay spiral shape of the base form. But because smoothing out the polymer was not going to happen easily with the limited space between the lower spiral spindles, I decided to use a technique that I used last year to make a necklace for myself... I took thin crochet thread and wrapped it around the raw polymer, then cured it and removed the thread, then backfilled the spaces that were created by the thread with some acrylic paint. Here's a photo of that necklace (and the sweater I wanted to match it to) that gave me the idea for how to treat the coil of the vessel:

This was a good idea, only thing was that with the necklace I was able to smooth out the clay, but with the vessel and the tight spaces, this wasn't feasible, so the vessel's finish is rougher than I would really prefer. Instead of acrylic paint I decided to use some peacock pearl colored Premo mixed with some LPC and thinner to make a paste that would be thin enough to fill the thread voids. I like the fact that this mixture clung to the cured polymer a bit more than the acrylic paint did, which I think gave it a little bit of a mokume gane feel.  Here's a shot of me holding it, so you can see the scale of the piece:

So, while I'm happy to see the idea come to life, I'm not really happy with this piece. I have another idea for how I might construct this next time, and I am considering doing a second iteration very soon. The thing I'm most unhappy about is how wonky the spiral got because of taking it off the form before adding epoxy supports on the side. I also don't like the fact that I had to texture everything because of how it was formed. My new idea for designing this will allow me to finish it smoothly. So, while I'm not completely happy, I am grateful for the lessons I learned and the inspiration I received while making this piece. What about you? Has there ever been a piece that you made which turned out less than you had hoped, but you were still grateful for the lessons learned? Did you do another iteration of that piece and better it with those gained insights? Tell me about it in the comments... and let me know what you think of my Spring Sprung vessel too!

February Vote - Four Seasons

Wow, time has gotten away from me again! There's only 1 and a half days left to vote for this month's challenge! Here's a peek at the fun pieces my guild members and I have created for the four seasons theme:

Please head over the the PCAGOE blog and vote for your 3 favorite entries! One randomly selected voter will be chosen to win a free prize... it could be you this month! Voting will close for this challenge at midnight EST on February 7th, so hurry over to the PCAGOE page now!

Seasons of Change

I think most people on the east coast of USA are ready for a change of season! While I am a lover of all 4 seasons, I must admit that after shoveling the nearly 3 feet of snow, that was dumped on our area this past weekend, has left me not too keen for more of the "white stuff"! I do however love being snowed-in, especially when some of that time can be spent creating... as was the case this weekend. The project that I tackled was my guild's February challenge piece, of the theme "4 seasons (spring, summer, autumn, winter)".

I kept thinking of one of my favorite songs, by singer songwriter Nicole Nordeman... called Every Season (you can listen to it here). I love the word imagery Nicole uses in her song to describe and make us sense each season; and this featured in my thoughts while creating this challenge piece. I decided that I wanted to do a series of small wall hangings that depicted the growth changes of a plant from spring to winter. When brainstorming my ideas for this, I was excited about the concept of using the background of each canvas to depict the season's weather. Spring would have raindrops, summer would have hot blazing sunbeams, fall would have a colorful sunset sky, and winter would be a frosted coating of ice.

I created the backgrounds first, and had a lot of fun doing these! I used inks, washes and paints on the polymer for the winter and summer canvases. Spring raindrops were created using liquid Fimo drops, and autumn background is a simple skinner blend of sherbet sunset colors. The plant begins it's life as an unfurling and budding shoot in spring; leafs out and flowers in summer; changes leaf color, fruits into berries and begins dropping leaves in autumn; and finally is bare branches, picked over berries and decorated with snow for winter.

I created the canvases so that they can be hung separately, I like how this separateness allows for changing up the look of them and gives the owner flexibility in how they will be displayed.

I had a lot of fun coming up with various ways to shoot them with the camera, imagining different ways in which they could be hung on the wall, or how they might be stacked upon one another in a shop while waiting to be sold.

If you didn't notice, the winter background has a treatment of inks with mica, which makes the frosted background appear different at varying angles, you can get a good idea of that effect in the following 2 photos:

I'm not sure if I like them best grouped together in a bunch, like the first photo of this blog post, or displayed in a straight line... then there's the option of vertical or horizontal... 

I'm really quite pleased with the turn-out of these pieces, there's something about each one that I love, but overall I think that the summer one is my favorite. That's somewhat amusing to me, as I'm not a summer girl... while I love all the seasons, the sultry hot and humid heat of the summer is probably my least favorite time of year. Which one of these appeals to you most, and why? Does it correspond to your personal favorite season? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this project, please leave me a comment below! Voting for this challenge will open on February 1st at the PCAGOE blog. I'll post a reminder here when the vote is open!

