Powerful Little Sculpture

This was a primitive polymer sculpture I did a long time ago. She's bruised, scraped, knicked and torn. She's completely twisted around, confused, sad and scared.

She knows she must let go of all the "faces" she wore to protect herself. As much as she tries to hold on to them, she knows she must let them go. So exhausting keeping up the false fronts.

She can't do it anymore. The worst thing is not knowing how she will manage without them. They are like old friends. They kept her from feeling her feelings.

But, it's time; she has sat on her hands for too long, letting this go on. She can't keep up any longer. She surrenders her control, lets go and mourns their loss. Anything has to be better than living a lie.

Certainly not a pretty little piece. Guess it's not meant to be. It's only 3-1/2" tall, sculpted from polymer, baked and then painted it with china paint, which hardens to a glaze when baked. Then I sanded most of it off to give it the battered effect.

My Polymer Tribe

I received my order from Nicole Campanella's Beadwright. I am going to have some fun mounting my polymer Tribe faces on her wonderful bead backing material.

The colors are beautiful. I received four 9x12, four 9x6, fourteen 4x4 and one 3x6 and a beautifully polished cabochon.

Oh, are they pretty.

They can be used for flat beadwork, applique' or for gluing cabochons, glass beads, stones, shells or other natural materials to it.

So it is going to be difficult for me to choose a color for this month's Bead Journal Project. I may have to work on more than one.

Back to the Lab Egor

Scary kitty, I know. I tried to make a mold from an embroidered applique'.

The applique' is gorgeous.

Nice and deep. So I thought I might be able to take a mold of it.

But, no, it didn't turn out. I want to try one more experiment tomorrow and then I will move on.

Cane Covered Bird

This is a bird I have been working on....covering the wooden armature with my canes.

It is really turning out nicely (if I do say so myself).

Tile, Disks and Shields

Above is a tile for the box of "for future use" mosaic tiles.

Disks for a necklace.

Used up the last of the mokume gane from the Barbara McGuire class.

Some shields will be for a single pendant and others will be for a multi-pendant necklace.

And a couple are for earrings. Mr. Fish will be a pin. Guess I am still on clean up duty.

Pendants

I couldn't get the glare out of the photo, but you get the general idea. I used a skinner blend for the background, then a cane for the flowers and then hand sculpted the stem and leaves. Used my metal smithing leaf stamp to detail the edge and a pin head to detail the flowers.

I still may add some yellow buds to balance the above pendant out. Don't know.

Finished up with stamping out some tear shaped scrap clay for a necklace.

Mold and Making Raised Textures

Isn't this gorgeous? I made a nice thick silicone mold from a wooden antique Chinese moon cake mold (I collect them-oh what a surprise, right?). I will post my small collection one or these days. Anyway, I can't wait to get up tomorrow morning and start creating with it.

I also played around with creating some raised texture stamps for bead making. Although they would also give a little drama to some tiles.

Looking forward to experimenting tomorrow. 

Circle Pendant

I am making a couple more pendants and then I need to move on from the scrap clay. I miss my brights.

Beads in the Making Necklace

Finished the beads and finally got them strung.

I'm satisfied with it and I like using the bead rollers so may give it another try.

Doing some pendants tomorrow.

Beads in the Making II

I like them; kind of ceramic looking. I think they will make a pretty necklace.

Popped them in my new digital convection oven and went on to make more.

Took them out of the oven and started slicing them. Something was wrong. The oven had blown a fuse. I had no way of knowing how long they had baked. Not long enough, so I am back to square one and am going to try to give them another baking and slice when warm. Funny, I already know I am wasting my time on this, yet, I cannot give up. Why is it so hard to cut our losses?