Coloring Polymer Clay: Cinnamon Bear

That little gray bear head that I shared with you on Thursday now has some color thanks to one of my favorite spices. Cinnamon, combined with translucent polymer clay, makes a great color enhancer. I love the depth that this cinnamon inclusion technique gives the bear's fur.

cinnamon bear work in progress

Cinnamon Color Technique
I've been experimenting with different techniques to add color to sculptures without painting them, but to be honest, I hadn't planned on using the cinnamon inclusion technique on this piece.

I started with a dark brown base of pastel chalks on the unbaked gray form. I tinted some satin glaze to go over the baked chalked head. While it looked nice, it was darker and shinier than I wanted.

unfinished pastel chalks on polymer

To try a different approach, I mixed a batch of translucent clay with some latte alcohol ink and some cinnamon. I gently added a thin layer of the mix over the existing head, rubbing in additional cinnamon with my finger to increase the color before reshaping the fur. After baking, I followed up with some light sanding and buffing to get the result you see in the first picture. Read about my past adventures in polymer clay inclusions.

Work in Progress: Polymer Bear

Starting point of a polymer bear

Recycled inspiration: Crofter's Superfruit Spread jar

What do these two items have in common? They are pieces of my latest project. I'll show you more as it comes together.

Blue Ribbon Month

This has been a month of good things on the polymer clay front. First, I got my copy of The Polymer Arts magazine in the mail last week and was thrilled to see my little white "Alice" rabbit opening the "Inspiration Challenge Gallery as the "Best of Spring 2012."

And this weekend, I found out that my Frolicking Pisces bowl was chosen for 1st place slot by non-members voting in the Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy's June Challenge. There were so many great entries so I am really pleased and surprised! Check out all the winners: http://polymerclayartists.blogspot.com/2012/06/june-challenge-winners.html

Ode to Migraines

The Cluster Headache by JD Fletcher

This image, along with more "migraine art" appeared on the blog "She Walks Softly" today. I love this blog because the author, Dana, routinely publishes wonderfully weird curiosities.

Thanks to this image, the next time that I have a migraine, and someone asks me how I feel, I am going to say, "I feel like the devil thrust his hand into my eyeball and is trying to tear my eye out of its socket, but other than that things are good :) "

Fortunately I don't get migraines very often anymore. I get tons of headaches, but not migraines. The only thing I can really credit it to is the fact that I cut back on gluten several years ago. I'm not perfect with it, but it is no longer a routine part of my diet. Or maybe it is just the fact that I am learning to let go of things a little bit as I age.

Up until a couple of years ago I had a migraine every month or so pretty much from childhood. In elementary school I was considered an expert at vomiting.

I vomited on the school bus. I vomited in my teacher's trash can when she refused to let me go to the nurse's office because she thought I was "faking it." I vomited every time I ate a nitrate-filled hot dog in the cafeteria. And I vomited in my dad's new pick up truck. Of all the things I've done over the years, throwing up in my dad's truck is the one thing he can't let go.

He never had a migraine. If he had, he would have been more understanding.

"Normal" with a Twist

Royal Wedding BMF/South Cape Cheese ad 

Humans are complex creatures with multiple personalities living within. Some of those personalities dance happily on center stage. Others hide, unseen by most.

For me John Hughes' 1985 classic, The Breakfast Club, depicts this inner dissonance beautifully as the characters comes to realize they are much more complex than the labels (athlete, basket-case, princess, brain, criminal) that they have accepted from the outside world.
 
While this complexity is completely "normal," I find myself struggling with how my disparate  personalities fit into my public brand image. As facets of me come out in my work, I often feel like a cat coughing up a muti-colored hairball. And I ask myself, "who in their right mind would want a multi-colored hairball?" 

It is a sensible question. After all, one of my personalities makes a living as a marketing director. This "me" knows that a brand needs to have a focus. One has to live within a niche in order to find the "ideal" customer.

Yet the "artist me" struggles against the marketing box. My fractured "brand" does not know how to categorize itself. Some days it basks in sweetness and sunshine. Other days it dances closer to the dark side. Which "me" represents my brand?

To answer this question, I sought the help of two former higher ed marketing colleagues of mine, Bevin and Tara, who recently launched their own creative agency, Firebrand Tribe. This weekend I spent more than 5 hours with them brainstorming that universal question, "Who am I?" in relation to  my art and my brand.

Lots of great ideas emerged, and I'll share some of them in future posts as things flesh out, but basically we came to a wonderful conclusion. There is no reason try to purge one of my personalities for the sake of "branding."

The dissonance between my outer "Mary Jane" and my inner "twist" is what makes me, well, uniquely me.  And that is where my best art lives.  
     

Bowls and Vessels: a Worthy Challenge

Frolicking Pisces Bowl @ YoungCreative.etsy.com

Molding a bowl in theory is simple, but in execution it can get tricky. I've molded sheets of clay around the outside of bowls before, but for this month's Polymer Clay Artists Guild Of Etsy challenge, I wanted a different shape.

While perusing my china cabinet, my eyes landed on my seldom used martini glass set. That cone shape was perfect. I started picturing myself wrapping the clay around the outside when I hit a mental "oh shit" moment.

If I covered the outside of the glass, I wouldn't be able to remove the "bowl" because of the footed stem on the glass. I'm ashamed to admit it, but it actually took me a while to figure out that I could mold the bowl on the inside of the glass. Duh!!! 

The finished product is my entry in the Bowls and Vessels challenge.
Please hop on over to the PCAGOE site and vote. Voters can win prizes!!!
http://polymerclayartists.blogspot.com/2012/05/june-challenge-bowls-and-vessels.html

PCAGOE challenge entry

Best of Intentions

My husband is a real sweetie with a romantic heart, yet not all of his romantic ideas work out as planned. In fact on Friday his best intentions took on an almost comic element.

Things are really hectic in my day job so I worked Friday while he took a vacation day. He felt bad because I've been so stressed and he wanted to treat me to a worry-free evening.

I arrived home to a clean house. Nice! On the counter was a  bottle of wine with a note that said to enjoy a glass of wine, grab a shower or take a bath, and then we were going out to dinner. Nice again! But before I had a chance to contemplate my next move, the phone rang. My husband was at the grocery store without his wallet. So I hopped in the car and headed off to meet him there.

Back home, I pulled in the drive way and saw grocery bags piled up in front of the door. My husband was at the end of the deck trying to capture our cat Benjamin. The 17+ pound usually "slow, gentle Ben" had run past him and spazzed once he got outside. He wouldn't come to either of us. We chased him through the neighborhood, until he disappeared under a shed. My husband managed to grab his leg and pull him out. He was coated with leaves and spiderwebs and had a horrible stench. We took him inside and gave him a bath. Then we showered and headed out to dinner accompanied by a stiff drink.