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Nothing sleepy about making hollow beads
Nothing, scary, either–we’ve left that–and Halloween–behind for this year. I’ll be teaching this class tomorrow, so come join us at Two Loose Beads in Houston! This post is about my experience making a second hollow bead to take to the class, along with the bead shown above. As sometimes happens, things didn’t turn out as expected, but that doesn’t always mean that the result negates success! Clays contain a lot of moisture that of course evaporates when meeting air, causing clay to shrink into itself and potentially stress the piece one is making. It’s definitely a consideration when building hollow forms from any clay, but the two silver clays I…
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On to other things…
‘PAPOOSE’ PENDANTS Since my last project I moved on to the papoose pendants–call them what you like, but they remind me of the Fayum mummies of ancient Egypt. Here is an image of my one and only, sold to my friend, Kathy White (of Posey & Fern, wonderful soaps & balms, etc.), who bought it because the face resembled her son when he was a baby. This photo shows a printed image of the pendant with some new polymer faces and one “scarf” copper cutout laid on top. I am making two of these for now. At least one will have the woven copper strips and a silver cap at…
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On Lisa’s Bench … In addition to working with sheet metal, I still love working with metal clay. I started this on Saturday and have finally finished adding this and that to it. Waiting now for it to finish drying so I can refine it. Oh, and add a bail. Then it’s into the kiln to fire into a beautiful fine silver pendant! I will post the finished product here and on our Etsy site once the pendant is polished to perfection and a chain is crafted to go with it.
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Hello on this Thursday evening. It has been a busy day at work and at home, part of which involved finishing the Butterfly Girl Pendant. ↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝ Here is a look at the back: After painting the background with washes, butterfly cutouts were glued down with glitter tossed on top. Mica sheet covers it all. As with any beauty, it has a flaw here and there, but such does not detract from the overall effect. I hope you enjoy it! ↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝ Now I can move on to the other two pendants I want to make. One will also have a polymer face, what I call “The Papoose” but the other…
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….As promised
The face is painted now but will sit overnight. Already I see changes to be made. When done, this will have a varnish of clear gloss acrylic, Varathane, the most recommended product I have seen for a protective finish for polymer clay. If I didn’t want the surface shiny I would leave it, because they acrylic paint is sufficient.
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On the Bench
I like to sketch faces and also sculpt them from polymer clay. I have been working on a pendant the last few days, my usual format for presentation of faces. I thought I would share what I have been doing on this new project. I’ve been making face pendants around two years now….as time allows. I tend to sketch until I draw something interesting…then I pull out the clay. Sometimes the end result resembles the sketch, but usually it doesn’t and that may not be important. Drawing all the time is important. Here is the face that will go in the pendant, unpainted but otherwise finished. The faces take a good…
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More….
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Steerhead Wall Art
I wanted to post a picture or two of the steerhead wall pieces I like to make. I buy frames from flea markets, secondhand shops and other like institutions and back them with masonite and paper, then attach the steerheads and finish with acrylic paint. The story behind them is that about 17 years ago I was teaching high school art in a small east Texas town and there came a day when we needed to decorate our door for an alma mater contest. Being a Longhorn, the inspiration for the steerheads was born and we won the contest. Not wanting to throw away the precious little creations I decided…
