Weeds and Grasses

     Weeds and Grasses, something we drive or walk  by everyday and never stop to notice the color, texture, or the intricacy of these humble plants. But these should be revered for what they are, food for hundreds of animals around the world, including us. Have a sandwich today? Most likely if you are GF you had your bread made from a grass, wheat mainly.

      The seeds of many grasses make up a majority of the diet of birds everywhere including the songbirds we like to attract to our backyards.  But these are usually left growing in fields or mown down on occasion along roadways where they grow wild.



      The center stalks on the photo right (which shows my lay out for my texture sheet talked about in the PolymerArts Magazine Plein Air Article) are what I locally know them to be called: Indian grass.
    I remember as a child gathering the slender stalks in the field out back of my grandparents house and twisting them into garlands to wear on my hair or like a necklace. They are very graceful when growing, bending over with the weight of their tiny seeds bowing to the earth in the late summer sunshine.

     I also came across the outer grasses growing in close proximity to the Indian grass and decided to add them to this texture plate for variety.

     As I said in my last post I wanted to show the readers some ways these texture plates I made for the article can be utilized to make interesting pieces.  Here is the texture sheet right after impressing.

  
While a bit dark I did this in editing to show the deep impression these grasses made. Also notice the few grains that fell off during the process. They can usually be removed easily with your water spray bottle, letting the water droplets help wash them away. For more stubborn bits, using tweezers carefully to remove them will do the trick. I have just baked the clay first and then removed the debris but this doesn't always happen with all vegetation, some will stick and nothing will remove it so get off all you can before baking.  

Now, so what did I do with this texture plate of ordinary weeds and grasses?

     I made one experimental rectangle, keeping with my organic philosophy of not being perfect, baked it and then tried various coloring on it. I decided that it needed friends from the texture plate to join it and a bracelet seemed the obvious choice. I made them different lengths but keeping the width similar, pushed holes for stringing with care to denting the clay and textured the backs of all of them with my secret recycled texture plate.

     Each one was given the same coloring treatment and each on came out different, so not only are the textures different but similar on each tile, but the coloring is as well, very much like in nature!



That center one is my favorite and stands out among the others for it is the tallest and gives a full view of a stalk of the Indian grass.

What do you think, do you like the more natural organic shapes?







Acrylic sheets for making texture plates, swirl beads and assisting in all kinds of Polymer clay sculpting are available in my etsy shop blustonedooremporium.etsy.com .



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Fall Edition of Polymer Arts Magazine - Plein Air Polymer

       The Fall edition of Polymer Arts Magazine  published today includes my first contribution to this wonderful magazine dedicated to aspiring and professional PC artists; titled Plein Air Polymer.

       In it you will find the outing at my favorite lake and some texture plates I made while visiting.  I did not however make anything from them for the article but thought I should do something with them so you can see how the impressions from weeds and trees can make striking and interesting textures that can be turned into very intriguing pieces of art, wearable and decorative.

      First one I did was of the bark of a tree I didn't recognize and since the weather wasn't so great that day I had to hurry to make my plates and take photos before the rain came. But it had very striking bark covered with lots of lichens.

      This is what the bark looked like; I took the impression from a different area, one not as densely covered with the lichens.

       There are many, many trees in this world and each one has it's own individual 'skin'. I might just set out in the fall to do a series of texture plates from a variety of trees to play with over the winter months and see what great designs can be made with those. 

    Meanwhile this is what I came up with using the texture plate of this tree. 

      These earrings were done at different intervals using white clay as a base. Successive applications of chalks, paints, inks and waxes helped to bring out the depth of the texture and give them the look of a surreal painting.

   I am gradually changing my philosophy on what constitutes art, my art in particular. I am a perfectionist by personality type and strive to do the best I can at anything I tackle but I've come to realize at this stage in the game that I don't want my art to be work, I want it to be an expression, and extension of who the 'free me' truly is.

     Striving for perfection all the time does not bring about possessive energy and this stress of trying to get something perfect actually strangles the need and ability to create, I know because I've been there, done that, don't want a return visit.

Now what has this got to do with these earrings you ask? Well I am just letting go and not striving for perfection because I don't want my art to look manufactured and I was there to be more human than machine look to it. We are all created perfectly imperfect and we aren't even symmetrical!  in fact people don't look good when they are symetrical (I saw on the net once a photoshop of a mirror image of a person flipped to make the other side of their face, compared to the true image they just looked unreal) and I want to be more 'real', so...

