Beads from new cane

Update:3/17: I am working with these beads doing something new......Sculpturing............I Will post some new pics soon.

This Week...........

I am slowly recovering from my fall down the stairs. I really Bruised my Coccyx Bone - For those scratching yer heads.... My Tailbone, or the tip of my spine....OUCH! I bruised and pulled the shoulder cuff not tore it, thank GOD. It is still sore and my back has been killing me. Of course running after and lifting a 13 month old doesn't help matters anyway either. Just slows things dooooooowwwnnnnnnn.

I have been redoing the beads I polished with the future acrylic. I was not feeling that flower in the paper mache blue bowl I did either. I ended up ripping that out too....

So far I have little to show for this week. I have been doing a lot of sanding and rubbing ( hand polishing) of my beads.
I did do some more eggs though... Wanna See?


This Egg I did a few weeks back, It looks like metal. I believe I used translucent mixed with Pearlex and then took all the colors ( I made several small ropes of different colors) and twisted them together. I finally polished it.. I wish y'all could see it good.

This was one of my hydrangea's I attempted, a few weeks back. Finally sanded and polished the egg.


This is one of the extruded cane swirls I did. I could only do so many beads.. ( and I ran out of scrap clay) after making 2 eggs with the ropes I decided to smooth the ropes on the eggs, much the same way I did the beads. I very much like this.


Remember the Lazy Womans Mokume Gane I said I read about? ( LWMG). I posted the cane last week but the pic looks like hell. Well here is an egg covered in the cane.....I Like It!



I also got creative and made a leverage block for my clay gun.
Anyone who has ever used one knows how hard they can be to extrude. They get all gummy, even if you clean them out and nearly impossible to push the plunger.... Well I saw someone do this, and I honestly can't remember who, but it stuck in my mind for months, and now I finally did it....

TADA..............

Clay Gun

Lever- Yea a Block of Wood.

VIOLA! No More Busted Thumbs!

I drilled lines down after tracing around the gun. Then I used a Ball Peen Hammer to knock out the center plug...
Look Ma... I did it Myself....

Well I hear Dinner is here so Ima grab me a couple of slices o'pizza.
Meanwhile check out these pretty beads that Barbara did.. Click on Gallery.
She is another artist I love to visit. She does such beautiful work.

Following the chain reaction....And Finding Aliens

I landed here at Barbara Forbes-Lyons Site. She had a Tut on doing Mokume Gane the Lazy Womans Way...LOL....
After extruding all the cane toss it, squeeze it and roll it . When done it should look like Mokume Gane- sorta...
TADA..............
Yea, I know you can't see it all that well. Here is a slice of it, slightly stretched.


Here is a bead.

The bead with the strectched slice, it looks more like swirls at this point.


I also covered some eggs with the extruded cane, But I was not feeling it when they came out of the oven. On a good note I was not so frustrated by air pockets when i wrapped my eggs in this fashion, or by sliding cane. Can ya tell I have frustration doing the eggs? I am going to try embellishing them with some seed beads, or maybe rhinestones or crystals to cover the bad spots ( uneven fill ins)

Now the next question is, what do you get when you take a bored 12 yr old, a lump of kiddy clay, 2 glass marbles, and a broken fuschia beaded necklace?..................
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AN ALIEN!

I found this on the desk upstairs. My daughter was playing and somehow she made this.....LOL... Way to go Kylee.

Some Eggs, and Some Roses. Oh and I finished another Bowl....Finally

This is the B&W Roses I did. This is Baked but not varnished. They have NO sepal as I didnt put any on.



This one I sprayed with glitter after baking and then I put some Gloss on it. I have Sculptey gloss for clay. I havent tried the future acylic yet.



This Purple Rose I did last night while watching TV. It is NOT baked yet. I didn't add sepals as it was getting really soft. Translucent color clay seems to pick up heat more then regular colored ( most colors). I did add some petals on the lower tier. I need to go back later and add some larger leaves around the top, since I dont know if I can get the sepals on without knocking the flower off the stick..( I have clumsey hands).





These beads I did Sunday Night. The black ones have silver foil mixed in. I keep seeing something called the CD Technique, but hadn't been able to find any instruction on it. I did find , however a Blog *Just Barrettes* that had instructions on scoring the CD Roms, (Esp. good if they are CD-RW, I knew one day I would have some usage for all those CD-RW's that Didn't Burn Correctly! :-) ) and getting the foil out. I just wanted to try it and see what they would look like If I rolled foil into some black clay. LOL, They look kind of splotchy.
The B&W Swirlies was from the Hydrangea Cane I did Saturday.
Got Eggs? These 2 were some left over clay I mangled into a twist. I just played until I saw something I liked. Sliced it and put it on the egg. The other is translucent color I created by added Pearlex to trans and coming out with some neat colors. I twisted them together I got a rainbow-like cane. After Slicing and Applying to the egg, I covered both of these with Pearl-ex. First Lightly with a brush and then with a finger. I used several different colors. I baked both at around 225-250 (My oven sucks) for 15 minutes. After they came out I took a bit of Clay and plugged the blow holes and stuck them back in the oven for 5 minutes after I shut the oven off. I dont think I will sand these. They dont have any lumps really. And the pearlex gives off a nice shine. Almost Metalic Like.




Some Black and White swirlie Eggs, from the left over cane ends ( I have a lot of waste when I try to make my Hydrangeas)

My daughter wanted a bowl from Paper mache just like the one I made first. (The one I am keeping since I know the errors of it). Here is the inside. She wanted sunflowers, and a butterfly. I Decoupaged them after soaking them in water ( they are pre-pasted wall borders. I just cut them out from the background).

Here is the outside and feet. I need to just varnish this and it will be good to go.

A barrette I covered. It kind of..well it aint straight. It took on a bit of a curve.
A Jar I covered too.