Seed pod polymer clay beads - tutorial for Art Elements

All the time I forget to link to my blog posts over at Art Elements, but not this time! ;)

I wrote a tutorial for these polymer clay beads reminding me of seed pods. The inspiration was this months theme for our theme challenge at Art Elements.... yes... seed pods!

Just have a look here!

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

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)

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 ^^

"Hidden treasures" - Whatever you can find, put it onto it!

Now I can show you a box that I already had finished for some time but since it was designed to be a birthday present (or the wrapping rather ;) ), I couldn't show you before.

Again I used some of my polymer clay pieces, added some spices, paper, textiles, metal stuff, plastic wrappings and other things lying around...

...but I also combined it this time with structure paste as well as crackle paste over an old map as background.

I tried to keep a general "greenish" tint. The acrylic paints I used were gold from Schmincke as well as the iridescent colours from pebeo.

Just have a look at the textures!Love the crackles...

...the pepper and pigment corns...

...the sand like structure paste...

And a little lizard as my focal :)

Winged crocodile - Playing with mixed media (Wanderlust 2016)

There are another year long mix of mixed media classes I had to join: Wanderlust 2016. A different kind of atmosphere compared with Life book 2016, but both are special and both have parts I am not into. But they are so minor, otherwise I really enjoy both! Most of the time I don't have to do the shown project but rather take the inspirations. I love to see other people work, how they use their material and how their creation process is. Together with the small tips and tricks that can't be shown with only pictures and text.

This lesson was from Finnabair and actually the reason why I joined Wanderlust (a little bit late but since you can watch the videos whenever you want, that is no problem). A mixed media collage with all the pieces you can find ;)

If you would know my crafting room (and the rest of our flat) you would know that this is not a problem at all! A piece of cut wood was the basic and on top are lace, plastic wrap, glass, pepper corn, metall, wood and a lot of polymer clay pieces I made and was not happy with (for whatever reason).

The crocodile was from a Kinder surprise egg and the wings were originally polymer clay pendants I made.

Sorry for the little bit blurry images of the creation process. But I just remembered last minute to take at least some pictures!

On top of black gesso I used: Reeves acrylic paint in copper, bronze and gold (in this order) and afterwards a lot of different Pebeo iridescent acrylic paints. 

So difficult to capture the shimmer and shine but the end result is: Bettle wing colour! ;)

I went a little bit overboard with the colours but sometimes one just has to! Maybe the next ones will be more subtle...

Or maybe not....!

Colour and texture... tiny wee ear studs!

Finally I started making some new ear studs with polymer clay. I had enough for a while after I made several hundred or so ;) I usually love to create them to test new textures, patterns, colours as well as strange other treatment (from eye shadow to resin...).

But even so after too much repetition, even if the repetition just lies in the fact that they were all ear studs and nothing else, bores me and actually makes me resent to create more. At least for a while...

This is true with nearly everything I do. I need to experiment with new or at least with different materials and techniques to reset my mind. To create is really essential for me, I am often joking "it keeps me sane" but it is rather the truth than a joke. 

It leads to a real mess of started but unfinished projects I have. Some are finished weeks, months or even years later, some won't ever be finished. The difficulty lies to realize what may be true and let not too much time go by. 

But as you see, I found my love and joy again to create tiny wee ear studs with polymer clay! All of the shown one are done using super sculpey firm. Except the last ones I also applied gold coloured leaf before I added some acrylic paint. 

I tried this layering of the gold leaf and the acrylic paint with the ear studs for the first time and love the results. Now this is why I make them: To play, to experiment and still, have a beautiful creation in the end! Now I'll have to apply this to larger beads and pendants too (or other stuff....).

PS: Just so you know... I also throw a lot of experiments in the trash! The ones that didn't turn out well. But since I only made tiny wee pieces, it doesn't hurt at all :)