     When trying to decide what to do with this impression I had gotten from the bark plate I decided to free hand cut out the pieces, not using a template, not using a  cutter, just a  thin clay blade. I did make the shapes similar for cohesion, but not the same. One is bigger than the other, one is wider, but then again the impression is different and the colors are different which makes each one unique and interesting, just like people, even twins aren't exactly alike, why should your earrings be?

     So, after cutting these out I baked them, and then had to decide what to do with them next. In keeping with the new philosophy  I laid them onto a sheet of silver clay which I had textured slightly and cut around it. then I molded it to the piece, blending it in as I went. I had the foresight to try something different and made a long narrow tab at the top which I folded over to create a bail.

     Next came the coloring and bringing out the texture without making it look like bark.   I think I succeeded and won't go into details because when I get into that zone I just go with the colors and let my hands play and my mind wander!

     When it came time to make these into earrings I was stymied. I didn't just want to use an ordinary jump ring with all the extraordinary things I'd done so far so I went hunting.

     I'll let you in on a little secret I've come upon, I'm sure others have too but it's new to me. I used to have all my findings in little plastic egg cartons, stacked on top of each other and in a plastic drawer. Every time I wanted to make something I really had to know beforehand what, and when looking for it desperately trying to keep from catching the trays on anything and sending hundreds of findings all over the place!

     Well, I got fed up and I'm glad I did. Sure I could have bought some storage pieces to sort and store them but I still felt it would be hard to see what all I have.

     My solution? A simple little ziplock bag. Most everyone has these either bought or received with a bead order or findings, or you could go to your local dollar store and get 100's for cheap there.

     I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner, as I recall I did something similar in my sewing room years ago. When storing all my notions, templates, etc I would forget what I had, buy it again or never get to try it.  To solve that problem I used the sandwich sized zip close bags, punched a hole in the top under the zipper part and used a pushpin to hang on my wall. Now all my notions were in front of me, catching my eye, whispering me to try them out and I did!

     Well this is similar but because these are mostly tiny items, using the 1"x2" bags suffice. I took some time to carefully gather everything out of dozens of  egg cups and into the bags. I sorted by type, color and metal. I threw these bags into plastic shoe storage boxes, the kind you get for a dollar and have them without their lids, stacked within easy reach on my jewelry assembly table. Now when turning my clay pieces into jewelry I can very quickly got through the box of bags, grab a few out to 'audition' and put them back just as easily, just remember to zip the bag shut before you do! 

So with this new system it allowed me to be adventurous and it also sparked creativity to solve this dilemma.  I'll let you try and figure out what I used, but I must say I really liked this look and plan on using it again.

This post got a lot longer than I planned so I will parse out the other pieces in posts to come, meanwhile if you haven't subscribed to Polymer Arts Magazine you can still do so and get this issue in paper form or the digital version.

Plant Life in Art

Got an unexpected treat yesterday in my email. I just recently reopened my shop on etsy formally known as Organic Odysseys and now BlueStoneDoorStudios on August 1st without any fanfare.

I found this note from Nicky Spaulding Art (who seems to share my love for nature in his paintings) about putting me in his latest Treasury at etsy. It seems my Tendrils of the Rain Forest Pendant fit right in. This is from some experiments I've been doing with my extruder, great happenstance and organic wonderful forms.

Thought I'd share it here in all its organic goodness, please go check it out at etsy as well, just click on the photo.

So, what were you doing?

Thought I'd share some of the projects I worked on while making my way back into the Polymer world. During my time away I would still have ideas in my head that made it to the sketchbook but not to the worktable.

I don't recall what finally brought me there; although it may have been a class I attended online with Maggie Maggio;but I've got a few pictures of some of the things I'd done to help me get back on the horse.


I won't say any of these are notable but they helped in getting me in the clay and getting me excited to work with it again.

So, less words. more pictures.

Strange alien life form

Maggie Maggio's split link class

                                                                              

Revamping some burnt beads

 

Extruder experiments using gold and copper

                                              



Extruder pieces using Bettina Welkers retro pixilated formulation with my own twist

 

Wire Work - working with my favorite metal, copper

 

                                                                        Helen Briel folded bead 

Pinched petals with scrap clay

                                                                               Faux Metal works

 

Hope you enjoyed a few of my experimentations, more to come soon!