8th Annual Bead Soup Blog Party Reveal

The day has finally come for the Bead Soup Blog Party (BSBP) Reveal.  I blogged about the BSBP when my soup arrived in the mail from my partner, and again when my partner got my soup.  You can find those posts here and here.  So, to recap, this is the soup I received:

I created a bunch of pieces, using most of the soup ingredients.  I started on the focal, the curved copper band with swirls and painted coloring.  As beautiful as this focal is, it proved a challenge for me to use it.  The reason for this is that I'm mostly a necklace girl.  This focal was simply made for being a bracelet.  I really tried hard to think of how I could make this into a necklace focal, but in the end I made it what it wanted to be, a bracelet.  I also incorporated the silk sari fabrics into this and 2 of the pink shell beads...  I had some vintage buttons that became the beads for the bracelet band.  Here are some shots of that piece:

 

I had this pink cord necklace that perfectly matched those pink shell beads... I also had a pendant that I had made out of polymer clay which had that same pink color, and those items were what created the second piece.  From the soup, the only items I used in this piece are the pink shell beads:

Next up, I had to use the clasp.  I didn't want to use the clasp in the same piece as the focal because I have an aversion to mixing metals.  The metals in the focal piece were copper and the clasp is silver tone.  The clasp also is in the whimsical shape of butterflies.  I decided to do a spring inspired piece using most of the multicolored crystal beads that were found in my soup, and I decided to make a butterfly pendant using my upcycled materials.  This butterfly pendant is created with fused plastic snack bags:

Next, I still had more of those fun, bright pink shell beads to use, so I decided to pair them with one of my dyed tyvek pendants as seen here:

The soup included a bunch of pearls, some glass ones and some freshwater pearls.  They were all in various shapes, sizes and colors... and some of them were drilled off center.  I decided to pair them with this great neutral variegated cording that I had.  I also decided to go for another bracelet design and earrings (another rarity for me).

Next I zeroed in on a small grouping of pale green cube beads (possibly fluorite).  I decided to do a boho look necklace with these pairing them with varying strands, disc beads from my stash and some garnet colored glass beads from my stash, and the focal is a multi-colored polymer clay bead:

There were 4 large moss agate (?) beads in my soup which I decided to pair with a polymer pendant that I made last year, which was sitting around waiting for inspiration.  The pendant was created while playing with Lynda Moseley's controlled marbling technique.  I pulled in some coral beads to draw on the orange tones in the pendant:

And finally, I wanted to use at least one of those metal sheets that I was sent in my soup.  Now, they were quite a challenge.  First, I'm no metalsmith... but I do like to play around and experiment with things.  These babies are big, about 3" by 4", and the metal is quite heavy.  I don't have any tools that can cut through that, nor do I have any great shaping tools.  But I do have a vice and decided today at the last minute to play with one of the plates to see what happens. I paired my bent up piece of metal with some thick grey knit cordage, its almost like a scarf necklace:

I still have some ingredients left over for further play! Plenty of the silk sari fabric, a couple more of the various colored crystal beads, the big green lampwork bead, and still a few more of the pink shell beads... oh, and the other 3 metal plates (though I think the one with the best impression will become a polymer clay texture plate). ;)

I had so much fun creating things with the soup.  It was a definite challenge for me, as all of the ingredients were items I wouldn't normally have acquired for my own supply, so it really pushed me to work with things out of my "norm".  I'm considering making 2 of the pieces part of my "permanent collection", so I think it's safe to say that I created pieces with which I'm quite pleased!  Please do have a look at my partner's blog to see what she did with the soup I sent her.  My partner is Arlene Dean from A Glass Bash, and you can find her reveal here.   Here is the soup that I sent to her:

Thank you Arlene!  There were close to 500 other participants in this blog party, please take some time to check out some of the other soups and reveals!  You can find the full list of participating artists, with hotlinks to their blogs here.  Many thanks to Lori Anderson for organizing everything!! Oh, and leave me a comment and let me know what you think about my creations! :)

Figures... a practice of the human form and my process of achieving my latest sculpt

I've drawn and painted human bodies and faces from life countless times throughout my artistic background, but had never before done a sculpt of the human form.  So, when I lit upon the idea of sculpting a female figure as Mother Nature for the last PCAGOE monthly challenge, I knew it would certainly be a challenge. But, given my background of studying the human figure for drawing or painting, I was fairly confident that it was a challenge I could meet. The challenge theme for April was "the Seasons" (Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter). My idea was to create Mother nature and decorate her form with the progression of the seasons; with the idea of a spring seed sprouting from her one hand, the vine continuing up her arm and onto her torso; leafing out in the full foliage of summer on her torso; eventually leading to vine down her other arm, turning to fall colors with two falling leaves which dangle from that hand. The thought to add winter to the bottom of her form, brought about the idea of a base where her torso blends into a tree trunk, with bare branches reaching outward.

