Ornaments - Art Elements Design Challenge

I have a lot of plans every year -shortly before or directly after Christmas- what I want to do for the next one. A year seems a long time until... yes, until Christmas surprises me again. Like snow, who would guess it can snow during winter time?!

A long time ago I had a fabulous plan: I wanted to create an ornament every year! Not only for me but for all my family, with the year written on it... and so on and on. I actually did manage one time perfectly, other times only for some, but more often than not: Total failure!

Truth to be told, I am to old to change my habits. Just by planing something it won't function. I need some backup plans to trick myself somehow. Like cleaning up our apartment, my husband and I are often just to damn tired and both o us also often work on weekends.So no regular schedule will work and even if there are people who enjoy to sort and clean, we don't belong to them (we just enjoy a finished clean apartment ;) ).

So, as I said, we are both to old to change habits... so what does the trick? Invite people! Because I actually am able to sort and clean in record time, go to the tiniest spot to find the dust, and so on. After all I work in a genetic lab (one of my "hypothesis" is that there is just a certain amount of tidiness available in me and it is all used up in the lab ;) ) and there I run a nightmare regime (actually all of my former students become as nightmarish in the lab as me! Soooo proud of them all!).

Our apartment is our deeply personal cave, our safe hiding spot of the world and yes, there are very, very few people allowed to see it as it is. This trick works really good for me (not for my husband) even though I know it is a trick.

To come back to the ornaments. If something doesn't work for years, it also probably won't work next time. So my trick is to go away from the same ornament and just experiment with shapes and textures what would actually work to "become" an ornament!

Works wonderful for me! I love to play and experiment (I hate repetition) and after a while I have enough ornaments for christmas presents!

This year I worked with ceramic clay instead of polymer clay and I love them all! I used wooden fabric stamps, fabric lace, and silicone texture baking mats.

Thank you for joining our ornament design challenge this year  and I hope you will have a look at what everyone else made! :)

Guest Designers

Kathy Lindemer

Hope Smitheram

Denise McCabe

Paisley Lizard

Samantha Wescott

Sarajo Wentling

Divya N

Linda Newnham

Melissa Trudinger

Art Elements Team

Susan Kennedy

Caroline Dewison

Laney Mead

Cathy Mendola

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Lesley Watt - Artisan Elements

Lindsay Starr

Claire Fabian (you are here)

Niky Sayers

"Ancient dreams" - Component of the month at Art Elements

The start with a new piece is often the most challenging as well as the most enoyable part. My main problem actually is always "the middle". When you found your inspiration, chose and gathered all materials, have made the work halfway through, see already the end with only some minor last steps open to decide... and then I stop. Honestly, I don't now why. There are soooo many UFOs in my stash, pieces that I know I'll love as soon as they are finished.

*sighs*

But that is maybe just how my brain operates. At some time-point most projects come to an end (either way).

This is why I love and enjoy challenges. They push me and give me a tight schedule to fit in. Even more with a component you get from a fellow bead artist.... huh... the social pressure added works even better! (Not a joke, this works really for me and I like to trick myself with this behaviour ;) )

The component of the month (COM) of Art Elements (AE) came not from a member of the AE team but were gifted to AE team members as well as to AE readers by Kristi Ann from Artisan Clay. You can find more of her work here.

Back to how my brain is working... I got the gorgeous pendant from Kristi (thank you again!). As gorgeous as it is, it was way out of my comfort zone. I love circle shapes and crackled glass / glaze surfaces (you would never have guessed, mh?). But this was too big and a little bit too heavy for me (remember, not being objective here, just relative to what I normally work with).

Puh... and then I started with a necklace design where I liked all the pieces but there was not this perfect start with all elements fitting perfectly together. Time was closing and I finished it and just had to wait until I would be able to catch some rare daylight to take pictures. You need daylight to give such a stunning pendant with crackle glass credit, trust me in this.

So sitting late at the evening at the living room which is a absolute state of chaos with my "stuff" my eyes fell on one of my wrapped bracelets. I wanted to label it for our Pop-Up store in Leipzig (Malwatanderes) but it was sitting close to the necklace. Mh... the colours went nice together so I tested how the would look combined. Loved it. So I took the necklace apart, decided to make a kind of decorative art element (or ornament? tribal totem?). It was the right way. The right way since I started to love this pieces, consisting just of two "circles" at this moment, already.

