Ellen led us through making texture plates and gave a boatload of suggestions for clay surface treatments with a host of acrylic mediums, paints, pastels, stamps, and a secret discovery form Radio Shack. The pictures below show some of the work I did-a texture stamp make of scrap clay, and the surface-embellished clay in various stages. After texturing and coloring a sheet, I cut it in strips, rearranged them, cut them cross wise and rearranged them again. They offer some interesting project possibilities. It was an interesting, relaxing class. Thanks Ellen!
I walk to and from work every day and I constantly scan the sidewalk for treasures I can use to make something. Trash day is the best day of the week!!!
Awhile ago, I wrote about making lampworked beads from glass I found on the sidewalk. Now I have added brown beer bottles to my cobalt blue wine and aqua Bombay Gin bottles. And a co worker contributed too! She had a beautiful yellow glass vessel sink in her powder room and when it cracked and she had to have it replaced, she gave me the broken glass.
The pictures below show each kind of glass, plain, fumed and fumed with stringers on top.
Since I don’t know the COE of the glass, I don’t mix the colors. I cut the glass as best I can and hold it in the flame with a long hemostat. It’s loads of fun and you never know what you’re going to get.
I decided to limit myself to Premo in order to limit my choices and because that’s the clay I usually use. I completed the package color testing exercise and made a value sorter.
This was getting interesting. Terms like tint, shade and value started to make more sense. I read about pivot tiles and made six of them.
I was so fascinated by the color shifts that I made six more pivot tiles with different colors.
Then I made clay plugs from the leftover colors this time, extruded them and made canes. Since each cane started from the same pivot color, they all work on some level. Now I am hooked. To pivot beads and beyond!!!
I found a neato color test you might want to try. Go to the Pratt and Lambert site and find out what color personality you have.
Happy Birthday to the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program which is 25 years old this month and still going strong. I feel lucky to live in a city where I can see beautiful paintings on the sides of buildings where ever I go. I get to walk past two of my favorite murals on my way to work.
The mural of former mayor Frank Rizzo is near my home in the heart of South Philadelphia. Some people loved him and some people hated him, but he was always larger than life. And so is his mural.
Here’s to the next 25 years!
But wait, there’s more!
Wall Watching is an invitational photography exhibit of showing the murals as part of the city landscape instead big paintings. The exhibit is free to the public and runs to November 13 in the West portal hallway of City Hall in Philadelphia. You can even follow the mural program on Twitter! And check out Art in City Hall to get information about the many other interesting art exhibits scheduled there.
You can read my newest project article on how to make these cool drop earrings in the November/December issue of Step By Step Beads. You probably know that SBS Beads will cease publication with the January/February 2010 issue, The good news from the Interweave site is that it is being merged into Beadwork Magazine, and that Step By Step Wire is still going strong. I had a clasp making article published there earlier this year.
Adobe has a neat, free on line tool called Kuhler (pronounced cooler) that lets you play with color. After you open a free account, you can even upload pictures and pull palettes from them. See my picture below.
Harbor Freight sells a steel shot filled leather pouch used to repair dents in cars. It makes a great noise-deadening surface for your bench block and the price is right at $2.59. They also sell a flint striker for $1.79 which is great for lighting torches. This cheap model works better than the “high quality” one I bought elsewhere. I also got a small bolt cutter that I use to cut cable and heavy wire, a bargain at $3.99. I plan to use their digital pocket scale for weighing resin and hardener. That way I won’t mix more than I need and I can pour out equal amounts more easily.
As promised, here are pictures of my finished counter that I posted about in July. I attached the pieces to the counter, grouted them with sanded grout and sealed the grout after it dried. This project was a lot more work than I thought it would be, but I like the results. I don’t use this counter for food preparation; it’s just a bright place between the dining room and the kitchen.
A few weekends ago, I took a polymer clay recycling tip and separated my broken beads and tiny stringer remnants by color. Then I smashed them into frit. What you see below are my containers of frit and some of the beads I made with it.
I have an unorthodox method of using the frit; I melt the end of my Moretti Rod, dip it into the frit container, introduce it slowly back into the flame and melt the colors in. I repeat these steps a few more times then I wind the glass onto the mandrel.
Here’s Lampworker Tom Wright on YouTube showing how he adds frit to beads.
