Hot weather claying

Luckily for me I am a night owl.  My j.o.b. has been for many years in a hospital's clinical laboratory. Hospitals are open 24/7 so workers all needed to cover every hour.  Not being a person who likes to get up in the morning, I have worked mostly evenings for the last 20 years.  That means that by the time I get home at midnight, the house has cooled down and I can work with the clay with out it turning into a gooey mess.  I know that compared to the rest of the country right now, the current temp of 83 degrees seems cool.  But we in the Pacific Northwest are not used to it so it seems sweltering to me.

I have been working a bit with some textures, pan pastel chalks and inks.  Just a bit every night. If I wait too long to go to bed, it gets too hot to sleep after the sun comes up.

Most of us Polymer artists have a needle tool.  I discovered that the textured portion of the handle can be used to make little diamond like texture on clay.  I used this tool to texture white clay tubes, the colored with blue and green PP chalk.  After baking, I used black liquid Kato clay to fill in the recesses of the texture.  When I wiped off the excess liquid clay, I found that it also removed the a lot of the color of the chalk.
    To give a bit more zing to the beads, I mixed some interference violet into clear liquid clay that I had tinted with a few drops of Sunshine Yellow ink.
 

Blue chalk highlighted with LKC tinted with yellow ink

Green chalk highlighted with LKC tinted with yellow ink

 Then I tried my hand at a different texture sheet.  I had never used this one before.  It didn't have any design, just a rough texture. Exactly what I was looking for.  Once again, the black LKC took away the color of the chalk.  These started out as a bright yellow. Again I used a final coating of yellow tinted LKC to put some of the color back.  I really like the way these turned out.  Kinda Jade like.



Since the LKC was remove the chalk color, next I tried inks on the base bead.  I colored these with a green ink and then baked.  The color is kind of flat as I did not add any mica powder to the final coat, just to see what would happen.

I made up more white based and colored them with chalks.  Am itching to get back into the studio, but it is soooo hot it will have to wait.  I don't even get tonight .... One of the graveyard techs is on vacation, so I have to work a split evening/graveyard shift to cover. Don't get off till 4 am.

I am so looking forward to retirement and not having to clay around my work schedule ... of course, then I will be too poor to afford the clay LOL.  I am thinking about trying my hand at selling online.  Unfortunately for me, there is already a Polymer Penguin on Esty.

Clay Camp Earrings

I mentioned in my last post that Clay Camp Sunday was a day spent making more earring components.  I got a chance last night to start putting them together to make more Marie Segal inspired earrings.  I know that I broke the "rules" of photography by back lighting the photos, but I wanted the translucent windows in the colorful cane to show.

Used mica powders for highlights

Smaller earrings using only the translucent window cane.

Marie spent time with me discussing the importance of analyzing facial shape when considering earring design. Not all people look good wearing a specific shape, for example round earrings.  She let me try on various earrings she had made till I found the shape that looked best.  Even though I am very attracted to the round earring shape, in this particular design I look better in a rectangular shape.

They don't always need to be round

Oval Shaped

 A while back, Rebecca (aka Artybecca) showed on her blog experiments using liquid masking fluid as a resist. After picking up some masking fluid at Ben Franklin on the way to Clay Camp, I attempted to try my hand at it.  I did not have the fine tip applicator she was fortunate enough to find, so had to make do with a paint brush,  I like the idea and hope to have time in the near future to work with it more.

Texture beads revisited

So far, the weather here below the Emerald City has been pretty mild for winter time.  We had one snow episode that lasted not even a day before it melted away.  When I see what the rest of the country has had to endure weather wise, I realize how lucky I am to live where I do.  Sure, I do have to put up with SAD due to the almost constant greyness, but Vitamin D and light therapy has helped make it more bearable in the recent years.

   The one complaint I had about the snow day was that I got stuck at the hospital where I work overnight.  That would not have been so bad, but it was the day for sign up for Lori Anderson's Bead Shop Blog Hop.  We are not allowed to access things like blogs, FB etc, from work so I missed it.  No Bead Soup for me this year .... Whaaaa ....

I finally set foot in the studio again after several months of the blahs.  I revisited a tried and true method for me .... texture beads (a big thank you to Lydia Moseley from Diva Designs for the tut).  I experimented with different way to color and finish the beads and now it is time to share them with you. 

  This first picture is the overview of some of  the beads ... several coloring methods included.

 These beads where colored with Pan Pastel Chalks and then I used shoe polish to antique them.  I really like the gritty look they have.  What was great when I made these, was that I was getting over my cold, and still had a stuffy nose. I couldn't smell the polish!  I don't use polish as much as I would like, because of the smell.

 These were colored with Pan Pastels also, but I used Black Kato LC to finish. I love this stamp for creating texture (Cool Tools) 

These beads were also colored with Pan Pastel chalk.  I used black to highlight, and thought it would be too much to also use black LC, so I finished with clear Kato LC.

These beads were colored with acrylic paint and black LC used to antique.  The texture was really not deep enough to get good contrast, but this look can be nice too.

These two sets were colored with chalks.  I only colored the highlighted areas, which created more of a contrast with the black LC.

And lastly, beads that I highlighted with mica powders for the color.  I used both black and clear Kato Liquid Clay for the finishing.  The mica powders were applied before baking, and for the most part stayed on the beads.  If you look closely at the darker green beads, you can see that the powder did not stay put ... when applying the LC, it drifted down into the "valleys" and gave a bit of color there too. 

And, of course, it wouldn't be my blog unless I shared a pix of the cutest kitten in the world (just MHO, of course).  The Quinnitator is getting bigger by the day, and is swiftly taking over dominating the other Underfeet. 

I'm FINALLY tuckered out....think I'll rest a minute or two before attacking your toes again!