May 22nd, 2009
I wanted to try a mold of this relief. It was a little large for a push mold so I used two part liquid silicone. I put the relief in the bottom of a disposable aluminum pan and sealed it to the bottom using some plasticine type clay I had to minimize the mold material seepage underneath the piece. You could use polymer clay just as well, I just had the other type handy and didn’t want to contaminate my polymer clay.
That created a thin, rather flexible layer of silicone which contained all the detail but wasn’t very sturdy. So I got a slightly bigger pan and dammed up the area I wanted to fill with more plasticine. Then I mixed up some plaster of paris (try the hardware store, it’s a lot cheaper than the craft store) and poured that over the silicone to make a mother mold. The mother mold supports the silicone and keeps it from flopping. I overdid it on the plaster a bit but now I have a VERY sturdy mold 
The following shows the blue silicone mold within the plaster, once I pulled out the original piece and trimmed away the thin bits of seepage from both the plaster and silicone. This mold isn’t quite sturdy enough to be a push mold. I did try it with some Studio clay and it worked slightly but the blue silicone is too flexible to keep all the detail under pressure. It should work well with liquid casting materials though.
Final Mold and Original Relief
Tags: casting, molding
Posted in polymer clay, tips and tricks | 1 Comment »
May 20th, 2009
Dragon's Keep
I finally finished this! I started it last year but hadn’t gotten around to the finishing touches until recently. This is a relief that I sculpted using a 6″ ceramic tile for a base. I took the clay off the tile after baking and I’ll probably glue a hanger on the back and make it a wall piece.
I sculpted this in all black clay – I was experimenting with Kato clay which seemed to work fine although I’m not a big fan of the vinyl smell. I used Pearlex mica powders to highlight the dragon. After it was baked I drybrushed the stone with light gray acrylic paint to bring out the detail.
Posted in polymer clay | No Comments »
May 15th, 2009
A couple people noticed my matrix board at our recent clay weekend so I figured I’d mention it here. If you don’t know about having your own stamps made at Ready Stamps, you should check it out.
You pick or create your own black and white artwork, send it in, and get back a sheet of stamps relatively inexpensively. Dover books are great resources for images, or look for other copyright free sources if you don’t want to draw your own.
Renaissance Faire necklace
The best thing though, is that you can request all the parts that they use to make the stamps – you can get the matrix board which is a reverse of the stamp, as well as the acrylic/clear stamps – think innie and outie. That way you double your design potential from the same images.
Sarajane has all the info over on her website so I won’t repeat it here – http://www.polyclay.com/ready.htm – but it’s well worth it.
The links in the necklace above were made from pressing clay into the matrix board.
Posted in polymer clay, tips and tricks | No Comments »
May 13th, 2009
Just in case you drop in to this blog every now and then and were wondering…
And the good thing is that I’m starting to feel alive again. I’ve been tied up with excessive hours at work so long (since November) that I’d forgotten what it felt like.
When you’ve putting in that many hours it seems to sap your creative strength. Even when I had a bit of time here and there, I just didn’t have any energy or motivation to do anything. I hadn’t written since NaNoWriMo, or touched my clay since then either.
But a couple weeks ago I did go to the SCPCG Clay Weekend – 4 classes by our members and had a wonderful time. We did PMC, Faux Turquoise, Beading a Cabochon, and Cold Connections/Rivets. It was great.
And this last weekend I finally finished a dragon relief I’d started ages ago. It felt so good to finish something. That sensation of “I made this” and the sheer pleasure when you’re happy with something, can’t be replaced. Of course, I can see all the areas I could have improved, but that only makes me want to make something else and do even better next time.
Work is quieting down now (hopefully it will stay that way) and it’s time to pick up my life, dust it off, and get back to creating again 
Posted in ramblings | 2 Comments »
December 30th, 2008
Check out Christine Kane’s blog post about picking a Word of the Year.
I’ve done it once – at the time I picked Delight. It helped me remember to have fun, try new things, and allow myself to take some time just to do what I wanted, and be happy. It’s not a resolution, just a little reminder, but it helps.
I’m not quite sure what I want my word to be this year… I know what I want it to mean. I want it to be all these things rolled into one (only without any associated advertising jingles):
- Seize the day
- Just do it
- One step at a time
- Baby steps
- Mighty oaks from little acorns grow
I want it to remind me that all it takes are little changes to add up to something big. That all I have to do is Start, the rest will come on its own. That if I just take those 5 or 10 minutes here or there, that I can accomplish something, but if I just sit and procrastinate, I never will. One foot forward. One step at a time. But taking time out to slide down the bannister is always allowed.
