Featured on Polymer Clay Daily

Here are some Brooches from this project

Collaged cane brooches

Stroppel cane leaf brooches

Polymer Clay Materclass

Last year Cynthia attended a collaborative workshop with a number of artists which led to the publication of a fabulous must have book.  Polymer clay master class  by Judy Belcher and Tamara Honaman. I love the book for the narrative, lots of tips and tricks, intriguing projects and much more. The associated Craftcast webinar gave me a peek into the personalities involved in the project – what a treat. Cynthia is well known for her wonderful polymer inlays into wooden bowls her husband turns. Samples can be seen in the book . Currently Cynthia  is writing a book on Global Polymer art due out in 2013 as well as  driving donations for Wendy More’s Sammunat project. Read more about this wonderful project on their blog A colorful Journey.

You can shop for beads, bangles and necklaces at Kazuri West or their Etsy shop.  Donate if you can. They are planning to build their very own business premises on donated land and need everyone’s assistance. purchase some beads or completed jewellery. I am the proud owner of a wonderful set of bangles matching a summer top.  They are so colourful and well made.

Sammunat bangles

Over the Australian summer my coffee beans ripened to a luscious red colour. I decided to try and germinate all in peat-moss pellets. It’s a very slow process, however I now have enough seedlings to start a small orchard. If only the climate in Melbourne would permit planting outside. My other half is quite concerned where this orchard will live during the winter months.   The seedlings are a long way away from being gifted to interested friends, which may partially solve the problem.

This is mine!!

Are you comfortable?

Paper art studio and sleeping artist's helpers

Arabica coffee tree and unripe beans

Arabica coffee seedlings

This new  looser approach,inspired by Tory Hughes new work,   where the maker’s hand is visible, rather than back filling/sanding and extreme smoothness appeals to me right now.   It allows so much more freedom , something I am craving right now. I tend to alternate between surface finishes quite frequently.  My next experiment will be in Southern summer  colours with a matte surface, floral and extruded retro canes.

Some of my canes were created with very firm clay – not something I recommend, as they cannot be applied seamlessly. I love the challenge and the resulting texture. It looks like Premo cad yellow is not opaque when sliced thinly – it gives a lovely third dimension to the pieces as one can just discover the surface below. I don’t know, whether another thin layer of translucent clay over the top of pieces  and a smooth surface are the way to go. Back to the work bench.

I have used some Lisa Pavelka foils I purchased a long time ago as well as silver leaf and love the almost fish scale appearance in some areas. The foils are so versatile.

layered polymer and metallic accents

Last week I submitted work to the Waverley Arts Society annual exhibition. I dropped my goodies off at The Highway Gallery , went home and got stuck into my garden. I needed to dig up plants to save them from the feet of tree surgeons. My garden is a jungle and I love every single species planted.   That done I focused on preparing a meal for friends and totally missed a call from the gallery on my answering machine suggesting I attend the exhibition opening. I had planned to do so but ended up chopping veggies instead as we were expecting visitors for dinner.   Friends dropped by  on their way home to let me know of  my good fortune. It really did not sink in, I was too busy. I think I made a statement about someone probably having created a great display.

On Sunday hubby and I finally headed to the gallery to take in the momentous event of a polymer clay exhibit having won “Best in show”. It wasn’t only that, but also the first time in the history of the art group that a 3D work has received the accolade. Walter Magilton, the judge is an accomplished artist. I am so grateful for his interest in our relatively unknown medium. I created an information sheet to show to gallery visitors.

It took a lot of time for the news to sink in and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this award really reflects our great caring and sharing online polymer community.  Without the generosity of the many who share techniques online or take time out to publish the many wonderful books one can immerse oneself in and learn as one plays, this would not have been possible. Without the wonderfully inspiring blogs by Cynthia Tinapple – Polymer clay daily, Susan Lomuto – Daily Art muse,  Sage Bray – Polymer Arts Blog, Polymer Art Archive, and many , many others I would not have been inspired to attempt and master so many diverse techniques.

The display was difficult to photograph as it is behind glass. Below are images of some of the pieces I submitted.

Translucent Mokume Gane tube bead necklace

Pomegranate millefiore necklace

Extruded Millefiore necklace

Butterfly wing, Mokume Gane necklace

Mokume gane brooch

Mokume Gane, scribbles brooch

Mokume Gane brooch

recycled card journal

Recently I attended an altered card journal workshop with Ro Bruhn.  We created a fabric decorated cover with a bead embellished spine and then bound the recycled cards into the structure. The fun part is as always embellishing the pages. I decided to create an African memories journal and used cards I had created specifically for the project from altered photographs and copyright free antique imagery. I have no cards from my African period, as we had to leave in a hurry to avoid being caught up in a 25 year long futile soul destroying battle which brought nothing but hardships and pain for the local population. The only winners were some superpowers with money to invest and minerals to plunder.

It looks like I have too many goodies wanting to find a place and the whole journal looks best displayed open . I’m not even half way through embellishing the cards.

Below are a few more sample pages and the all important studio supervisors responsible for my sanity.

It's all about coffee

On the farm

Ephemera create memories

Custom art papers, digitally created from ephemera

Studio supervision - perched high above the workbench

Photoshop lesson at the desk

I really can’t remember what it was like doing all the work on my own and without company. I do know what it was like when my tools and creations were easy to keep track of – before everything became a  toy to explore. Earrings seem to get separated like socks in the washing machine.

Anyway, back to clay work after this wonderful distraction.

What a fabulously delicate collection.

Bangle in Etsy treasury.

Complex canes

I learnt that a moment’s laps of concentration can give you a totally different end result. I love her technique, as it is so forgiving, simple and yet complex. I will never cane like a pro, but am ecstatic about the results. I compiled my scraps on the left and it love the stained glass look – too pretty to mush up. Now need to practice not to stuff things up again. I just love how the more distorted the initial can the more complex and intriguing the result is. Below is the more controlled complex cane – I miss the wavy lines.

Complex cane 2

They are the result of experiments of layering translucent clay layers with metal leaf and  ink creating more textural depth. They are  part of adaptations of  Christi Uliczni’s rocky path tutorial, which has inspired so many. I used Kato liquid clay as a doming surface because I wanted to be able to bake the cabochons many more times, but feel resin would give an even better result. what I love about the pendants is, that they look very different depending on lighting and angle of view ranging from a warm silver to quite green. I love the different look the texture has depending on whether it is framed or not.

Experiments with glitter and ink also led to some more interesting pendants with potential for more exploration:

I created these pendants after experimenting with layering of translucent fruit and foliage cane slices. Some shimmer brilliantly in the sunlight, others have a chatoyant effect from the inclusion of mica powders. They are coated with resin for a high gloss juicy appearance.

Instructions on how to construct fruit canes can be found on my flickr site. Just click on the links: kiwi and strawberry.

Summer fruit

Watermelon and Strawberries

A taste of kiwi

Tangy citrus

Luscious Pomegranate