And we're Back! Art Bead Scene entry

Finally after three years, almost to the date, I've returned to the blogosphere!  I had taken a hiatus that lasted longer than expected, from illness and then losing my muse. I have been working on a come back for several months now and have dipped my toes here and there.

Today I have done a little dipping in the Art Bead Scene Challenge. Over the last several months I went to this wonderful blog and perused the months challenge art piece. What I designed in my head never made it further and the month had gone by and I promised myself I would try the following month, but it never happened...................until now.

I have been busy the past month working on something of interest to Polymer Clay artists which I'll save for later, but wanted to participate in this challenge. I was held back by the horrendous heat wave we had as my studio is not air conditioned and running the oven was just out of the question.

Thankfully the past few days we have gotten some cool air from the north and the temperatures have dropped almost 40 degrees! This was a blessing on my family and my electric bill. After enjoying a couple of days like this I remembered the challenge and realized the month was almost over.

 

I had studied the painting a bit of Olga, the Russian wife of Pablo Picasso, and each time I looked at her I thought of Sigourney Weaver.  Instead of designing a piece like I usually do, sketching a design first and matching up beads and findings, this time I did it backwards. I looked at the painting and the things that stood out to me the most were:

• The fabric of her dress and the detail he paints of it. The folds of chiffon? that catch the light and reflect with a phosphorus metallic glow.
• The Large leaves and the huge yellow flower that are embroidered on the tapestry that covers the chair she sits upon.  
• The tendrils that curl around the foliage and create music for this lovely dancer
• The large cluster of grapes

The fan also caught my eye but did not prevail to impress upon my muse to be included. So I had cropped out the above parts and let the painting speak to me.

For the fabric that drapes so lushly I tried to make this the focal bead as this makes up a large part of the painting.  I mixed together various colors of clay to make the base which is a sheer walnut brown. I loved the highlights of blues and used many ways to get this just touched on the folds. Inks, paints, powders, waxes, you name it I used it on here until I was happy with the look.

As a nod to the white bunch of grapes I included between the folds of fabric, three 3-D illusion beads.

 Nine hand sculpted polymer clay leaves gather in a cluster to indicate the lushness of foliage on the Chair. Each has been treated to inks, waxes and more to create a luster and variegation of greens and blues.  These I made without any idea how I was going to incorporate them.

I knew I had some yellow glass flowers that echoed the shape from the painting,so I threw them on the table while I was making the other pieces.

The Grape vine tendrils caught my eye from the beginning as I love curlyQ things.   I wanted this to be part of the design and I have been experimenting lately with faux heavy metal pieces.  I followed the design of the curves in the painting and formed my pieces. These undergo numerous rubbings and polishing to improve the faux look to become more authentic.

 

Once these pieces were cured I did some final finishing , coloring, polishing, and some more until I was satisfied. I think I might have stayed on this task because I really had no idea what I was going to do with these pieces.

But time was getting away from me. That was Friday. Saturday night I finished with the components and left the design until today.

So, what to do with these pieces? Well I tried this and that and somehow came up with this design. I had added chains, taken away things but managed to use every piece I'd made even though I wasn't sure how they would be used or if they would even be used.

Playing around with the yellow glass flowers I happened upon making a lariat necklace, using the flowers and some contrasting beads to make the loop. This solved my problem of a clasp and I really like how that turned out.

The silver pieces were a bit harder to figure. I wanted to use the black ribbon and cord necklace from the beginning but not sure how, but it helped to reflect the ribbon on the dress.

 After playing a bit more I figured out how to arrange them along one side (originally I figured one on each side of the necklace). The cluster of leaves topped off the connection of the ribbon to the bead loop and balanced the piece just right.

It was now getting late in the day and I wanted to take my photos outside, we had had a downpour a few hours before but it was now overcast and I hurried out to snap some pictures. It was a bit hard with all the metallic, but I think they came out well and did justice to the piece.  

I of course had to edit and pick out of all the pics I took but I got it uploaded to flickr which I haven't used in quite awhile so it took me longer than usual with the new system.

I hope to start writing regularly and have photographed some tutorials to share and will as time allows.

Be sure to check out the other entries at Art Bead Scene Flickr Photostream.

Meet you here again soon! 

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