Chaos: things don't always go as planned

Sometimes things just don't go as planned. I'm actually not surprised that my latest project didn't work out as intended. This is the busiest month of the year for me, as I'm knee-deep in lots of house-hold seasonal events: preparing and planting the garden (we have 2 large vegetable gardens); protecting, picking, cleaning, preparing and enjoying my strawberry harvest bounty; protecting the various fruit trees that are pinking or in immature fruit stage; and spring cleaning my house... all this piled on top of other "normal" life activities, obligations and chores. So my life is always a bit chaotic in the month of May, and this polymer project, though not intended to be, is a great reflection of that chaos.

Problem is, I had too many ideas for this project, and I tried to incorporate too many of them into this one piece. **sigh** I had feared that trying to cram too many ideas into one piece might indeed become disastrous, but I just had to try, didn't I? Why? Well, because I was dying to get all the ideas out there and just didn't want to wait. Lessons learned, often the hard way.

So my first idea was to create a portion of a sun image, with lots of flowing lines, but not the entire sun... here's a rough sketch of my first idea (the one I should have probably stuck with):

The PCAGOE theme for this month is "quilled" polymer, and this image would have worked well. Since I've done a couple other quilled pieces in the past, and wrote the tutorial article for The Polymer Arts magazine, I really wanted this to be something special. So I keep thinking about it and over thinking it. And then, I got the idea to upcycle some cds and to incorporate layers of quilling. Here's where I went terribly wrong. You see, this secondary idea did not follow the sketched image at all, it was something entirely different, and probably would have worked well had I stuck to that idea and the image I saw with it. But I didn't want to abandon that flowing sun image (chalk that up to having tons of rain in the past couple weeks), so I made the decision to combine the two (well, basically three) ideas into creating a layered and now full sun image (in order to incorporate the upcycled cd idea).  Oh, and then I had a fourth idea of using curled strips, as I've seen these used in quilled paper art lately.  (imagine a rolled eye animated emoticon here)

So, beyond being a bear to create this piece, with all the layers and trying to keep everything in place when cured (thanks to heat + gravity concerns that polymer artists know so well), the design just doesn't really work for me in the finished format. Well, I'm not sure it's finished either, I just basically ran out of time since I needed to photograph this with whatever remaining daylight I had at 8PM...  I may keep adding to it and trying to salvage something that I like from it.

Or, I might just cut it in half. When I cut the photos in half, I kind of like what happens... 

And... when I photoshop those halves into how I would hang them on the wall, I'm liking this effect even more.

...or...

So, I might be able to redeem the chaos after all... If I do, I'll be sure to post an update about it here on the blog.  What about you? Have you had life's chaos, calm or emotions subconsciously effect a project? What do you think of my chaotic work of art? What changes, do you think, would make this piece work better? I'd love to hear your thoughts, so leave me a comment below!

I'll post a reminder here on the blog for the challenge vote... as always, voting will open on the first of the month, and will be open from June 1st through June 7th. 

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!

Polymer Art Printing

Texture plates is the theme for the PCAGOE July challenge. The idea is that each participating member would create a texture plate from polymer and then use the handmade texture plate to emboss raw polymer; then, create something with the textured clay impression. As I mulled over ideas for this project, I recalled the many mono prints that I created in a printmaking class that I took in college, and I thought it would be great to have a handmade printing plate to create a run of original polymer printed artwork! I would make wall art using the texture plate as my printing plate, but could make each one look unique by changing which media and colors I applied to the plate. 

Below is a photo of my first 3 polymer art prints with the original texture plate (solid blue at bottom)

My first efforts at my texture plate design were a total failure. I had the "brilliant" idea to combine paper strips with LPC which, in the end, turned into a big mess. I may revisit this idea again when I have more time to play.