The rest was easy, also close by was one of my ceramic bird skulls I made. I am in the process to test the effect of different glazes and no, originally I thought this light blue/yellow glaze is not my favorite. How wrong I was. Without the light blue accents it would not have fit to the pendant. Now it was the perfect addition. Yes, perfect! For me at least... especially with the piece of bone (that was also part of my table chaos, don't ask).

You can also find some more of my ceramic clay beads, a single czech glass bead and a lampwork bead from Kimberly Rogers (above the bird skull, such a perfect accent colour to bringt the bone, pendant and skull together).

Here you go... just loving it now! Last minute, but hey, perfect timing, no?!

So, please have a look at the other participants!

PS: Seeing the pictures now, it could be also a piece inspired by / for Prince, or not? *sighs* 2016...

PPS: I had to take the pictures at work, since it is dark when I leave home... and already dark when I come back home. So they are not my usual quality (and not my preferred background style). It was long enough winter time, I am ready for summer again! ;)


Guest Designers:
Sarajo Wentling
Lola Surwillo
Beti Horvath
Kate Kemp

Art Elements Team
Susan Kennedy
Lesley Watt
Claire Fabian (you are here right now :) )
Jenny Davies-Reazor
Jen Cameron

Layer above layer... it all shines through...

This painting is a kind of experiment I did. I do this a lot at the moment, to see what works for me and what not, what may be something I really enjoy and what effects can I generate. 

There is a difference between imaging something and really doing it. Sometimes I realize, as nice as a technique or effect may be, it is not me. This time it is me. I really love this mixed media piece (it is not a painting, no?).

The background is actually a collage made on a wooden panel. There is not too much to be seen anymore, painted and stamped over and over again and then I took a white pen and wrote over the whole panel. 

Just everything what was in my mind, bothering me as well as some nicer thoughts ;) I used a stencil with heavy acrylic paste and brushed some acrylic paint on top. Also I let a lot of acrylic inks run in and around the acrylic structures. 

  

Since the acrylic paste dried clear, you can see the layer below, a subtle effect but I love it! Layer above layer above layer....  still, every layer comes through!

And no, not readable anymore as a text! Just single words can be seen ^^

"Winter Solstice" - Ornament swap

Some of the rare few pieces that turned out as I imagined it! But... and there is a huge "but" involved, there were a lot of times I nearly threw it away! There were a lot of new ideas, material and methods I tried for the first time and way too much went wrong during the creation process!

Kimberly Rogers started the "Winter solstice ornament swap". What a great idea and I joined! My swap partner was Karin Grosset Grange. How perfect since I love her work! Maybe not as perfect for her... since my ornament arrived way too late at her... *sniff* I will show you the gorgeous ornament she send me as soon as I get the right light! I already tried but didn't like the results. So... will try again soon :)

First thing going wrong: My material order didn't arrive in time. I waited... and waited... oh... and I waited!  

The back is actually a postcard from the Grassi museum (just around the corner where we live). It is an old arabic pattern and the heavy car board was impressed as well as gilded with gold effects. To make the first cut was really hard but the pattern reminded me so much of the rays of the sun!

I also bought the sculpey face mold. Yes, a commercial mold but I wanted to have the mold for years! All these little moon faces are so lovely! I used super sculpey firm now one my absolute favorite polymer clays ever. It holds even the tiniest details so perfect and really firm even unbaked. Sadly only available in grey but grey was perfect for this ornament. The baked face was antiqued using acrylic paint and I added the gold details complementing the background pattern with gold (coloured) leaf.

The back is also covered with gold leaf. Both sides are then covered with resin. I added some purple powder in the back but the effect is a little but too subtle to really see it ;)

Some chains and czech glass beads to add some dangling because every ornament and jewellery piece gets better with "dangling"! The etched yellow drop just seems to glow.

