Polymer Clay "Catch 22" - The Artist's Paradox

There is an irony with us artists selling our work. We spend so much time trying to make a living from our wonderful art only to discover that we’ve become way too emotionally attached to our work and can’t let it go.

Sounds familiar?

Think about it.

When you sell a piece of your art, how to you feel? Do you feel great about the sale and ready to pay some bills? do you feel a little sad to see it go, but hey, that’s a part of being a professional polymer clay artist! or do you regret the second you let it go and find yourself hurrying back to your studio trying to recreate a copy of it for yourself?

These feelings of "sale remorse" - We condition, play, shape and design our clay and tend to get physically attached to our final piece, can't let it go.

Many artists are happy to sell, but at the same time, they would also wish they could save a copy of the work for themselves. If not for emotional reasons, it's to “check back on it as a reference for how I made a certain piece”.

Why am I telling you all this?

When I started my way with polymer clay, every fair I participated in - I had mixed feelings.

Glad because I sold and sad because I sold it!

Crazy - isn't it?

In time I learned that although my designs are very dear to me, it's like finding them a new home and letting my customers have a "small piece of me". That's a nice thought. They chose me.

Tomorrow is one of those days. I am saying goodbye to some of my own personal favorites.

As a part of studio re-organization, making room for new things, I am holding a special pre-holiday studio fair - the first in 2 years.

Some of my most favorite PolyPediaOnline tutorial products will be offered for public sale.

These items are very dear to me and always reminds me of the wonderful material we are working with.

If you're wondering about a certain project, want to see it in close, wear one of my jewels or a collector of polymer clay pieces - you are welcome aboard!

Some of the designs have Only 1 item AVAILABLE!

The special link to the sales page will be sent to all PolyPediaOnline members tomorrow during the day, that's more than 5000 artists getting an email from me with a link to the StudioFair page.

If you are interested and want to see one of my pieces in person, you are welcome to join!

The items will be published here in the blog only after PolyPediaOnline members will have the exclusivity to be the first to know and purchase.

Hope to see you in my "booth"! Come & say hello... :)

Do you have space for more??? Part 3

Final post about ALL the great items we are "moving" to our studio :)

Knitting and Sewing

Knitting needles - Needles are great for rolling, piercing (you can use needles for that purpose) and for making final finishes on beads or covered vessel, just take a knitting needle, make it short or leave it long and use it for your needs. i am using both metal knitting needles and plastic ones in different sizes.

Threads - Stringing! necklaces, bracelets, threads are very useful in your jewelry projects. you can also consider curing a cotton thread if a piece requires it.

Scissors - Cut paper or cut clay (if it's thin enough), i even cut cured liquid clay sheets.

Eyelets - Wonderful for decorations and as an elegant finish to a bead hole similar to Pandora beads.

Fabrics - Jeans, Corduroy - Can be used as part of a design, jewelry, canvas, or as texture. place the fabric on the clay, roll with a roller and the texture is transfered to the clay.

Zippers - These metal parts are also a possibility to use in our work, use them as is or as a part of a design.

Buttons - Use buttons as a part of your design or make your own polymer clay buttons by using real buttons as a template for holes and size.

Ribbons - Great for gift wrapping and also useful for stringing.

watchmaker

The inside parts of watches - steam punk style!

Office stuff

Paper - Used for absorbing the extra plasticizer in clay, and (naturally) for sketching.

Rubber eraser - Can be used as a carving block using carving tools.

White plastic glue - This material is used frequently in my studio, sometimes as a replacement for liquid clay. it is not as strong as liquid clay, if you need a light bond - this is great, also can be used with kids.

Ink - I have never used real ink with clay (ink is too sticky and messing everything up) but it maybe useful when used with care? craft inks are also used with polymer clay.

Markers - Use them on clay, with clay, on paper - some permanent markers work very well with clay.

Color pencils & Crayons - great addition to my studio! these oil based colors work perfectly with clay and can give wonderful results (used them in my last polypediaonline # 17 tut).

Stamps - names? letters? signature? these rubber thingies can be taken to our studio with a smile! use them with ink (dry/wet/paints) or directly on clay!