I want to remember who I am and who I want to be, and “keep on swimming” until I get there. Emergence, Leap, Practice, Accomplish, Do, Action, Begin, Focus, Climb, Stairway? It doesn’t really matter what the word is, as long as it brings the right thoughts to my mind.
And the word that seems to resonate for me right now is Focus.
Posted in mynews, ramblings | 3 Comments »
November 30th, 2008
I finished my 50,000 words for National Novel Writing Month on Thursday night. I still had a few scenes to rough out to get to the end of the story but I finished that over the rest of the weekend.
I learned that if you just sit down and start, it’s not nearly as bad as you think. The hard part is starting – getting over the fear of trying something, and the fear that it won’t be nearly as good as you envision it in your mind. That fear can make cleaning the oven look good in comparision. But if it always stays in your mind, it will never become real. That’s true whether it’s writing or sculpture or jewelry or any creative endeaveor.
And making time when you don’t have much was difficult, but that’s true about anything.
I made my goal and I printed out the whole thing just so I could look at all the paper it took up Actually, I’ll use it for editing later on but I want to go back and finish my other story first. In the meantime, I’m not even going to reread what I wrote.
I have no idea how good or bad it is at this point, but I’m not sure that matters. What matters is that I did it. And that seems to matter a great deal.
Posted in writing | 1 Comment »
November 22nd, 2008
I’m gradually getting used to the extra hours at work, and I’m just barely keeping up with the minimum word counts for NaNoWriMo. I’m at about 37000 words, and trying to get over a cold.
10+ hours straight at work, about 1.25 hours commute time, 8 hours of sleep, an hour to get ready in the morning… That leaves less than 4 hours out of the day for everything else – writing, eating, errands, spending a bit of time with my husband, etc. Forget housework – I certainly have
But I will not give up! I’m gonna make that stupid 50,000 words this month if I have to type in excerpts from the phone book.
I don’t think it would do much for my plot – especially since they don’t usually have phones in pseudo-medieval fantasy, but hey, it’s supposed to be the last refuge of the desperate. I’m not planning on sinking to that level though – unless it’s really, really necessary. Hmm, maybe a time portal opens and drops a phone booth back in time? Nope – that’s been done (see Bill & Ted)
And now back to my regularly scheduled story, where my heroine has just been accused of being a thief and threatened with having her hand cut off….
Posted in writing | No Comments »
November 16th, 2008
Well, I’m at 30,000 words, still a bit ahead but it’s going to get tougher. I knew I should never say things are going well.
I’m involved in a project at work that has a fixed deadline. And we just got told (tactfully, but not in a way you can say no) that we need to work 10 hour days or Saturdays. I was already giving up my lunch and working through it, but this is going to make it a lot harder.
So, I spent this Saturday doing errands and a bit of cooking and cleaning (only a bit) since I won’t get much of a chance during the week. I would much rather have been at the Clay Guild meeting instead. Now I just have to figure out a way to stay sane until Spring
Posted in ramblings, writing | No Comments »
November 13th, 2008
I’m halfway to the NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000 words in a month – two days ahead of time!
Now I just need to keep that buffer. Things like grocery shopping and real life seem to eat away at it quickly. But I’m in good shape.
I really think I’m going to do it. I wasn’t sure I could when I first started this whole thing. I wanted to try – any words I had at the end of the month would be more than I had before.
As the Little Engine That Could said, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…”
Posted in writing | No Comments »
November 12th, 2008
Helen, from our clay guild, took a few of us down to Waliga’s in Johnston, RI on Tuesday. It’s this great big warehouse filled with all kinds of jewelery merchandise, everything from high end overstock to ancient corroded chains to engraved glass poodle pendants. (I was tempted but I went for a brass elephant instead) Some of it’s newer stuff but a lot of it is older job lots or from places that went out of business – things you may never see anywhere else.
You do need a resale license and they do have a miniumum but it was such a treat to wander around poking in boxes and the shelves upon shelves upon shelves. I got some lovely textured brass chains which have deep gold and slightly reddish and purply patinas to them. I’m thinking if I ever make anything with the bronze clay, they’ll be perfect.
I also got a couple pounds of old Czech crystals. I just couldn’t resist the sparklies Now I have to figure out what I want to do with them. Here’s an example of some similar ones from ebay.
Posted in polymer clay, ramblings | No Comments »
