Swim swim swimmy

I jumped on the band wagon and decided to participate in the etsy swimmy project. I took some pics with a cheap point and shoot to show the work process.
Well the first step truly was to "drink" the kool-aid and join the cult. A-hem, decide to participate. I printed the template that etsy provided, and thus began the process.
I decided to use polymer clay as my media for my entry, since PMC would be cost prohibitive, and I wasn't "feeling the love" for a collage.



+ Step one, select a collection of gold-ish colored clays. I use Fimo, Sculpy and Premo. I usually go for color over brand. In this case I went with color plus what I already had open.


+ Blend the heck out of them with the pasta maker.
Now, I dint usually go for smooth skinner-esque blends, I like my blends a little more organic, so its not all pasta machine, here in the blending process, there is some hand blending involved.


+ I rolled out a nice slab of clay on the thickest setting of the pasta machine, and then traced the template on to the clay. next step is to cut out the fish following the template. And start making lots and lots of snakes in the left over clay.


+ I like to incorporate jewels and beads and the like in my polymer clay creations. One om my favorite ways to add big shiny bits are glass baubles. I selected and placed the chosen glass baubles for the fish. I used a blue one for the eye, opaque orange for the fins and transparent swirly orange for the rest of the "scales."


+ The building of the fins was using straight snakes, and the scales were built with swirls and dots to lock in the glass baubles.

+ The fish was cured in my little toaster oven for 35 minutes at 265 degrees.


+ After the clay was cured I added an antique finish by applying a mix of acrylic paints. I used navy and green. I usually use some compination of brown, navy, purple, and black. I painted the fish thoroughly. After the paint began to dry, I began the cleaning process. First I started by wiping the paint off with a dry paper towel, followed by a damp paper towel, followed by a Mr Clean Magic Eraser. After the paint was completely dry, I used an old dental tool to scrape and clean paint from the glass surfaces.

+ The fish was sealed and polished with Sculpy glaze.

I sent the fish on its merry way after I had some better pictures taken by my friend and her swank camera.