Tooting my Own Horn.... or maybe playing my own Guitar?
I generally feature a different artist each day for the 7 days of the PCAGOE challenge and this month I'm going to start off talking about my own creation. =) Well - let's take a journey through Deb's interesting and sometime bizarre creative process. Well - a little over a month ago, I got a message on ETSY that I was a Groovy Find and one of my items was featured on the Groovy Finds site (I get a little badge now - you can find it in the left column if you scroll down). Well - I went there and looked at a few things and got curious about this site and that site and came across a pair of earrings with a southwestern pattern that reminded me of my time living in Albuquerque and all the wonderful mosaic inlays. Well I hadn't done my challenge piece for the July challenge, so I thought, "Hmmm, that would be unique." And of course then thought of malachite and how it was made for millefiori and then the challenge became how to make faux like mosaic inlays (composites because most of the time they're crushed with resin) that look like gems in a millefiori format with silver offsetting to look like channels. It was fun and colorful and gave the feel I wanted, though I would use more dyed translucent clays in the future to give more of a gemstone 'glow' to the faux stones. But it was an experiment and you learn. In the mean time, a friend had a birthday coming up and I wanted to do something, but just wasn't sure what. The idea of mosaics and inlays were stuck in my head, so I thought, "Hmmm (ya, I use that a lot) - why not try making channels with extruded clay that I can fill with patterned sheets." So hand drew a design on a tiny tin and made some channels with clay and liquid Kato. It has some quirks and isn't as all as easy as it sounds, but have gotten some tricks down to the whole process, so decided to put it to use on another new trial and error piece - bangle bracelets. It made for a very fun bangle with decorative guitars all around. Very unique and conversational. The guitars are randomly layered canes of a metallic clay, colored clay, and a lightly dyed or blended translucent. The background is a mokume gane pattern with metallic red, black, various translucent shades, and gold foil. All the metallic clays make it sparkle and shimmer all the way around. Below is the two other views of the bracelet with the two other hand drawn guitar inlays. Clicking on the photos will take you to the listing on Etsy.
2nd row, L-R: RenGalSA, 11BoldStreet, ArrowdaleArtStudio
3rd row, L-R: ClayCenter, Polyclarific, RozPetalzStudio
4th row, L-R: ToniNZ, YoungCreative, SCDiva
No comments:
Post a Comment