Summer Challenges!

As some of you are probably aware, for a few years I have been teaching polymer clay classes. Once a month, I would pick a topic and meet with interested participants to show them a new technique or concept using polymer clay. When the pandemic hit the US, my classes were put on hold, with the hopes that we'd be able to meet together again soon. As time has gone on, it's become obvious that we are still in a holding pattern. So, I decided to offer a monthly "polymer challenge" to those who had been taking my classes and were interested in doing more. In June, our first challenge was to make a bead out of polymer that was new or different for that particular artist. We had a zoom meeting to share our creations and catch up with one another. It was a lot of fun!

For July, the challenge was to create something with a summer theme. The projects people chose to make were as varied as the group! The image here is a magnet I made for my July challenge project. I used embossing powder inside translucent clay for the ocean, and embossing powder on the surface of translucent and ecru for the beach. The waves were the real experiment for me. I wanted to have clay that was super soft and almost like paint. I mixed white, translucent and liquid clay until I had a consistency I wanted. Then I rolled snakes of this mixture out, and pressed them into the base using a couple of different clay tools. For my first attempt, I'm pleased with the way the waves look. I'll be working on other scenes with this mixture in the future to see what happens.