Silver Lotus flowers and 47 polymer clay feathers

Hi again,

Wow its been a busy few months what with my new post at work and the constant drive to make some of the 'good ideas' that continually pop into my head.

The inspiration for these Pardo clay feathers came from Donna Kato's Peach Feather Cane tutorial and the need to make something affordable for the Duke Street  Christmas Craft Market coming up on the 1st December. As you can see I am still working on the Peacock feathers. This batch are all going to be brooches.

I have now sent my Artist's Pallette pendants off to the Assay Office for hallmarking. I made 2 pairs of earrings to go with them.

Here is a slightly better photo of one showing the colours of the polymer clay paints. 


 
I have wanted to make a Lotus flower in silver clay for a long time. 
After looking at many photographs of lotus flowers in different positions, I made a drawing and then a paper template and carefully sculpted the dry silver clay until I was happy with it.


 
Here are some photos of the prototype for 2 batches of 3 in 2 sizes that are currently with the 'Vikings' in the Assay Office for hallmarking. 

The larger batch of 3 have had 24 carat gold  fused to the pod in the center of the Lotus flower using the Keum Boo method.

New Year revolutions

Hi Happy New Year.
On the right is a picture of a necklace that I made from red and black Premo with a surface layer of the wonderful red variegated metal leaf available from Tiranti in Warren Street London. The surface was then scored by rolling a wood screw over in one direction and then again at right angles to the first cut. This technique can be seen in more detail in the Christmas issue of Making Jewellery magazine. I also have a cool project in the January Issue so rush out and buy it right now. :)

Over the Christmas break I have been working on a new theme for my polymer (and silver) pieces inspired by some of the original drawings for Metropolis, the film by Fritz Lang (hence the revolution in this post's title). New pictures will be seen here soon. I am also working on some tutorials (we all love free tutes right?) to post here so please come back soon.

Deep breaths as we ease into 2012. Be inspired W

Caribbean colours and sail shapes

Hi, I have been pretty busy 'bothering' the Polymer clay again and have been creating these sail and shield shapes. The one shown here became a pendant (kindly modelled by my friend Debbie) and is strung with Tigerstail threaded through some of the wonderful soft silicon tube I discovered recently

Here is a picture of all of the pieces together. There are 3 big hair slides, 7 pendants and 4 brooches.
In the background you can see the old fashioned but practical yellow flowery plastic table cover I use on my silver clay work bench.
I have come to really like the effect of pearl clay and now mix it with all my colours to give them a little mica sparkle. The pink/orange toned pieces shown here use tranparent clay too. (Premo Frost is my favourite and I think has the best transparency if you plunge it into ice cold water straight after curing). I sprinkled some fine glitter onto thin sheets of transparent clay that were then run through the pasta machine at #6 between sheets of baking parchment. I store these sheets in the parchment and carefully lift slices when needed with a tissue blade to lay glitter side down on my projects.

Here is a pic of the prototype brooch I made which has a slightly scorched section which looks dark grey/blue and really interesting. The additional slices glued on the surface were rescued from a piece that was too badly damaged to be of further use. Hello, I have finally discovered the reason for the extension ring on my Halogen oven.

Polymer clay hearts - less than half

Hi,
Here is a picture of some of the polymer clay heart pins that I have made recently. This is less than half of the finished hearts as I was in a rush this morning and didnt have time to lay all 100 out for the photograph. I believe there will be a photographer around later in the week and I'll try to get a picture of all of them together then. Its been a struggle getting them all finished in 2 weeks and I'm glad its over for now and I hope we can sell at least a few to raise money for the Student Hardship Fund.

My other work has taken a back seat while heart production has been going on but I have managed to make a few more squares necklaces one of which is shown here. I'll be adding them to the shop soon.

PS. the round shape in the middle square was made with the cap of a Liquid Polymer Clay bottle, looks cool eh?

Experiments- Copper blanks with Polymer clay #1

Hi, I have been experimenting  with the copper blanks usually used for enamelling and have managed to successfully attach polymer clay to them using liquid clay to attached the polymer clay to the blanks before firing.
The necklace here shows my second attempt. The first used the stickiness of the unbaked polymer alone but the clay came off pretty easily (in one piece) after firing.
There were originally 5 beads on this necklace but that made it too heavy. The blanks come in some interesting shapes tho not all with built in rings for hanging.
More experiments soon.