Painted Ladies Cuff

I recently joined the Painted Ladies Group on Facebook.  I did not even know it existed until a couple days ago when I stumbled upon it.  I just love Brenda Hicks-Schalon's mix of ceramic cabachons of various "painted ladies."

It was hard to decide which painted ladies I wanted.  I have about 5 of her cabs left which I will post as soon as I take good pictures of them.  I ended up choosing one to add into a bead embroidered cuff I was making.

Here tis...

When A Necklace Unexpectedly Comes Together

I know jewelry artists will totally get this.  It's the story about how beads talk to you and in a snap, you realize a bunch of beads you have been looking at would  go together to make a fab piece of work.

That's what happened to me.  I had NOT planned on using these beads together.  In fact, my intent was to sell the beads as earring pairs and/or pendants.

 So, how did this happen?

As I was arranging beads to photograph them all together, it just hit me that many of them could be put together to make a pretty cool necklace.  In fact I tried to resist the idea but they absolutely took over my hands and made me do it. 

True story. 

Paint Pour - what to do with Leftover Strips

You've done your paint pour and let it dry.  You cut out the beads you wanted.  Now there are leftover painted strips of raw clay from the cut outs.  What do you do?

I don't like to leave anything painted sit in storage long.  I have not had good success in the past with that.  I also think it's risky to roll it up into a ball or other shaped bead  and bake it as I read that acrylic paint, if inside poly clay, can form weak spots as it sweats.

What I did instead was take the leftover sheet of paint pour raw clay strips and press some parts together to minimize space between them and cut off other parts so I could build on the design.  Then, I carefully placed the design on a backing sheet of black raw clay and kept adding strips to fill in the spaces on the sheet.  Once I had them all on the backing sheet to my satisfaction, I rolled that sheet on the thickest setting on my pasta machine and tried next setting and settled on the fourth setting to smooth the design in to my satisfaction.

Next I ran a raw clay sheet of conditioned black clay through the thickest setting and pressed with my hands the paint pour sheet and plain black sheet of clay together.

 I studied the design pattern trying to figure what type of jewelry item it would best serve.  I decided on bangles/cuff bracelets.  The pattern was larger so it would not have been as fab in earrings or even a pendant in my opinion.   I formed cuffs in different sizes and styles and baked them.

 After baking, I added another thin backing and mica powdered some of them.  I also antiqued the outside of two of them.  Here are the results.  P.S.  sorry I don't have any pics of design build stages.  I just get too into it to stop. he he

These were antiqued

Paint Pouring on Poly Clay or How to Make a Mess in 5 minutes

The best way for me to learn to paint pour is to dive in.  Yes, I may take a tutorial or class sometime but I couldn't wait.  Let me tell you.  The way I did it was fun as hell but it was verrrry messy.  I rolled out a sheet of raw white clay, textured it with Victoria James' crumpled foil mold, and then did a blue wash over it.  I let that dry.  Then the real fun began.

I chose several colors of golden's fluid acrylics:  white, a green, a dark blue, and a medium blue, a red, and a yellow.

I began by horizontally pouring a strip of each paint across the raw textured clay sheet in a slight curve having each color touch the one before it.  I just did them in the same color order till I filled the sheet.

I had bought a small aluminum scraper so I could lightly scrape across the paint. I used techniques I had seen on you tube from paint artists and imitated their technique in applying the scraper but I did not prepare my paints the same way they do.  I did not use silicone which would have created cells and since I used fluid acrylics, I did not feel I had to thin out the paint as they do.  

After the first light scrapes across the clay, I spritzed the surface with water to force more movement and used my fingers to create some swirls.  I also picked  up the piece and tilted it a bit to help the paint flow in certain areas. Unfortunately, the only pour picture I have is an early version. 

 As the paint settled, I would alter it again by spot spraying and running the scraper lightly across the piece. 

