New Earrings for Summer

The Westerly Gallery is gearing up for our June show, and I figured it would be fun to experiment with some new earring styles.  So here are a few of the designs I've made.

These three earring sets are topped with small cubes of pearl clay that has been covered with super thin slices of various translucent clay canes.  The color comes from striped translucent canes in which I had used just a tiny bit of color to separate the white stripes and add some interest.  The hammered pins holding the crystals add a different dimension, and the sparkle from the crystals are just the right touch.

The earring sets to the right were made from slices of petal canes that I made at the Carol Simmons workshop weekend. When I have made a cane in a workshop, and still have some left over, I'm always curious what else I could do with it besides what the instructor had us try.  Hence, these tiered and layered petal earrings.  Fun look and good colors for summertime.

These next two pairs are roll-up beads I made from a couple more canes I made at Carol's workshop. I used stone beads to embellish the ends of the rolls for a different touch.

Finally, I used translucent canes and some simple petal canes to make teardrop earrings.  This shape was inspired by these new earwires with attached caps that I got from Donna Kato. It's a fun shape and something new to play with.

Turtles Galore!

A week ago, I taught my first workshop on making 3-D sea turtles.  Following some basic structure directions, each person made their own personal turtle.  Participants used a variety of polymer clay colors for the base, and pastel chalks were used to colorize the turtles.  One turtle even ended up sporting a shell made from a design cane.  Each sea turtle had his or her own personality.  When we were finished, we set the turtles on a picture of acrylics and resin. They looked like they were swimming in the sea.  Here are our turtles.

Before I could teach the class, I had to make some turtles of my own.  Here are the 3 turtles I made.  I love the expressions on their faces and their bright, shiny eyes.

Making Fantasy Flowers with Carol Simmons

The colorful flowers on the left are a few of the posies I made at a recent 3-day workshop with Carol Simmons.  I have always wanted to take one of her classes, and I was delighted to find out that she was offering her Fantasy Flower class nearby in Massachusetts.  Carol has a wealth of ideas derived from many years of experience. We learned about her method for developing Skinner blends, and used those blends to create a wide variety of canes.  She demonstrated several ideas for types of cane designs, then we constructed our own.  In order to assemble the canes into flowers, we needed to cut uniform petals.  I don't know about you, but cutting thin, even slices is a challenge, and trying to get 5 or 6 exactly the same is almost impossible when cutting free-hand. Happily, Carol brought with her the cane slicer she designed, and we were able to cut our own petals.  The machine is amazing - multiple canes can be sliced at the same time, and the slices can be thick or incredibly thin, but always uniform.  We all went home with lots of slices from our canes.  Enclosed in plastic page protectors, the slices will keep shape and flexibility for quite a while.  So, as I fiddle and play with the cane slices, I will eventually have enough to make one of the Fantasy Flowers that Carol creates so beautifully.

Solid Bangles in Patchwork Design

Recently, I taught a workshop in which the participants learned to make bracelets without armatures. This requires a few layers of polymer and multiple bakings, but it also is a way to guarantee the resulting bracelet fits the wearer perfectly, and is not going to accidentally come off.  We used extruders to create the various designs on the bracelets.  The result is a sort of rustic and fun patchwork of shapes and designs.  On these two samples, I used a solid color to line the inside.  However, it would be possible to use any decorative sheet the artist desires, creating an internal "surprise".