Elemental challenges

As I write this, I'm enjoying a slow, steady, rainy day.  Perfect for thinking about a challenge whose theme is the elements!  Actually, I'm quite late in writing about this due to many other challenges at home with getting the house and garden prepared for summer, picking strawberries, picking strawberries, picking strawberries (did I mention picking strawberries?!?)...  and finally, the loss of a beloved pet.  I've been so busy and so heartbroken over losing my sweet kitty that I hadn't considered posting about the challenge here until the last minute.  As of this writing, there is less than a day left for voting.  If you catch this on this day (June 7, 2013), you have until midnight tonight to cast your vote!  Please take the time to go vote for your 3 favorite entries at http://www.polymerclayartists.blogspot.com/   And remember that if you do take the time to vote you may have the opportunity to win a prize!  Three random voters are selected each month to win a prize of their choosing.

Here are a few photos of my entry piece:

For this month, our guild members were asked to create a piece that reflected any, or all, of the elements (earth, air, fire, water).  I had originally intended to create a piece with all of the elements.  Throughout the last month, I worked on creating portions that would eventually be combined which signified each element.  Then on the 2nd to last day before the challenge deadline, I spent the day assembling, disassembling and reassembling the piece to no avail.  Each time I put it together, no matter how I changed the necklace layout, it just was not cohesive.  As a last ditch resort, I decided to pair it down to simply the one element which struck me as the best conceived piece.  From the 4 choices, fire was the one which I felt was best represented.  I called this piece Flaming Embers Necklace.  The pendant was created with translucent polymer and alcohol inks, the embers shooting out of the top of the flame were created with necklace cable wire and liquid polymer.   The asymmetrical necklace design is created with clear glass seed beads interspersed with orange and red beads to carry the theme of flying embers of a flame.  

And here are all of the participating artists' entries for this month:

Surely a tough decision once again, to choose just 3 favorites, as all are well conceived and well executed ideas!  So please head over to the guild blog and vote for your favorites!

Star Light Star Bright

It's time again for voting.  The March PCAGOE challenge theme was Celestial (Sun, Moon, Stars, etc.).  My idea was a multi-layered, dimensional, star shaped night light. Constructed of 3 layers and various cuts to reveal the different layers and allow the light to shine through.  The base layer is made of translucent clay with gold mica. The second layer is a mixture of red and translucent with the star arms of this layer cut into shapes that would leave an open star shape in the center, revealing first layer. The third layer is a mix of purple and translucent, the star arms again were cut into shapes that would leave another center open star shape, revealing the red layer outlining the original center cut out star. Some circle cut-out shapes were included in the layers on each of the star arms; one to reveal the red layer, one to reveal the first translucent gold layer and 2 smaller holes that were cut through all 3 layers to reveal complete negative space. After curing, sanding and buffing, as a final element, spirals were drawn onto the purple layer using an embossing pen and gold embossing powder which was heat set. I fabricated a clay piece for the light fixture attachment and the final step was to glue that in place. Below are 2 photos of the piece, unlit and lit...  For more views of this piece please visit my flickr photo stream.

 

 And here are the other entries, all stellar examples of how versatile the polymer medium truly is!

Please remember to go vote at the PCAGOE blog before midnight 3/7/13 EST!