Glass items

Every oven proof items can be used as a tool or a part of a piece - use glass items for covering with polymer clay, or as vessels and a part of a bigger design - Vases, cups, test tubes (for bases of mezuzah and as a vessel), lamps, plates and the list can go on. from now on, every time you enter a department store, check what can be your future project!

Enjoy!

What else have we "adapted" to our studio? Part 2

After posting about our kitchen stuff gone into the studio, i got a cool comment by one of my blog readers -Kraphti Dez

..."The contents of my kitchen are getting lighter and lighter by month. Something always makes it's way from the kitchen to make a permanent home in the craft room. My creme brulee are perfect for filling with cornstarch and baking beads. And I have fallen in love with baking slightingly concave shapes spoons..."

- it's amazing how we all share the same "problems" :)

I am moving on with the list -

Cleaning stuff, hygiene and makeup

dishes scotch pads - These are ideals for texture, you can use them in all kinds of shapes, sizes, thickness, and they are wonderful. A tip i learned from the great Nan Roche, is to hold your sanding paper on top of a scotch pad, this way the sanding paper is being held by the soft pad and your hand & fingers get a much more comfortable support.

baby wipes - cleaning and more cleaning! clean you clay, your hands, your floor, your pasta machine, these wipes are very useful.

floor polish - although i do not use floor polish as a finish to my work, "Future" Floor Polish is a great example of this. Some people like to dip their beads in finishing liquids, or you can use a brush and apply few layers until you get the effect you want. This material is an alternative to gloss and lacquer.

Tooth brush - another texturing tool (and cleans as well!)

Makeup brushes - I have a store nearby that sells cheap makeup brushes that are soft and nice, suitable for applying paint, lacquar, gloss or resin.

Makeup powders - those are great as metalic/matt effects on stamped clay, i use to be a makeup artist and have tons of those powders, they are perfect for clay and can be a wonderful substitute to the mica powders (see photo).

Lotion - a good material we can use with very dry clay, just add a small amount of lotion to your dry clay and keep conditioning it, it helps softening the material.

Manicure sponges - the manicure sponges have 2 main purposes - 1st is for sanding in medium-coarse grit and 2nd is texturing.

Manicure stickers - nails stickers are a great decoration for cured polymer clay designs - flowers, butterflies, dots, etc. Don't cure them, the plastic in them won't survive the heat of the oven. same with plastic rhinestones.

Stylus - this tool is awesome, making these cute dots on your clay whether it is cured or raw, i love "dotting" my clay, you can also use acrylic paints to add dots after cure.

Vaseline or other Petroleum Jelly - same use as lotion.

Talcum - very useful release agent, brush your stamps, texture sheets for easy releasing. you can also use cornflower for the same purpose. Be careful not to inhale talcum, it's not healthy.

Dental Clinic

Syringe - although this tool is not something i want to meet in real life, it is great for measuring material, especially when working with resin which has to be weighted carefully. i know some people use them as extruders, but i haven't try that :)

Dental tools for sculpturing - these tools are perfect for sculpturing and miniatures. if you are into those subjects - it's a must have.

Molding materials - haven't try those either but i heard from one of my students which is a dentist that the dental mold works great for polymer clay as well.

Carpentry, Construction

Sanding paper - sanding paper in all kinds of grits are welcome in our studio - coarse? use it for texture. fine? use it for sanding. they are fun to use, cheap and make a beautiful finish on your back pieces.

Lathe machines - Never used those but i saw the magic done with them by grant diffendaffer.

Tool boxes - working tools for your DH? no, they can be a great storage box for US! i have tons of boxes from the hardware store used to store my canes, tools, cutters etc!

Ceramic tiles - take all the leftovers from your home renovation (or ask the neighbor for some tiles) and use them as working surface. they are cleaned easily and can be cured in the oven.

Mesh - this is one of my favorites! metal mesh can be cured so it can be used as an addition to our clay designs, as armature and many other uses.

Screws/Nails etc - steam punk style? these oven proof tools and materials are a cool decoration for your work. they are also useful for texturing, piercing, and just for fun.

Pliers - it was supposed to be the other way around but i always find MY pliers at my DH tool box! these tools are a must for wire work, jewelry making and any studio needs a couple of these.