 So, the next phase saw me making impressions in a slab of raw polymer using various tools and cured coiled quilled polymer (to create the spirals you see above). I wanted some areas that would create deeper impressions, so I made sure to add a band of small raised circles on top of the plate. My final result of the textured plate is seen below:

Once the texture plate was fully cured. I conditioned a large amount of white Premo polymer. I then set to work on creating a "print". I painted on the plate with various mica powder colors, in reds, oranges, yellow/golds and blue (I'm still in a blue/orange mood, as I was last month). I mounted the texture plate face down on the raw white polymer and gave every area lots of pressure, making sure to flip it over and press on both sides, to get a good impression. The result was this lovely print (my favorite of the 3):

After it was released from the texture plate, I did add a few spritzes of red/orange ink, which I smudged with a paper towel all over the surface, I did this to make the orange coloring more prominent and darker. After curing, this was mounted to a black frame.

For the second print, I decided to use blue Kato liquid polymer to paint the entire texture plate. I impressed into the clay as before and released the plate from the print. I fully cured the print, then I added some areas of orange Kato liquid polymer to accent the blue printed areas, and I fully cured that layer. The final result is this polymer print, also mounted to a black frame:

For the third print, I wanted to use alcohol inks, but before wasting ink tried first with just plain rubbing alcohol. This didn't work as well, the raw polymer was sticking in the fine spaces of the texture plate and did not release as easily as the other 2 methods. So, I decided to paint the entire texture plate with a white mica, to allow for easy release of the print. After the all-white polymer print was released from the texture plate, I then added alcohol inks to the embossed raw clay. (So, this one really isn't a print... I'd call it a painting because the colors were added after the texture was embossed. The previous two pieces, however, are true prints, as the color was added to the plate and transferred onto the raw polymer.) To paint this last one, I first painted everything with varying shades of blue alcohol ink, then I used some spritzers of white and orange to add interest. This one too is mounted on a black frame:

I was having so much fun with this, and wanted to try some other alcohol ink painting ideas, I just didn't want to stop creating... so I made the pendants for this necklace and earring set:

I was really pleased with the effects I achieved! This will be a tough necklace for me to part with, because I love it so much... but I think it might end up in the createmyworld etsy shop because it has matching earrings (I rarely ever wear earrings). Here are a few more shots of the jewelry:

Oh, and here's the backside of the jewelry:

I really had so much fun making this project, and I see my self exploring this idea further by creating more texture plates!

I am really so pleased with how these turned out! And when my hubby saw the prints, he said "Those are the coolest things you've ever made! Wanna hang them up in the living room?" That is a HUGE compliment! ;) I was going to put them in my createmyworld etsy shop, but I do believe the hubby will claim them for our house. I hope to make more to put on etsy.

Voting for this challenge will open on July 1st and will close at midnight on the 7th. I'll try to remember to post a reminder about the voting... I've not been good about that in the past couple months, but I do hope to be more organized this month!

Meditative Repetition

My guild's challenge theme for November is Mandalas. The word mandala comes from Sanskrit; translated it means circle. Mandalas are spiritual symbols which represent the universe. It's no wonder that working on creating my own mandala would become a meditative task. I simply got lost in the repetitive details as I was creating this piece. I found myself not wanting the session to end as I kept adding more to it.

The basic concept I wanted for this design was based on layering. As for color scheme and motifs, I decided to celebrate my favorite season of the year, autumn. I chose the fall color palette of red, orange, gold, green and brown, incorporating motifs of leaves.

To begin, there is a base layer of golden red and orange on the outer perimeter of the main circle. Over this I strung 8 pieces of string that had been dipped in polymer and dyed with alcohol ink, all spaced at equal distances (these would become the center veins of one round of leaves). The yellow gold color was next as I cut out shapes of leaves around the center and small four lobed flowers near the edges of the circle. The next layer proved most difficult, to cut away enough to see the under layer of cut out shaped leaves in the gold layer, plus, adding the maple leaf cut outs, the fancy border and a slightly larger four lobed flower motif to reveal the smaller flower motif on the gold layer. In the next steps details were added with tiny bits of clay and the use of small tools to make indentations.

