A little sparkle in winter... (Dragon AE challenge)

The theme challenge for Art Elements this month was as easy as it was difficult for me: Dragons. Those who know me since childhood know of my love for fantasy, for fantastic creature in general and dragons especially. Over the years I created a lot of dragons. Strangely enough they were somehow missing the last few years... uhm... it could nearly be ten years? How did this happen? 

So, thank you Niky (who hosts and chose the theme challenge) for giving me my dragons back :)

And speaking of the years gone: I wish you all a happy new year! :)

To be honest, even while I am sculpting from time to time, I was a little bit out of training to create a dragon. Also (now a little bit rambling) my favorite polymer clay brand is not available anymore. Staedtler says it just rebranded Fimo classic to Fimo professional. Let me tell you, I compared them one to one (some of my last ones from the fimo classic with the new ones), and it is not true. Not at all! Fimo professional is softer after conditioning and I hate that.

My absolute favorit polymer clay for creating small details is sculpey super firm. The only drawback is that it comes only in grey. But even though I work a lot with paints and other material to change the surface, I always consider the bacground colour and play with it. I don't like it when my polymer clay is completely painted. 

I ordered some new brands and will see how they will work out. I already tested a lot and after all, there are only a limited number of brands with high quality polymer clay. 

Back to the topic. I had some of these open bezel pendants left. Normally the silver colour (not real silver) is too bright for my taste but for this project it was okay. I filled it with white polymer clay and stamped it with archival ink (stampin' up) and some letter background. Nope, not a lot of it to be seen anymore but trust me, it would be visible if it was missing. The small details are always creating the whole impression. 

There was also another problem as you may see: Winter time! My favorite photo background was covered with snow! In case you wonder, it is the table on our balcony with beautiful weathered wood. On one part stood a plant pot and saved a spot! I would like to claim this was planned... but it was rather a forgotten pot. 

 But it was cold! We have right now -9°C (about 15,8 Fahrenheit). I miss summer...

There were a lot of tiny pattern on the skin to create the impression of scales. You don't see it anymore since I used some embossing powder for the surface effects.

The structures were antiqued using acrylic paint and acrylic ink (one of the materials I just discovered last year, there was this stuff all my life?) and golden highlights set afterwards again with acrylic paint.

 And believe me, the little dragon glows in the sun!

The plan was to create a pendant but he is rather big and bulky for a necklace or what do you think?

So, and I hope you are now curious to see what the other have created. Just have a look!

Guests

Shai Williams

Kathy Lindemer

Anita Rao

Kelly Rodgers

AJE Team

Susan

Jenny

Cathy 

Jen

Niky

Diana

Laney 

Caroline

Claire (you are here right now)