I don't want to go to all difficult parts nearly going wrong. Just the worst (the one I wanted to start crying and throw it away): Putting resin on the back side it started dropping to the front (the piece was put on a little stand) and I didn't notice it. I saw it just the next day when it was hardened: A big purple drop around the nose. All the work that went into this piece, for nothing? But I remembered reading something about this resin cold glaze (it is only for adding a surface layer, not for big pieces): That is adheres to paper and metal and wood and... and... and... but not on plastic. So what is polymer clay in the end? Plastic! I carefully started to try to rip the resin blob off... then with a little bit more force and it worked! 

Now I just love this piece, my version of "Winter solstice" and if I am honest, I think I love it even more because of all the difficulties I had to overcome :)

Etching brass!

I finally did it. I bought some ferric chloride (FeCl3) and some brass sheet. I would have prefered copper but that was not available. Also I got a small metal scissor. Great for small details but not to work with a big sheet. Still, I got some test pieces out of it. My favorite is the little bee! I also etched the backside (the brass was thick enough). Since I am working in a S2-laboratory normally I always take care of the safety - from the gloves and goggles to the neutralisation of the solution and the information where I can safely deposit my waste (the ferric chloride as well as the copper inside the solution after the etching). 

The bird was a combination of a stamp with Staz-On and because not all areas were nicely covered I also took a red edding to enhance the image.

Some test pieces using different kind of markers as well as Staz-On stamping pad. The red colours (edding or sharpie) really seem to be better than the black ones. Maybe I also just had them too long inside the etching solution because also the Staz-On started to go off. The liver of sulphur is not working well on the protected brass regions but very well on the etched regions. There you also get a reddish coloured surface (I think the copper) and the liver of sulphur works great!

I also used the blue and green patina from Christi Friesen (Swellegant) on the brass after I used the liver of sulphur. It was difficult to catch the shades of blue and green but I really love the effect!

And in my hand so you get a better idea about the size :)

So many possibilities! Okay... the sanding and sanding and sanding... that is a part I hate. But still the end results make it worth!

Whatever you can find - more molds and stamps for polymer clay!

When I saw all these cute and tiny paper clips in south korea, I couldn't resist! As they are all made out of metal I already had some use with polymer clay in mind. But now I thought why not to make some kind of stamps / molds out of them? And here we go...

Something from the lab: A PCR reaction plate (this was already unsteril and before we throw it away I finally realized the great little letters!).

Just to give you an idea how tiny the letters and numbers are. 

This is a closure I found in my local fabric and sewing shop... had to come with me! They also have great bronze metal rings I am using for jewelery normally meant for belts. Really always worth to have a look in stores for other crafting areas ^^

I wanted to make some molds with metal charms I had lying around. I clipped the pin hole off to get a better mold. 

Now to the resulting stamps and molds: Sooooo cute these tiny wee animals!

Some stamps made just with some details of the paper clips...

Just roughly handles ^^

My new letter and number stamps. I have now the numbers 1 to 12 and the letters A to H. Not perfect but enough to play with it! I put small polymer clay balls on top of the plate and baked it all together (the PCR plate can tolerate the heat). Afterwards I glued this strange wood pieces I found in my stash on the baked clay with E6000. 

Perfect impressions!

Molds made with polymer clay is stiff and for other uses (at least for me) compared with silicone molds. With a polymer clay mold like this you can get perfect details. 

I also write on the backside what kind of mold it is and of course mark the top!

The I used some old scraps of polymer clay (fimo classic) to test the imprints / molds :)

Love the little colibri and squirrel! I can see nice pendants and textures made with them :)

In small they are also cute... and such tiny letters and numbers... find he bananas?

The molds are nicely working and I always have use for leaves and more leaves!

...and a lot of tiny cute animals!

Rather more for my beads and pendants... will look great after baking and painting.

Even while I love fimo classic to work with, I definitely would suggest now suer sculpey firm for making small molds and stamps. The fimo classic is not attaching too much to a baked super sculpey mold (that is not the case if I want to use fimo classic in a mold made with fimo classic!). Yes, of course I also use a little bit of water or baby powder as a release agent but I prefer if I already don't have to use a lot to start with ^^Also as I already wrote quite often in my blog: Super sculpey firm hold small details stunningly great and beautiful!