Silicone Gun - mostly used as an assistant to older polymer clay extruders (scroll down on this page) if you don't have the green Makin's extruder, you may want to use the silicone extruder as an aid.

More in the next post!

Whole Kitchen in our studio? - part 1

Our polymer clay studio is a collection of all disciplines all together :) we collect everything that is usable to our studio - don't we? Whenever i go somewhere i think about my art - every visit to the store, every walk to the park, every stone or leaf on the tree, every tour around the house - i always find something and say - "hey! This can be adapted to my studio!"

Recently the girls at the Israeli forum made a long list of all materials and tools we borrowed from other uses, professions and fields and adapted them to our domain.

I am sure the list is not full and there are many more materials we haven't thought about that can be a great addition to our polymer clay art - you are invited to add yours too!

So let's begin!

Let’s start with the kitchen (that's my real kitchen in that photo!) -

what do we take out of the drawers and shelves? :)

1st - the Oven! all of us use the oven to cure polymer clay, some of us cure in the kitchen oven (don't forget to ventilate well after use) or bought a dedicated oven for the use of polymer clay.

Pasta Machine - i never made fresh pasta myself and this tool never met my kitchen, but some of you may use it for real pasta and then it was moved gracefully to our studio.

Food Processor - this is a great tool of you can get a second one for your studio - no more mixing my hands, just add some of this. Some of that, turn “on” the button, and you have a special polymer clay mix ready to use.

Cookie cutters - my favorite tools ever, these fun tools are easy to find, usually not very expensive, you can use either the simple plastic ones of the heavy duty stainless steel ones, but as always, don't mix food and polymer clay tools together, "borrow" them to your studio and buy new ones for baking.

Roller - Plastic or metal rollers are great, wood rollers wouldn't work so well with the clay (stick), this tool is also a must have in your studio.

Baking paper / parchment paper / wax paper - i am not sure this is the right word in English, but i use this paper a lot in my studio. Place clay on it, store sheets between 2 pages, cure flat objects on it, this paper is wonderful and has many uses in polymer clay work.

Aluminum paper - due to this material durability in heat, this makes it ideal to work with polymer clay and deal with the heat of curing. You can use it as a base armature for your creations, support for designs and many more.

Peeler - we had to take this tool to our studio to peel some clay! the sharp blades are ideal to peel slices of clay, similar to the peeler used by dan cormier, make sure your peeler is sharp enough to do the work and that it is stainless steel so it won't rust.

Tooth picks and shish-kebab skewers - these disposable tools are "multiple-able" in my studio! Great for piercing your beads and used for making all kind of special effects on your clay, can be cured easily and ideal for handling. Every skewer is used many times till it's thrown to the trash - only after it is dirty and worn out.

Corn flower - kitchen ingredient that was adapted to our studio - use it as a release agent, smoothing material and why not make a pudding as a snack :) just kidding!

Salt - another kitchen ingredient we can use for special effects on clay. The salt will be washed with water after curing and will dissolve and leave the clay stamped with the special texture similar to lava effect. Other spices can be used as inclusions to your clay!

Saran plastic wrap - a great material which is also a tool. use this one for wrapping clay (not all plastic wraps are compatible with clay, but Saran™ with Cling does not interact), and it is great for making "beveled" creations.

Plastic wrap - another great way to store our clay! Plastic wrap works great to help protect clay from getting dirty and absorbing dust. However, be careful which brand you choose. Certain types contain plasticizers that can chemically bond with the clay and cause your clay to go brittle or rubbery. Check the words, "Does Not Contain Plasticizers." to be certain which is best for storing your clay. Plastic boxes are good for storing as well, you must make sure that the type of plastic used to make the storage box, is actually compatible with the clay, but you can always place your clay inside the box on wax paper.

Grater - texture tool! great for texturing for beads, especially on the rough side of it!

If you look carefully you'll see that every kitchen tool can contribute something to our clay work, it's a great opportunity to see what we don't need inside those drawers and move them to our "packed anyway" studio drawers :))

That's it for Kitchen materials, next post soon with more tools and materials from other fields.

Do you have other tools and materials from the kitchen? Add it to the list in your comment!