Hello, friends! This is just a quick update on the work that I've been doing, a note about my current tech options, and a teaser for an upcoming tutorial that I hope to get out shortly. First of all, I'm writing this on a fairly new phone. It's not fancy, but it works! I couldn't access this site at all from my old phone and therefore never thought to blog on mobile. That meant that my blog entries had to be done on my slow, old computer. It also meant that I really couldn't post video. I have a fine camera and tripod, but my computer just cannot handle even the simplest of video editing tasks. Now I will be experimenting with doing video directly from my phone. I'm hoping that this will improve the tutorials and demonstrations for you.
Second, I would like to share with you a couple of photos of recent work. In an attempt to make wearable art that could be reproduced in a way that will keep the pieces affordable, I have been experimenting with resin, molds, and stamps. The stamps (which I sculpt out of scrap clay, bake, and then coat in chalk pastel as mold release) have been interesting in the negative-space sort of way, but I've been much more pleased with a recent attempt to make a mold-of-a-mold, which reproduces the original. Now, this method doesn't retain the same degree of detail that the silicone molds do, but it's quick, inexpensive, and charming. With a few shades of mica powders, I can achieve a lovely faux copper in about 15 minutes. It is this that will be the subject of my next tutorial, and I'm looking forward to sharing it with you.
My initial sculpt for my dryad pendants
Green polymer clay with three shades of mica powders
My initial pendants are trimmed with a circular cutter, but I found that I preferred the untrimmed ones. At the Art Market three days later, I sold all of the untrimmed ones and none of the trimmed ones. Lesson learned!
top: painted resin casing, center: polymer clay replica from a secondary stamp, lower: polymer clay stamp negative