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Thursday, May 13, 2010

More playing around

I don't have any pics today, but they will come tomorrow. I've been playing around a bit more with resin, and polymer clay! I've always been extremely challenged when it comes to polymer clay. Everything I've ever made looks like it was made by a child ;-) What was always most frustrating about this, is that I have seen some fabulous work combining polymer clay with metal clays. My problems usually occurred during baking. It would bubble up, and/or burn, among other problems.

I recently came across a tutorial from an artist whose patinas I've long admired. Shannon Levart of Miss Fickle Media. She takes bare copper, and solutions of chemicals to create absolutely fabulous colours on copper. She of course also had a tutorial on how to manipulate polymer clay. It was so worth the money, as I realized I was being too hasty in my handling of the clay. Her tips were worth the price of admission 10 times over.

(edited note:)
I just poked through Shannon's etsy site again, and I discovered she also has a tutorial on how to emboss on the polymer clay bases (which was the tut I was talking about it). Check it out!

 I have to say, resin on top of polymer clay looks incredible! The colours just pop, and it's just oh so shiny... :-)  If you're a poly clay newbie, you may want to check this out.  Shannon used rub on transfers for her demonstration pieces. That was one thing I didn't have, Instead I used some rubber stamps, and embossing powder.

Once I finish playing around with the polymer, I've got a few ideas swimming around in my head to combine the resin, polymer, and metal clay.

I've also got a wee update on my metal clay/resin hearts. I decided to give up on the transparancy idea. I couldn't get them cut out properly, and it just didn't have the look I was going for. I stuck with using the regular paper...coated in ice resin of course. I was going to post them on my etsy site, but of course I ran out of sterling lobster clasps....sigh.  And of course, when I come in to buy the clasps, I'll find at least another $50 (hah...) worth of stuff I need/want. Who wants to take a bet I manage to leave the store having only spent $50? ;-)

2 comments:

jen said...

I'm such a dumb %%^ sometimes. I don't need to buy clasps - I can make them :-) Yes, the lightbulb finally came on... yeesh. However, I'll still buy them, as they really do come in handy.

Unknown said...

Thanks for the mention!

I am always running out of clasps. There is nothing worse then to make a fantastic piece of jewelry and have it sit there with no clasp. It completely halts the momentum.

I like to have a mix of handmade and commercial bought clasps so I can avoid this!