More clay fabric - extruder style

I usually am not very productive on Thursdays, as it seems I stay up too late to catch Top Chef :D So usually I use the time to work on things that don't take a lot of brain strain. I'm getting a little low on my last batch of clay fabric and I had recently come across this photo of a poisonous cone snail and fell in love with the pattern. I knew I could never reproduce it exactly since things stretch in the pasta machine, but I knew it would be a good extruder project and that I'd get an interesting pattern.

So first I extruded several long strips of pearl white and then covered them in a black sheet done at my thinnest setting. I carefully ran my finger down the gap between the triangle points and then used the brush of my handle to run over it once more. This is much easier than wrapping each little strip.

Then I mixed some gold and pearl white to make some gold extrusions, and some hot red and gold to make the other color.

Then I hand made varying sizes of the white and individually wrapped them in thin black. I had two short strips left over from the other colors, so wrapped them too. Then I popped everything in the freezer to harden up.

This is what everything looked like after I thinly sliced it...you can see I have a lot that I didn't even cut, so I'll be able to make a similar but different pattern later too.

I then rolled out a sheet of pearl white. I did it quite thinly, probably at about setting 5. Then I formed the pattern, piece by piece. I then took a rolling pin and did a couple light passes over it so that there wouldn't be too much smearing over the edges. This is how it looked before going through the pasta machine. 

And this is how it looked after running it through just the first and second thickness and then no more passes.

You can see it didn't smear or stretch too much. The reason is I didn't start with too thick a piece, if the base is thick and then you add another thick later you are going to get tons of smearing. If I could have only run it through once instead of twice it wouldn't have had any smearing at all, but there were too many spaces in the design and that won't wrap as well as if there's only a couple. 

Overall size is about 7 x 5 inches so I'll get a couple things off of this. Even though it wasn't a lot of brain strain and was fun to do, it still took about 4 hours to do this. But I just really love being able to get inspired by a design in nature and then create these one of a kind fabrics for myself.

Sue
http://www.adyinart.com/

A Starry Night

This is a rather clean and simple design but I'm quite pleased with it because I got the exact effect I wanted for it. It started the night before last when I shut off the lights to head to bed and saw the partial moon sitting in the sky over town. It was one of those nights when the lights in town twinkle and sparkle like little stars and the moon had a lovely burnt sienna cast to it's outside edges. I thought "oh! The moon!" because it's like getting a beautiful little present every time I catch a glimpse from inside a cooped up house. 

So I went to bed thinking how I wanted to capture that. I intended to make a new bangle for my line the next day, so thought to incorporate that. I really wanted the star effect and I remember how the Milky Way used to almost overwhelm the dark of the night in New Mexico. I have some super fine glitter and thought that would work. I chose blue and gold and a little white to give it a hint of that milky effect. It does not show on a photo, but every time it moves, it twinkles...just enough glitter for the effect, too much and it would have been overwhelming, not enough and it would have looked like some just spilled on it. So that was easy. 

But if you've ever tried to create a moon that wasn't just plain white, you'll know that it's hard to catch that slight coloration and glow. So I started with some pearl white clay and then did a Skinner's blend with it and a smaller mixture of fire hot red, yellow and white pearl. 

A Skinner's blend is done by cutting the two colors into triangles and then laying them next to each other to make a square. Then you run that through a pasta machine about 20-25 times, refolding in the exact same direction each time. You end up with a perfectly gradated blend from the darker color to the lightest color. 

This is very thin when it's finished, so you accordion stack it and then cut slices from that to work with. The photo doesn't catch this part very well either...it's not the camera or my skills that are lacking, it's just a very subtle shift. It's a little better seen in the second photo. I'm never completely sure something is going to work until it's done...a lot of ideas just don't pan out, but I got lucky here.

The light hits the little pearl particles in the clay and gives it a glow effect. I wear all my bangles for at least one day to make sure that they are sturdy and will hold up to normal wear. What was so cool about this one is that when it would catch my eye (I was wearing long sleeves, so it would only show if I stretched my arm out) then I would actually think... "Oh! The moon!"

So even though it's a fairly simple and common shape for a moon representation, there's a lot more here than meets the eye. I had to call it A Starry Night, because it just really made me think of how Vincent must have wanted to capture that same feeling when he created his painting.  

Sue
http://www.adyinart.com/

Latest wearable vessel

Well, you all know I've worked on my bottle design for awhile and I've finally got every portion rock solid, with nice finishes inside and out. I've dropped the larger embellishments to make the vessel smaller, because I didn't want to make it shorter or narrower or it will defeat the purpose of being able to use it to actually hold something. All in all I think it's a sleeker, cleaner design guaranteed to hold up to every day use if wanted.

I'm close to being out of this 'fabric' I made, it makes the pieces similar but each one ends up with a lot of variation in the pattern.

Sue

http://www.adyinart.com/

Artsite of the Week - 1000 Markets.com

If you read my blog yesterday you'll know that I recently opened up my own online store. This blog entry isn't to promote my own store, but the actual exciting new artisan venue that 1000 Markets has to offer. I think that a look at some of the exciting work there will not only make your wish list grow but offer up a lot of inspiration for your own work. So that is why I've decided to make this the Art Site of the Week. 

I found out about 1000 Markets through another artist blog. I really respect this artist (and am inspired by her silversmith work) so when she blogged about it I was naturally curious and set out to research. 

Information for artists:

All the information is on their site, I think it's an excellent and fair venue for artist/craftspeople and they solely use Amazon for their shopping cart, so purchases have great backing behind them. I think any artist would be happy with the terms, there are no fees until you sell your work. And I've found the support to be absolutely wonderful. It is a juried acceptance, so put your best work forward if you decide to join...this keeps the quality and appearance of the whole Market top drawer quality. 

Information for viewers:

Oh...go have a blast! The markets have unique offerings from fine art to culinary wonders with all sorts of creative stuff in between. I've spent hours looking through the shops when I should be working (it's like going to an upscale mall and none of the merchandise is mass produced!). I'm really impressed with the workmanship and have found some things that I've never seen the likes of before.  

Have fun window shopping for fun and inspiration!

Sue
http://www.adyinart.com/

New Nine Dragons Sculpture Art Store!

I spent all day re-shooting photographs and building collections so I could get my new online store open, so please visit me at Nine Dragons Sculpture Art and let me know what you think :)

My shop is part of a new artisan venue called   1000 Markets  that uses Amazon.com for it's shopping cart, so it comes with all of the Amazon guarantees. It's a juried acceptance and I was so pleased that once I was ready to go live I was accepted within the hour!

I also slipped in the time to make a new better designed bracelet...it looks the same as the old design but the ends of the wires are turned so that they're securely held.

Sue
http://www.adyinart.com/