Texture

Texture

After a  l-o-n-g  separation from my art due to 90-100 hours of work each week for the entire first semester of school,  I finally found some free time to create.  It isn't so easy to turn one's creativity on and off at a moment's notice, so I decided to get going by taking part in a challenge on the French-speaking forum, Polym'air de rien, which is associated with the well-known blog, Parole de pâte.  The challenge was "texture" and we were encouraged to make our own textures or to use stamps or texture sheets.  
I can't think of many things I like better than playing with textures.  I have several drawers full of texture-making toys.  Can one ever have too many tools for making textures?  I think not!
So, I felt it was necessary to make a new texture sheet in honor of this challenge.  

I was inspired by several macro photos I collected on Pinterest.  

 #1 shell
#2  palm 
#3 leaf
#4 leaf
#5 fungi








To make the piece I submitted for the challenge I combined a modified mica-shift technique (gold clay textured and lightly shaved) with a fossilized mineral  technique taught by Sophy Dumoulin on CraftArtEdu.










This white pendent features the fossilized-mineral technique by Sophy.  


After making the challenge pieces I kept on claying.  This is another piece I put together:

I was trying to go for a "Jan Geisen" sort of vibe. I tried to keep things balanced but interesting like Jan does with such a unique flair.  I never quite get the same effect in my work.   Jan is an amazing artist, and I love how she puts things together.  I was so lucky to be able to clay with her in July this last year.  That was actually my last chance to make any new polymer pieces.  
I did find time to put together three mosaic tables* and a few new jewelry pieces with not-so-recent components:  

You may notice a sort of"idée fixe" running through my recent pieces.  During my fall sales many customers asked for butterflies.  I decided that I had best incorporate a few into my pieces for next year's sales.


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