Never enough of skulls and flowers... (Tutorial over at AE!)

Just have a look over at Art Elements. Today is my turn again and I finally (re-did) my tiny tutorial to make skulls and sugar skulls using polymer clay!

Where have all the flower gone...? (AE COM challenge)

Okay, next to all the other reasons why I am happy and honoured to be at the Art Elements team (formerly known as Art Jewerly Elements.... so AE and not AJE anymore! ^^)... is a big one... a quite big one... or one could say one of my most favorite ones....

...[please imagine drum rolls here]...

...I'll now participate regularly on the COM challenge!

The component of the month challenge! I actually love challenges due to several reasons. The most important ones are:
- Gorgeous component
- Already chosen component
- Deadline

The last one combined with the fact that I got an artisan bead send to me, makes sure that I take the challenge seriously and work with a time schedule and not... weeks... months.... years.... later...

While I actually do finish my work-in-progress pieces, there have been several of them that took me months to years. Just to be clear, most of this time was a break in between not working on the piece ;)

This time we got a lampwork bead day of the dead skull (quite a long title) made by Jennifer Cameron from glass addictions (have a look at her side here). The picture below I "stole" from her since I forgot to take a picture of the skull she send me before I started wrapping things around it ;)

I was allowed to chose mine and I wanted the one with the asymmetric dots around just one eye. If you are already a long-time reader of my blog you may also notice something else. Something quite shocking... I chose the one with yellow dots around the eye! Yellow, the colour that is my all-time-still-not-conquered difficult to use colour. I like yellow in certain ways, especially subdued and in combination with other colours but it is so hard to create jewelery with it. Other challenging colours I conquered over time but with yellow I may win single battles but the war still rages on!

I noticed that I lose my story line around the COM quite a bit and am rambling. Please bear with me, this happens if I am tired and over worked. Deadlines for grants are around the corner and don't care about free times and/or weekends, our pop-up store will open in a few days (you will get a full documentation!) and there were/are also some social calls you can't (and don't want to) ignore. All in all: I am tired and angry about the fact that someone shut down the heater and the lights outside (he may be called winter and I don't like him!).

Being in this strange mood the idea and the title for the little skull came up in my mind. As a reminder for the good times, for the summer with all its brightness, colours and warmth, and maybe in the end as a reminiscence of hope. The song "Where have all the flowers gone" is a political one and seeing what goes on in the world and how people who should and could know better react, I definitely was in need of this :)

By the way: I used bronze, copper, silver, aluminium and iron wire. Yes, a record for me! I added mostly czech glass beads as well as a dangle made from polymer clay by me. I love how it all turned out, the movement of the necklace but I also have to admit: Never ever look at the back side!

Thank you again for the great day-of-the-dead-skull-lampwork-bead Jennifer! :)

PS: I am still not sure whether I want to change from a necklace to a decoration piece... and whether I want to keep this "random" wire colour look. I tried it to get the impression of a grown piece that someone started to attach random pieces over time... let's see!

And have a look at Art Elements as well as at the blogs of all the other participants!

Guest Designers
Staci Louise Smith
Karin Grosset Grange
Solange Collin

Art Elements Team
Caroline Dewison
Susan Kennedy
Laney Mead
Claire Fabian (you are here right now)
Diana Ptaszynski
Jenny Davies-Reazor
Cathy Spivey Mendola
Lindsay Starr
Niky Sayers
Lesley Watt
Cooky Schock
Jen Cameron

There are never enough tentacles!

I know... still not too much to show. But I will take some pictures to show you the jewelry I made for our wedding... as well as some impressions of course!

Just as a small teaser: Here are our wedding octopi! Actually these were plastic figures that I covered with black gesso and then painted and dry brushed with acrylic paint. They were in front of us at the table :)

And just for a small summary: It was just a wonderful day! Like it should be, better than ever imagined.

Letters and numbers...

Just playing with materials a little bit. Honestly, I find it still strange that there is (and was) a label for something I also already did as a child: Just playing and mixing all available materials. But it is: Mixed media. 

Down to the bare threads...

