It Started with Snails.....

Sometimes, you just don't know where you'll end up.
I'd been playing with some partial blends - blends where the individual colors still stand out - and twisting them around.  This made me think of snail shapes, so I made up some snail pendant and earring sets.  I love the way the twisted patterns turned out, and the colors are warm and vibrant.  Wish the snails in my yard looked like this.  ;)

I picked up some of the clay pieces I'd cut off, and found myself shaping this yellow and red pinched pendant.

I let my hands fiddle with more pieces and suddenly these curved horn pieces emerged.  Making them in graduated sizes resulted in a pin and a pendant.

 

Along with this really nice rainbow pendant with pearls instead of a pot of gold.

I wasn't done yet, though.  I still had a couple of slices from Ikat canes.  Here are the pieces that resulted from using those canes to make more horn shapes.  Kinda neat - and tons of fun!

An Ikat Fall

The colors are shifting in the leaves, and trees are ablaze here.  Even a rainy day is pretty, and just intensifies the tones.  I was inspired to make some Ikat canes and convert them into leaves. Of course, they needed matching bracelets, too.  I'm particularly fond of this lime-orange-purple Ikat color combination. It does look like so many of the leaves falling from the trees in my yard.

Then I drifted to a purple-red-green combination.  So many of the deeper maples have all three shades together on each leaf.

Finally, I couldn't resist a turquoise-purple-deep green combination.  Granted, none of the leaves around here are actually sporting these colors - but wouldn't it be amazing if they were!

Taking a Side-Step

A few days ago, I was giving a polymer workshop on making dichroic glass looks with polymer.  I use a combination of techniques I've run across which combine composite metal leaf, translucent clay, alcohol inks, texture sheets, glitter, and Magic Gloss.  I particularly like the way texture and designs look when impressed into this layered mix.  It is also possible to just let the colors and shine "do the talking."  This first photo shows two pieces with designs impressed from past postings, and a new fall-toned piece that just seems to glow from inside.

One of the workshop participants had purchased some iridescent flakes and wanted to know if they would work with this technique.  Having played with flakes just a little in the past, I knew they would not accomplish the dichroic look we wanted.  His question, however, made me wonder what would happen if I combined flakes with the dichroic bases we had made.

So, when I got home, I did a little experimentation and thought I'd share it here.  This first picture is of one of the clay bases I'd made in blues, purples and reds.

The next photo on the right shows two pieces.  The pink piece with the blue tip was made by sprinkling pink iridescent flakes on the base from the cut out and adding some liquid polymer.  The green piece was made from mint colored flakes on a deep green and olive base.  Some of the base color shows through the flakes a little, but the glitter doesn't show except around the edges, and on close inspection, the metal leaf is not apparent at all.

The final snapshot below is a piece made with blue tinted iridescent flakes over a base from the same sheet (above) that I used for the pink piece. This piece has much more color variation than the other two.  Since the base was similar to that in the pink piece, I'm assuming the blue flakes are the main reason for the color variations.  I like this piece the best.