Starting of the year right!

Thought for the New Year ... if you are not living your passion ... Use the Blue Moon energy to help you with a new beginning.... "Find your passion. Look into the volcano-the fire, the lava of your Soul. The part that burns insistently and urges you to look at it. It is there that you find your answers and your true joy."

I can hardly believe I haven't had any artistic worthy posts since September--ouch.

Well I am starting off 2010 with the mojo focused in the right direction. I began this year prototyping!

Back in May I had these Easter egg ornaments and had no idea what to do with them. Stumble and trip and I ended up turning them into acorns.

Of course I thought these were the bees knees as it were. I ended up converting all of my glass egg shaped ornaments into acorns. I then took a back of styrofoam Easter egg shapes and turned all of them into  acorns. My colors began to deviate from "natural" acorn colors into fun fantasy colors, purples and pinks.

During the curing process I discovered that the styrofoam shrank. And caused the acorns with this as a base to crack. Hubby too k a purple cracked acorn and began to play with it, mostly trying to get the styrofoam out at first, then he thought this would make a great fairy house.

I have mentally been trying to figure out a good acorn base to make houses. You see the styrofoam really wasn't a smart thing to cook in the oven, and I only learned about that after the fact. That and I didn't want to constantly have to fix cracked acorns, because I used the wrong materials.

The first acorn fairy house, 

this one had the styrofoam base.

I thought about using that potato starch packing material, after all its potato starch it should be ok to cook, and it dissolves. 

I tried to mold and egg shape by hand. Ok that was a mess. Then I tried to use a plastic easter egg as a mold. It took a lot more of the packing material than I thought it would, it was very dense and heavy. And it did not keep its shape. In the end it required too much polymer clay, and the acorn turned out distorted and too heavy. And yes it does dissolve, but not before creating a gooey mess.

potato starch base acorn

Then I thought well, if I can used the plastic egg as a mold why not use the plastic egg as base. After all I use it as the base for other projects. So I tried that. and it worked beautifully. It actually cut easier that the thick wall of polymer I had created for the the potato starch based acorn.

The next step is to develop a tutorial for the fairy houses. I have worked one up for the plain acorn. Debating if I should submit it to Polymer Cafe, or go direct to online tutorial down load with claylessons.com.

Mehndi

I love doing henna--or mehndi. There is something about drawing with the cone, creating the stylized patterns that are based in tradition. Creating variations.

Something about it that I can do for hours.

Its more that just the drawing portion.

There is something very soothing and sensory about the entire experience.

Maybe it is the essential oils mixed into the henna, the smell, maybe its the texture of the paste.

I can keep going even when my hand hurts. Actually I dont usually notice my hands or my back when Im doing henna--just after when I try to move again.

I can go for hours without doing anything but henna. And I do mean hours.

In an exercise to discover when am I in the "flow" of creativity, I wrote repeatedly that it occurs when Im playing with henna, more so than with clay, or drawing.

And its not about the drawing. I can draw, I practice henna style work with markers, not the same. The closest I have come is fabric paint. And this has resulted in a painted dresser, many purses, and now a pair of shorts. I am thinking about extending onto more clothing.

Im very excited, in a conversation with a dear friend she suggested that I do henna at a local small festival instead of vending my jewelry as I normally would. I decided to do that. And as soon as I did I got 2 more opportunities to "do" henna.

I haven't done henna at this level in a long time. I am looking forward to it very much.

Tomorrow is the first faire. If you are in Hendersonville TN, come by The New Earth Center I will set up at 11am and hang out henna-ing until.....

Discussing Steampunk

Originally uploaded by Zoeowyn

I will be discussing Steampunk with Mitzi on Bead Java Saturday August 15, 9 pm central. On Blogtalkradio

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Bead-Java/2009/08/16/Bead-Java-Your-Hot-Forum-For-Hand-Crafted-Jewelry

Burning up!

It is way to hot outside. I feel like I could make a bunch of projects out of polymer, put them on the back porch and in 20 minutes they would be cured! I know its not even as hot here as it could be. I finally made it to Tuscon--ok in the middle of July--ouch talk about hot!

Im not very motivated in extreme weather, Im sort of like a lizard, I just want to go lay out under a big flat rock and do NOTHING.

Here are some goodies from folks over at etsy who didn't just do nothing. Of course they all remind me of how hot it is...


This is Treade hes a fire dragon from ElementalDragons
isnt he cute!

And this pen is called Dragon Skin its from creativewriting

And these swirling Rust leaves look like flames to me. Beautiful pendant is by iamcr8tive.

Cepholapod Coronet

My mermaid with the octopus crown made it in to the current (August 2009) issue of Polymer Cafe. It was killing me to not post images of her on the internet, since they say no previously published images, and posting it on flikr is "publishing".
Well here she is, this is another view from the magazine. I was trying to show off as many different textures on her as possible.
The challenge was for texture.
The face and arms are poceline, I did not make them, the rest of her is pretty much polymer clay using different sculpting techniques.

Paisleys and dots

Applying color theory to creating a colorful paisley and dot pendant.

This pendant takes approximately 1/4 of a standard sized block of polymer clay. Using a neutral color, condition and roll out a section of clay. Roll your section on the second or third to largest setting of your pasta machine. (The largest for my machine is a 7-I rolled my clay at 5).

Fold the clay over on itself and lightly press together--doubling the thickness, and removing any air bubbles.

Place a sandwich baggie smooth over the surface of the clay. Press into the clay, through the baggie, with a round cookie cutter-about 2 inches in diameter. The sandwich baggie makes a nice beveled edge to the cut shape.

Roll the remaining clay back thru the pasta machine, at the same setting. The remainder of the shapes will be cut from a single layer of the clay.

Using a small round Kemper punch cut out several small dots. Roll these into small balls. Using the small round punch, cut a hole into the top of the pendant base. Approximately 1/4 inch from the edge.

Using a small tear drop shape cookie cutter, cut 3 shapes. Use your fingers to gently curve the tear drops into paisleys.

Arrange the paisley shapes and dot balls in a pleasing arrangement. For smaller dots cut the  punched dots in half.

Place a hot set crystal on one of the larger dots as accent bling. Use the tip of a knitting needle to push accent dots into the centers of the clay dots, and along edges of shapes.

Use color theory principles to help select pigment powder colors. Apply colors loosely with soft brush. Do not inhale the pigment particles, cover your mouth and nose, and use in a well ventilated area.

Cure following the polymer clay brand's instructions. When cool brush off any excess pigment powders and coat with Varathane, or your polymerclay coating of choice to protect the mica pigment colors on your design.

Its creativity time!

Everyone has a time of day they are most creative. I tell you what mine is not mid-afternoon! Its nap time.
I seem to be most creative first thing in the morning. Its like my coffee, gets my brain working. I can't seem to dedicate a whole lot of time to this first creative endeavor. I do seem to sit down, knock something out, then get to my day-whatever that means. This first brain boost sometimes, but not very often, rolls into a mass creative spell. And the next thing I know its nap time (about 4 in the afternoon) and Im still in my jammies!

My other creative time is evening. I seem to do my best work then. I get started right around 6 PM and can work late into the night.
I think this is left over from when I was a freelance graphic designer, and my husband worked swing shift. I tended to not "go to work" until he did. And I would work until he came home.

The best work creative environment for me is evening, basically alone-or not interrupted and lots of adventure movies. 5th Element, XXX (with Vin Diesel), and Timeline are a few of my favorites to work to.