My next blog entry over at AJE: Down to the bare threads...*

*Also known as "Keep everything, you can use it" ;)

"Bloom" - ATCs

The theme over at paper artsy was "Making marks". A perfect challenge for me since I just love to doodle, add pattern, little non-descriptive writings, rising texture... an so on. On the other hand, everything you make and add by hand is actually a mark. Every single one specific just for your own style, the way your hand moves... So an easy and difficult challenge at the same time ;)

I created 2 artist trading cards (ATC) although I have to admit that maybe the size is the only thing fitting with an ATC since I am tempted to keep them to myself ;) I called them "Bloom" in every sense and meaning of the word, literal as well as metaphorical. 

I used the same stencil for the flower part with a little bit of molding paste. The background was made with gelatine monoprints (I make my own plates). 

By the way, there are a lot of iridescent and metallic paints used so in some images some areas may look overly bright, just the light reflecting on the painted surface.

The I added some writing, marks, more colour, inks drippings, some new spray I got (the red enamel-like raised splatters) and more...

Thankfully ATCs have such a small size. Since even with this small size these two ATCs took a long time until I felt they were finished. Even now I am not absolutely certain but a deadline is also a good reason to find the stopping point.  

Love all the colours, marks and texture! The colourful pieces at the right upper corner of each card are by the way some "acrylic skin". Not done on purpose but I have a plastic folder under my painting area that I also use as a kind of palette and the acrylic paint went on it layer for layer... until I was able to peel it down! 

Now I will even keep my leftover dried acrylic paint on my working space ;)

Every Story Needs an Introduction... (at Art Jewelry Elements)

Growing, we are always growing if we allow ourselves to do so. If you want to get to know me even a little bit more than you got from my blog here, have a look at my introduction post over at Art Jewelry Elements as one of the new contributors. As times goes by I am not only learning to handle the more painful memories but also to talk about them and sometimes even smile (since the most painful memories are more than not also linked to our loved ones). 

"Every Story Needs an Introduction..."

"Dreaming of colour" - Polymer clay leaf pendants

Sometimes a theme seems to be simple, a theme like wood. There is so much one could create, forest silhouettes, actual trees, leaves and flowers, small and big animals, insects, overgrown stones and moos, hidden meadows...

But nothing hit me. It seems that the more limited a challenge is (okay this was just a theme but I do love to use it like a personal challenge ;) ) the better my brain actually is able to think beyond my usual ideas. So.... not with wood... too many great and nice options... *sighs*

It took several days until I was on my balcony, getting some fresh herbs... that I thought of texture and pattern. I made some years ago lovely black and white leaves from polymer clay using (not innovative but always lovely!) some real leaf imprints. An idea I wanted to go back to but maybe with different shapes.

So there we go... not all finished because the gloss caught a brush hair (have to remove the surface and gloss and then add gloss again), not sure whether I want to add more colour to some and of course still have to add the ear pins for the little round ones.

But here are some closer images of the ones who are finished. I like this drop with two different leaf vein structures: Fine lines at the front (or back if preferred)...

...and rather bold lines with a more rustic appeal on the back (or rather front?). Just seeing the pendant now: It could be a tree silhouette, nai? And little holes to add dangle just because I love dangles!

Like the earring pair at the top of the blog entry just really tiny! Love the hint of blue at the top...

The long and round shape is covered all over with the leaf vein structures. I took care to have the middle line go directly down at the front and the rest of the structures are going all around. It gives a stylized and still very natural and organic look.

I also made a simple leaf pendant with a more gentle colour scheme, not so contrasting like black and white. The hints of blue and green are lovely but I have to say, I personally prefer the stark contrast.

  Or maybe the combination with a hint of colour somewhere :)

You can find some of them at my etsy shop here but not all right now. Some need more gloss and the ear studs still need to be finished. But if you would like to get something I didn't list on etsy, just write me :)

Streetart - "What do you wish?" (On the streets, Leipzig)

This just made me smile! :)

PS: For all the ones trying to learn or to reactivate their german: With a tiny wee spelling error ;)

"Time can tell" - Artist Trading Card

A collage made with paper, cardboard, book pages, fabric...
Painted with acrylic paint, gesso, stamping ink, water colour, black marker...

Maybe I will add some focus point... some day... but also love the tree as it is right now :)