Sutton Slice

I was looking over some of the pieces I brought home from the PC cruise, wondering why I have not blogged about them before now.  I got very lucky during the door prize drawings to win not one, but two, of Lisa Pavelka's demo pieces.

 The first is a hollow bead she made as a demo of a foil and stamp technique.  The picture does not do it justice. It is soooo Shiny

 This focal is from her demo of the Sutton Slice.  She used a Skinner blend as the background and inserted a lovely crystal in the center.

 I tried my hand at a hollow focal, and made this shiny bead.  It has been a while since the cruise, so I don't remember if I used foil or mica powder to achieve the coloring.  From some of the smudgy coloring in the middle of the piece, it think it was mica powders.

I thought I would try my hand at the Sutton Slice Technique and just used a bit of left over clay I had sitting around on the table.  I wish I'd had more scrape, as I really like the look of these beads. Note the "bleeding" of the ecru into the purplish color on the second from the top bead. I LOVE that effect, have absolutely no idea why it happened and will probably never get it to happen again.

These beads were finished with wax rather than my usual Kato LC finish (unfortunately for me, I could smell the wax now that my cold is over)

Reminds me of Batik fabric

After this initial success, I tried another Sutton slice with different colors and texture sheet.  Again I used left over clay so these are all of this set. These I finished using Kato LC.

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I liked the purple beads so well, that I thought I would try the technique again with green. Since the original beads made me think of batik, I decided to put faux stitches around the tops of the bead. Again, it used wax to finish, since I like the softer shine it gives. Just wish it didn't smell so bad.

Hey, not bad.  Two blog entries in a week's time.  Maybe I am over my slump.

This Friday I am going to visit my favorite show of the year - RAGS.  I have found some of my favorite OOAK pieces there.  Last year I meet another PC artist and had a great time talking polymer. I hope she is back this year.  And RAGS supports a great cause ... the YWCA's shelter for abused women and their children.

Beads and more beads

After almost a month away due to illness and major family issues, I finally made it back into the studio.
Before getting sick, I had started a couple of veneers using the Controlled Marbling tutorial by Lynda Mosely.  Sunday, I had the chance to make them into beads, rather than the gorgeous pendants she is known for.
   This time I used a combination of light blue, yellow and ecru, interspersed with white.  I really like the light green color that appeared where the yellow and blue mixed.  I did not add any details to the veneer.

 Had a small strip at the end of this veneer where the colors blended together too much for actual stripes to appear. I added a few inlays from an old swirl cane for a bit of color.

Only had a tiny bit of this color combo.  I really like it.  Two matching beads for an earring set  And one lone bead for who knows what.  I have a box of "who knows what" beads that is set aside for "something" in the future.  Maybe I will use them in Lori Anderson's Bead Hoarders Challenge in July.  We'll see.

 I have found that in this technique, there are sometimes places at the ends of the veneer sheets, where the colors are no longer distinct.  I discovered that sometimes, these over blended areas have the prettiest colors. Add slices of an old bulleyes cane from my tiny cane stash (I really gotta try caning again - maybe I will be more successful now that I understand clay better than I did in 2006).
 

After these beads were made and baking in the oven, I still had urges and fiddly fingers.  An open package of translucent clay was sitting on my table, so I got out the inks and went to town.  Laid down some gold foil on a small sheet of translucent clay, rolled it through successively smaller settings on the PM, turning it 90 degrees each time to crackle the foil.  When it was thin enough, I got out my inks and colored it (used Butterscotch and Plum this time).  After the inks dried (boy, I so had to be patient here - used the drying time to finish my previously made beads with LPC, zap with heat gun and rebaked to a shiny luster), I I used the sheet to veneer white bead cores. The gold foil adds a real sparkle to the beads, and I am very happy with the depth of color.  The pictures just can't show that.

I call these my Fire Lizard eggs (homage to Pern)

This weekend promises to be a nice one here in the Pacific Northwest. Good weekend for visiting the Whole Bead Show in Lynnwood.  I will be able to visit the booths of several artists that I have "meet" on line and see their work in person.  I love how this medium has connected so many people with common interests.  Some live in my area and I may be lucky enough to connect in person with them over the course of time. Some live in other countries, and I will probably never meet face to face, but can get to know a bit through the Internet.  I guess I am feeling my age, as I still marvel at this. The beads I just made would not be possible with the Internet.  Lynda lives in South Carolina ... me, outside Seattle.  We would never have "meet" without the computer.  Maybe younger people, who grew up always having computers, can't relate to how marvelous this really is. ( OMG! ... I have become my parents .... when I was your age  .... walked to school, in the snow, uphill - both ways!!!  he,he)

Faux Raku for You

There is still one more day to enter into my giveaway as detailed in my last blog entry.  So far, there have been only a few people who commented and hence are eligible.  I know that they are hoping that no one else   comments ... greater chance for them.  I will check immediately when I get home from work Halloween evening and let luck choose the winner.

I had a very productive Saturday.  I got a lot of beads made.  Unfortunately, the productivity was paid for the next day with a flare of the carpel in the right wrist and a new pain in my left shoulder.  Every time I complain to the SO about getting older, his response is "Consider the alternative".  Trite but true.

My newest kick is experimenting with a faux raku technique that Lisa Pavelka showed us on the Clayditarod.
She used foils and inks to create the look.

This is the piece I made in Lisa's class.  There was not much faux raku, so I put little tidbits here and there in the pendant.

Believe it or not, the same color ink was used for both of these.

 The piece on the left is the technique on a flat surface. I love the look and wondered what it would look like if I tried it on a rounder form.  The crackle is good, but the color of the ink seeped under the foil resist and colored the clay. I was hoping that when I sanded (yes, I SANDED), that the color would revert to white again...but no such luck.
   Then I wondered what other, non traditional raku colors would look like.

Using my favorite ink color, Stream

Colored with "Plum"

I love the effect and want to get the time to work with more colors and shapes.  I could do without the sanding though.  I watched a whole episode of "Upstairs, Downstairs" on Netflix while sanding 6 beads. I gotta get faster .... I did get them made up into simple earrings pretty quickly though, so at least in that aspect I am improving.

 I do wish I could figure out how to get

 my pictures to line up next to each other on the page. It would look
so much nicer.  Anything good on the llayout that does happen, happens by accident and I can not figure out how to do it again.