This female figure concept initially began about a year ago, when I purchased a couple bottles of Vanilla Extract that happened to be hourglass shaped.  I instantly thought "female form" when looking at these bottles.  I thought perhaps I might do a miniature polymer dress form mannequin someday.  When I struck upon the idea of Mother nature for this challenge, I immediately thought of using one of those bottles.  So, this sculpture is a working bottle.  The next photo shows the sculpture with an example of what is at her core:

The following is a description of my working process to create the Mother Nature bottle sculpture:  The empty glass bottle was first fitted with 2 pieces of wire that were twisted together at both ends, leaving an opening in the center, through which the neck of the bottle was placed.  This created the armature for her arms.  The wire rests on the areas of the bottle which define the form's collar bones and scapula area on the back (next time I make one of these I will photograph this step), so it actually helped to define the collar bones of the form.  The wire was glued into place on to the bottle with super glue.  The tree trunk base has a core that is a cardboard spool which once held a skein of thread.  The head is supported with a screw that was driven through the metal cap of the bottle.  Her head fully unscrews from her body, as you can see in the first photo at the beginning of this post.

In the next handful of photos you can view a sampling of the progression of the sculpt.  In the first photo, you can see the rough sculpt of the body and arms, shown with one of the bottles, and my human anatomy for artist's book (which was my guide in getting the form right, since I didn't have access to a live model).  Take note too, of the screw protruding from the cap on the sculpted body, this is the armature for the head, ensuring that the bottle can be opened without having her head pop off the cap! 

The next photo is basically the next stage of the sculpt, adding more weight to her arms and the 1st sculpt of her head. 

At this next stage, a little more weight was added to her arms and her face is starting to take shape (more layers were eventually added to the face for better feature proportions).... you can see how rough her skin looks at this point (I don't have those nice silicone sculpting tools; I was working with my knife, my fingers, a pointed needle tool and a small round metal burnisher).  This was the stage when my husband saw her for the first time; his first comment was, "why did you make her so old and ugly?"... after he was banished from my studio ;)  I set out on the next step, baking her a second time.
 

After the second baking, she went through a sanding process to smooth out the bumps and ugliness so honestly pointed out my my dear hubby, and this was the result:

After this stage, she was coated with translucent liquid polymer and baked (two times) to give the skin a nice finish.  Finally, her torso was attached to the tree trunk base (which was sculpted with wire added to create the bare branches of the tree and baked separately).  Clay was sculpted over the join of the torso and tree trunk base to hide the seam and she was baked again.  The seed, vines and leaves were added, facial features were enhanced (eye lashes, eyebrows, color to her lips and highlights to the whites of her eyes) and she was baked to cure the final details.  I lost count, but I think she was baked a total of 8 or 9 times from beginning to end.  Her hair is made from angora fleece and was attached section by section to her head with super glue, which was a messy job; there has to be a better way to do this part, which I will be researching before my next human form. (Yes, a "next one" is already in planning stages and will be a "sister" to Mother Nature).  As a final touch some translucent gloss acrylic was added to her eyes and lips for shine. By this time, it was 11PM on the night of the midnight deadline for my guild's challenge, so I took a photo of her at night, at a bad angle and without adequate lighting... which resulted in a sinister look on her face (that photo is in my flickr if anyone didn't see it in the challenge entries).  Before I took daylight photos, I noticed that the vines on the front of her torso were off balance and threw the entire design off... so the next morning I set to work to fix that imbalance, happily forgetting to get daylight photos to include in my flickr and to add links to my challenge description.  That is why I held off in posting the daylight photos of her here and on my flickr until after the challenge voting ended. 
While I am fairly happy with how she turned out, her torso sculpt is the area with which I was most pleased, especially her back.. I was also especially pleased with the vine design on her back.  The front of the torso could use improvements, the same is true of her hands.  The area which I think begs for the most improvement is the face sculpt, it just did not turn out as well as I had hoped.. more study to do in that area for female body #2 which is coming soon...  Mother Nature is available in my etsy shop.