 As it was drying I would spot spray, lightly touch it with the end of a paper towel which absorbs excess paint,  and add color as I saw fit.  When it was dry (slightly sticky but no color came off on a light touch from my finger), I cut beads, baked, and then sanded them which brought up some of the lighter blue underneath.

  They are shown below.  I also made cuffs from the strips of painted clay leftover after I cut out the beads.  The results of that are in the post after this one. 

So why does my title talk about mess?  Well, because I just dove in, I did not put anything under the raw sheet of clay when I did the initial blue paint wash so paint was all over my claying table. It made for a cool painting effect on the back of my sheet (see last picture which shows back of beads) but was a pain to clean up after.  I did put the sheet on a piece of aluminum foil while the wash was drying.  Also, I did not put gloves on so my hands were covered in paint from manipulating the sheet and adding in my own swirls.  

The pour - first iteration

The beads I cut from the pour

Another view

Cool effect from not putting anything under the clay sheet during initial wash

Poly Clay, Paints and Rusty, Crusty Garages...Oh My!

This is another necklace no longer in my collection that I really liked how it turned out.  It was a dab of paint here and a dab there and remakes and take aparts and remakes before I got it to look how I wanted.  Never give up on a piece. 

Integrating bead embroidery and Poly clay work - The House Cuff

This still remains one of my very favorite pieces of work.  I was experimenting with using fiber in bead embroidery and decided to pop some of my poly clay pieces into it.  I think of it like a walk through the neighborhood on a sunny day.

Poly clay organic sea creatures

I hadn't intended to create sea creatures.  I am not even sure I would call these that.  But others have.  My intention was to create something organic and then I got the idea for adding fiber.

Abstract Landscape Pendants (is that an oxymoron)

Messing around with paint...again!  I like the idea of exploring how colors bring other colors to life.  These were actually old beads I had  made and they were stamped with red birds on a branch.   You can't even see the stamp anymore after the redo.

Ocean Waves, Volcanic Eruptions - Explorations in Poly clay Organic

I get stimulated looking at other artist's work.  This includes artists in my own medium as well as artists in other fields.  I am not interested in copying their work.  Rather I am interested in learning and then interpreting what I take in by culling my own design sense.   That is how these necklaces emerged... after hours-- no I lie, it was days--of looking at you tube videos and designs online.

Podify Your poly clay!

Painted pods and pickled peppers.  They have nothing in common but it's fun to say.  I decided to fringe my pods after working on another piece in which I used fiber fringe.   For that piece I had created a pod clasp.  Then I got to thinking that the clasp might make a nice necklace itself.  Since my pods have lots of holes, I decided to add some funky fringe.  I wasn't sure if I liked them with all the fringe or not so these might be remade but here they are for now.  The last picture shows a black pod necklace with no fringe.

Scrap Clay Takes on a New Life

I feel like I fall down a rabbit hole every time I start a big project because I end up with a lot of scrap clay.  And I can't just put it in a ball and toss it in a container.  I am so curious as to what's inside and how I can manipulate it to create a pattern.  Using the stroppel technique sometimes and sometimes using other techniques.  The cool thing is I don't know what it will look like until I cut it.  I take a small end off and look at it.  The I cut it length wise to see what else comes up.  Then I decide which way I am cutting and stacking and finally I make the beads.  But then, there is new leftover clay.   Like I said...a rabbit hole.  Here's some things I created lately from my leftover scrap clay.

This flower was inspired by a class with Dayle Doroshow.
This flower is a big improvement from the one I made in class.

A nice pattern from my leftover clay and I added a three legged octupus.
  I suppose I could have added more legs but he's an alien mutant octupus.

Faux pottery.  I used a different cane making techique for this one. 
 This was basically putting scrap cane in the order I wanted it on a sheet of black clay and then cutting the shape.  
I wanted to imitate pottery dishes that come out of a kiln so I put a curve in it.   

Faux pottery 2.

I don't have all the beads in this picture but I am finally through all the promising scrap clay.
  Time to start another project!