I really like to challenge myself. That has a lot of reasons and not the last one is to get the head free from worries, sorrows, too many thoughts biting in their own tail, just stress (even the good one, on a certain level it is so hard just to relax and calm down)... Just reading a book, drinking coffee with friends, watching a movie, go swimming... all great, but that all don't turn the stuff in my head off. But a challenge does. Working with the hands, creating things, the concentration at the moment...
But for this there has to be some kind of challenge for myself (or also new stuff and techniques and material, woks also great ^^). For all the colours I am working with, for all the variations of polymer clay I have, I realized that I don't really use yellow. I like that colour combined with red and orange in my apartment, on pillows and throws... but not in my wardrobe and not in my crafting. I am never drawn to yellow.
There we are. Yellow. Okay, I thought, lets buy yellow polymer clay and start making something. I bought a nice saturated yellow fimo classic.
Two weeks ago I meet with friends for a crafting saturday (with sweets, fruit salat, Hugo and prosecco). We all made beads and earrings out of polymer clay, joining the materials and experience we have (I would so love to give workshops here in leipzig, but I still didn't find any oportunity with working spaces and everything...). I took my yellow clay with me and started...
...and it took me until now to finish of painting the beads, adding gloss or resin, and especially: Make something with them!
Here we are with my two first earring pairs made with yellow beads. Okay, I added other colours with acrylic paint (Reeves) but I don't like just raw baked clay. I prefer depths I can create with adding layers of different colours.
For this little round beads (that are now really going into orange rather then yellow but I think the yellow is still prominent, nai?) I tried a technique from Kellie (Make it with me, have a look here) with pastel chalks and varnish. I scratched a little chalk dust with my scalpel of the chalk and used the shiny gloss from staedtler for fimo. I added some bright orange and red. Here a view of the back.
Also a first time for me: I used waxed linen cord and sewellegant paints. A lot first times in one and all of them just add a little subtle element but creates something that I really like. The metal rings are treated with some oxides from swellegant (the selection of metall coatings and oxides from Christie Friesen, made by Sculpt Nouveau). From the waxed linen cord I bought several colours as well as her sample pack for different strentghs (2, 4 or 7 ply) from Rebecca´s "The Curious Bad Shop". My biggest love is the teal one I used here!
Another real subtle effect that you just would see if you would change it: The silver beads. They are from the bead shop "Perlament" in Bonn. The name is a word play from the combination of "Parlament" and "Perle" meaning parliament and bead in english. Bonn was the former capital of west germany before the reunion of east and west germany. The beads are so unbelievable expensive but worth it. Sadly they don't sell online. A friend showed me this beads and she tried (I also tried) to get from any other company this beads. No way. It seems that they are covered in real silver somehow. They also have different kinds of golden beads... also real gold... going up to over 15 euro for some gramms. And yes, we just drove to Bonn to get beads... even if it is on the other side of germany...
For these beads I just used a red acrylic paint and covered it with (yes, you guessed it, another first time, this blog entry is kind of long...) UV resin. Uhm, I got little air bubbles, but still, you don't really see them and they are still beautiful.
What took the most time: Find suitable beads to add. Red and yellow glas beads (round or swarowskis or lampwork) all seemed way to "matchy". It took away the whole effect of the bright yellow and red and I always just got an old feeling. I tried to add some bright contrast and it worked for a turquoise and silver glas bead I had... but I only had one left. That is strange because I always buy beads in two in case I want to make earrings with them. Then a friend suggested copper beads and these were the ones I finally used. They had really big holes so I added small red glass beads to cover them. I like the accent they are making. Can you see how the are going a little bit into the big metallic bead?
Oh, and I made a new mold for these beads. Using an old and cheap spoon I found during our poymer clay crafting session. It was stamped cheap metal: Perfect to make molds from both sides! This i why I have a negative and a positive image bead. Did you notice that the beads are not the same?
And can you see the little air bubbles? (I hope not ^^)
These earrings will also be my entry for the AJE Earring Challenge from Art Jewelry Elements. Have a look at the blog for the earring challenge as well as the Pinterest board!
You may remember this pattern. It is one of my favorite patterns :)
And here are all the beads I made in their true original yellow colour. No, I didn't use all of them now. But I promise to use all of them, it was (is) a challenge after all!
In all details...
...different shapes, stamps and molds...
...oh, these are made with a transparent yellow, not mine, a friend brought it with her at our meeting...
Little ones for earring studs!
I forgot to take pictures without colours, so at least the beads before I turned them into earrings.
And studs! I love to use the to try the effects I get from different pattern and colour combinations!
...or just yellow acrylic paint as yellow accent instead of yellow polymer clay?
Puh, to be honest, while I love single beads / earrings I made with yellow, it is still not my colour. I thought maybe after this challenge yellow and I would be more compatible with each other (happened to me with bright blue and pink before), but no. Or maybe... let's say a tiny wee bit better but still no big love.
But I will thing of yellow as a tiny accent and / or contrast for other colours now ;)
To be honest, Claire, I DID notice your positive/negative motif (which I love), but until reading your process, I thought I was looking at a transfer of some kind. Now I am going to haunt the thrift shops for old knives! You always have a treat to share with me, a fellow lover of polymer :)
AntwortenLöschen