Play Date Polymer Clay and Birds

Art is You Day Two : Laurie Mika

 I had the pleasure of spending the second day at Art is You Petaluma taking a class with Laurie Mika, the brilliant polymer clay artist and instructor.

 This is a sample from the instructor that was our inspiration for the class.

Here was a second piece by Laurie.  So richly detailed.  How does she do it...?

 We started with 4 packages of clay, rolled out with a 10" piece of pvc pipe.  I mixed two blues together (they look really grey here - but they were blue!  Laurie had a plethora of rubber stamps and molds for us to use and play with.  This is just for the back - so it didn't need to be perfect.

 Next we used gold leaf, but not ordinary gold leaf - this was EASY gold leaf - and it was!  each sheet is backed with paper - so you can place it without it flying around and sticking to your fingers.

 We had templates to choose from for the size and shape of our triptych.

 This is how FREAKIN AWESOME the gold leaf looks after being stamped into with a plastic mold.  it cracks and looks all vein-y and vintage.

 I centered the template and cut it out with a straight edge and a scalpel for the curves.

 I trimmed away the excess and rolled it up again.  Sure  - the gold leaf will add flecks to the remnants - but so what?  they look really cool.

 I used all my scraps to make other shapes with stamps and molds.

 Then we added colour.  just a dab here and there using fingers.  to create a shimmery stained glass effect.

Here is my finished triptych with the central medallion and face.  We added gems and seed beads before baking.

 This was a second piece i made with some additional clay.  The lions were earrings.  The crown just cut from a stamp.  I just love the gold leaf crackle on the deep blue clay.

Here are some of the other students' work.  I asked Laurie if we were the best class she ever taught?  And she replied that we were the best Triptych class she ever taught, since it was her first time teaching it!  I think the results are pretty darn impressive.

Mega Heart Swap

Last month i saw a pretty heart sampler on Rebecca Sower's blog you can see HERE.  I shared it with my artsy friends and we all agreed we would like to try it.  We started with the instructions to create two different styles of hearts, 6 of each.  One to keep and 5 to swap.  Well, we all went crazy creating hearts and did not stop until we had each made over 50!

This is how it played out....

First Z layed out all her hearts on the table - we eached picked one or two of each type.  There were fabric, and paper machier, and cute paint chip hearts with love-y dove-y paint chip names like Karen's Kiss!

Here are the 7 i picked for myself.  She did some embossing of metal packaging - love the limonata heart!

Next my hearts were strewn on the table and everyone could choose one of each type.  There were dominoes, resin paper, mini collages with faces, plaster, flash cards and so much more.

Here are more i made with vintage trading stamps, and old envelopes with european stamps.

Queen of hearts, glitter hearts on dominoes and some handmade paper.

Seriously - we could not stop!  There are weathered copper mesh and vintage wallpaper with mini wooden birds. 

 WHOA!  Here are all the hearts K brought to swap with us.  We went around the table taking turns choosing.  It was absolutly like kids in a candy store - just look at those luscious hearts!

 Here are some of D's hearts.  She did some sewing on bubble wrap with googly eyes, copper backed faces, layered playing cards and some compass spinner hearts.

 Here's a closeup!

Here is more from D - colourful collage with faux stitching, saints with beads dangling.

Here is another look at K's clay hearts.

 Here are some of the beautiful hearts that L sent us from Washington state!  collages, beeswax, stitching, buttons - so much fun!

 Here are some of S's hearts for swapping.  The dark ones are lace and beautiful in person.  She had silver foil aned embellished copper.

 More of S's hearts - assorted textures and colours.

 Here are the hearts from S which i picked out.

Here are all the hearts we will be sending to our art buddy in Port Townsend!

Here is how all my swapped hearts look layed out on the canvas i prepared at home.  I attached most of them with tacky glue and some with 3d glue dots.

D is waiting for her canvas to dry - and went with a dark background.

S is creating a small book for all her hearts - she'll had phrases to each page.

Z is creating a frame and wire structure to hang her hearts and some family photos.

So K was the only one with a finished project for me to photograph.  She created a richly hued canvas background and chose to use only the hearts with pink and copper-y colours.  How beautiful!

Thanks again to Rebecca Sower for the original inspiration!