That little gray bear head that I shared with you on Thursday now has some color thanks to one of my favorite spices. Cinnamon, combined with translucent polymer clay, makes a great color enhancer. I love the depth that this cinnamon inclusion technique gives the bear's fur.
cinnamon bear work in progress
Cinnamon Color Technique
I've been experimenting with different techniques to add color to sculptures without painting them, but to be honest, I hadn't planned on using the cinnamon inclusion technique on this piece.
I started with a dark brown base of pastel chalks on the unbaked gray form. I tinted some satin glaze to go over the baked chalked head. While it looked nice, it was darker and shinier than I wanted.
unfinished pastel chalks on polymer
To try a different approach, I mixed a batch of translucent clay with some latte alcohol ink and some cinnamon. I gently added a thin layer of the mix over the existing head, rubbing in additional cinnamon with my finger to increase the color before reshaping the fur. After baking, I followed up with some light sanding and buffing to get the result you see in the first picture. Read about my past adventures in polymer clay inclusions.
Molding a bowl in theory is simple, but in execution it can get tricky. I've molded sheets of clay around the outside of bowls before, but for this month's Polymer Clay Artists Guild Of Etsy challenge, I wanted a different shape.
While perusing my china cabinet, my eyes landed on my seldom used martini glass set. That cone shape was perfect. I started picturing myself wrapping the clay around the outside when I hit a mental "oh shit" moment.
If I covered the outside of the glass, I wouldn't be able to remove the "bowl" because of the footed stem on the glass. I'm ashamed to admit it, but it actually took me a while to figure out that I could mold the bowl on the inside of the glass. Duh!!!
So what do you do when you have some polymer clay and an empty martini glass? You whip up a water-inspired bowl and a couple of frolicking Pisces to hold it up.
If all goes well these two pieces are about to become one (hopefully) interesting miniature bowl. I "saw" the bowl in my head first. The theme for the Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy's May Challenge, "Bowls and Vessels," probably had a little something to do with that.
I molded the bowl shape in a martini glass and created ocean color scheme with alcohol inks. Once I saw the bowl taking shape, the "ocean" called for some sea life so I sculpted some polymer fish to serve as the base. They'll get a hit or two of mica powder before I bake them.
Hint to husbands: Sometimes, we ask you what you think because we want your honest opinion, but most of the time we ask what you think because we are feeling insecure and would like reassurance.
As I painstakingly worked on "Alice" here for the Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy Monthly Challenge, I was getting a little frustrated challenge. A challenge is meant to be challenging, right, but for some reason I decided to tackle my first human figure for this one.
The faux stone and grass base was looking great with each individual grass blade painstaking placed between the chopped translucent clay "stones." And I loved how the white rabbit turned out. Better than I had imagined him. I even liked the funky-faced mushroom that Alice would be seated upon.
Now all I had to do was create Alice. I started with her face and bodice which I baked before attempting to add appendages and her garment. It was at that point that I asked my husband what he thought. Referring to her hands, I fully expected a little gentle guidance there, but instead he looked at the baked face and started to laugh. Apparently, the size of her lips and nose in proportion to the rest of her face was funny. It reminded him of those statues on Easter Island. That was the point that the tears started to well up in my eyes.
He felt bad now. That isn't my usual reaction to his humor. "It's no big deal. Just ball it up and try again," he said. To which I replied, "It's already baked."
"Oh," he said.
Well! Damn! Now all I could see was her ginormous lips and nose. I had to start over. And start over I did, 11 more times. Every day after work I came home and started on her head. And every night I crawled into bed and gave the status report..failure 3, failure 4, failure 5. You get the idea.
Each one got progressively better, but I wanted to keep going. Finally I had one I could live with and I moved on to the fun part of dressing her. My husband tried to get me to go out and buy a doll mold, but I wanted this to be all me.
The moral of this story is don't settle for your first attempt. The second one will probably be better. And don't ask your husband what he thinks if you really don't want to know.
My latest project for the Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy challenge took effort with a capital "E." While you'll have to wait until I unveil the final piece when voting opens May 1, I thought you might like to see the building blocks of my latest entry.
Half-way to done.
The challenge theme for May is "Artist Inspired." Of course Lewis Carroll and Tim Burton rate high on my inspiration list for this piece, but the initial seed of inspiration came from fellow PCAGOE member Susan O'Neill of 11BOLDstreet.etsy.com.
Sue published a great tutorial in The Polymer Arts magazine on "Chopped Translucent." I started experimenting with the technique on jewelry which was loads of fun. But soon the "ah-ha" moment hit and I started picturing this cool stone courtyard pattern "ala" Alice in Wonderland.
I mixed some extruder "grass" tiles with the faux stone then added in a hand-sculpted elements. There is lots more to this sculpture--including Alice! So stop back May 1 for a full view.
See what other guild members are up to at PCAGOE.com.