I suddenly decided that I didn't want this to be just a plain edged circle, mostly because I was having so much fun adding things to it... and that's when I chose to add leaf shapes surrounding the existing circular canvas. Sticking with the same color palette and motifs, I added larger green leaves and smaller golden red leaves, detailed with bits of golden yellow and orange flowers. The entire outer band of design is wrapped with a thin gauge strip of the brown.

I seriously think I could have worked on this for much longer, but wanted to wrap things up in time for the weekend, so it didn't cut into my precious time with my dear hubby. ;) This color scheme was a bit of a step-out for me, though I love the colors of fall, I tend to shy away from using green and yellow, especially together, and especially both with brown!

I could definitely get lost in doing a series of these, and might have to revisit this idea at a later date. I had originally thought that this little piece (it's just shy of 8" in diameter so, not as large as the wall hangings I've done before) wasn't one that really fit into any of the already existing decor in my home. I had resigned myself to selling it... but, I took a chance and hung it next to the other 2 round wall hangings I made in the past year, which live on my studio wall. I think he looks happy there... I envision an entire wall filled with these circular creations... someday. For now, this is a start:

I would love to hear any comments you might have to share on mandalas. Have you experienced the meditative zone of working with repetition? Tell me about it in the comments and be sure to let me know what you think of my little mandala!

Voting for this challenge will begin on November 1st and will go through the 7th at midnight EST. As always, I'll try to post a voting reminder here on the blog with the link!

A Play Break to Repurpose

I've been busily reorganizing my studio spaces over the past week.  I'm not yet finished, but the end is in sight, only a day or two more....  I took a break from my organization project to create a piece for my guild challenge.  The PCAGOE (Polymer Clay Guild of Etsy) challenge theme for the month of February 2014 is wall hangings.  I had a completely different idea in mind for this challenge, but the presence of something that needed to be used sparked this project.

I had been asked by a friend to make another one of my turtle island pieces, which I began a few months ago.  I had stretched the canvas on my frame and coated it with liquid polymer, but when I cured that layer the center caved in and there was a lot of slack in the canvas, which for a "quilled" polymer look would not work.  The quilled project really needs to start with a taut canvas surface, because of how many layers of clay are concentrated in one layer creating a lot of weight.  Here's a photo of what went wrong with the canvas:

I've been so busy with my studio reorganize that I had pushed myself to the last day before the challenge deadline and realized that my original plan for this challenge would not have enough time to come together (I'll have to revisit that particular idea another time).  About a year or more ago, I had an idea to try a two layer sandwich of polymer then make certain shape partial cuts to fold back and allow the folds and the color contrast to create the design, so I decided to try this on my saggy  canvas.  At first I was going to cut away the canvas, but quickly realized that I could incorporate it into the design, thus giving more stability to my project.  So I covered the canvas again with liquid polymer, but this time I mixed it with some gold mica.  I made a swirl pattern radiating out from the center.  Some gold glitter scattered on top of the lpc layer added just a bit of shimmer.  I then made two large sheets of polymer (the circle is about 12" to 14" in diameter); one was a skinner blend that radiated from gold in the center to bronze on the outer areas and the top sheet was a blend of blue granite (has silver glitter flecks) mixed with blue pearl, cobalt blue and translucent.

After cutting the shapes and mounting the large polymer sheets to the canvas, I was ready to make the folds to reveal the design.  Some bonding agent, with the help of a few embossed dots as design elements, helped to secure the sheets to the canvas.  Here are some side view shots of the piece, so you can see the folded over elements:

And here are some close up shots:

While I'm fairly happy with my idea becoming a reality in this piece, this project was simply too rushed for me.  I think this design idea has some great potential and I do plan to revisit this idea another day when I can devote more time and effort to the construction.  Plus, (as always seems to happen) I have a whole other tangent of new ideas to implement in the next, or perhaps the 3rd iteration! ;) Please take a moment and let me know what you think about this piece in the comments!

Voting for this challenge will begin on February 1st and will run through February 7th (midnight EST).  I'll try to remember to repost a voting reminder at that time.  A post with my new studio changes is coming soon!