Mermaids On My Mind

Last April, I discussed some concept sketches that I had done for a client who wanted me to do a painting of her two daughters as mermaids.  I realize now that I never posted the final decision that my client made nor the final painting that was created for her. Sorry about that!! As always, life seems to get in the way of my good intentions.

Here is the final painting that was created for her.

Perhaps it's because of my work on this painting, but it seems as if I'm stuck on mermaids right now. Here are a few more mermaid pieces that I've created since then...

 

'Mermaid with the Golden Tail'

watercolor

 

 

 

Mermaid Necklace

                                                 
             Handpainted polymer Mermaid Barrettes

Do you ever find yourself getting stuck on a theme? What concept or theme have you gotten attached to? Children? Portraits? Landscapes?

Hope that your week is going swimmingly...  ;)

Vacations and Root Canals

I'll bet you've been wondering where I've been all this time haven't you?
If you haven't been, then lets just pretend that you have been...

I was blessed this year to be able to take three weeks off of work to spend some time in North Carolina with my family. My little niece, Coralie, is two and a half years old and I was able to spend over a week of that time with her. I just love that kid so much!

                                                  Storytime with Aunt "Bocky"

The mountains have always seemed like a second home to me and it was wonderful having the time to reflect on my life and to recharge my inspiration battery.

Upon my return I promptly began the process of having some much needed dental work done. This has quickly become worse than my worst nightmare. So far, in about 5 weeks or less,  I have had three root canals. Inbetween these root canals I have had a variety of painful toothaches that were started after my dentist began crown work. The latest root canal was finished about 8 hrs ago. Despite this physical and emotional ordeal, (I hate and fear dentists with a passion) I have been busy working on several projects. Some pieces are inspired by my recent trip and some are from my imagination. I've also been hard at work creating jewelry components for some upcoming art shows that I'll be attending.

 

'Misty Mountain'  8x10

Acrylics

Sketch of Coralie in my sketchbook for an upcoming painting

Sketch of two ocean sirens for an upcoming painting

                                        Some fall inspired jewelry components

I only have one more crown that needs to be done. Therefore there is only one more possible root canal that I might have to have. Once all of this is over I should have a lot more time and energy for posting on here. I'm also looking forward to working on some new videos for my youtube channel.

Hope that you have all been well! Have any of you ever had a nightmare dental experience?

Transferring Images onto Polymer

I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to write this post. I've been keeping pretty busy these days with my day job and my more artistic "night job". I went to the rheumatologist to get the results from my blood work. I do not have an auto immune disease. An auto immune disease would be something like arthritis, lupis, scleroderma, etc. Actually, Venus Williams was recently diagnosed with an auto immune disease. I do have the genetic makeup to develop something in the future, but I am relieved that I haven't developed anything at this time. The aches in my hands have improved since the doctor told me to get a bit more sleep so that's no longer a worry. Instead I have been diagnosed with flat feet and wonky knees due to the muscles keeping my kneecaps in place being weak. Anyone know of shoes with good arch support? Hahaha!

Anyway, to celebrate this good news I have completed a new video. In it I show you how you can transfer an image onto polymer clay. Once you have transferred the image you can create a pendant, brooch,etc.
Here are a few examples:

   This brooch was made using an original drawing that I xeroxed, colored with colored pencils, transferred and then painted with acrylics and mica powders before varnishing and adding the decorative frame.

         The wings on this fairy brooch are actually created using an original colored pencil drawing that has been transferred onto polymer and then painted with mica powders and varnished. The rest of the sculptural pieces were then added afterwards.

To see how you can create your own wearable art, watch my video.





If you enjoy this, please subscribe to my channel! Have a splendiferous evening! ♥

Creating a Piece of Wearable Art

I recently finished a brooch that is based on the classic Hans Christian Andersen tale, "The Little Mermaid".
I'm really happy with the end result and am planning on creating more pieces similar to this one in different colors.

I am often asked how I create these pieces so I thought that I would do my best to explain my process in a blog post. I typically work pretty quickly and also very intuitively so it can be difficult for me to explain every part of my process. I also tend to forget to take pictures.

I typically do a rough drawing of the finished piece, but after doing my more improvisational art nouveau fairy brooch I decided to allow myself a bit more freedom and to just play with the materials.

I began by creating a sketch for my mermaid. The sketch is almost the full size of my sketchbook but I shrink it and use a copy machine to create the smaller image that I will then transfer to my polymer clay by placing my image face down on a sheet of polymer and bake according to package instructions.

In past pieces I have done a full color colored pencil drawing and have transferred that to my polymer. I created this piece a little differently. I transferred the copy to my polymer and then played around with colored pencils ON the baked polymer. I like the more textural quality that this gives the piece. Not sure if I'm going to continue to do this all the time, but it's nice to know that it can be done this way. I did three different color schemes so that I had some options. I decided on the far left piece but will probably create pieces using the other two later on.

After I have fully colored the image I typically go over the piece in places with acrylic paints. This is smooths things a bit more and gives a bit more definition. I will then go over certain areas with some pearlescent mica powders. I especially like doing this on the tail so that her tail shimmers like that of a real fish. I added some frosted whites and golds to her tail and some deep blues and shimmery teals to the water.

Once the piece is fully painted I roll out some polymer to use as a frame. I marbled some green and pearly white to create a sort of sea foam concoction and then wrapped the piece in this. I VERY carefully cut away the excess with an exact-o blade and smooth all of the edges.

Now things get a bit more tricky to explain. This is where I just let my imagination go wild. I basically rolled some polymer into long thin strings and began seeing what I could create. I created spirals and waving pieces of seaweed. I carved shell shapes and embedded some small freshwater pearls to create some sea life for my mermaid's habitat. I also had found a really fun iridescent glass bead that resembled a bubble and embedded that in a swirl of polymer. Once I get the frame to a point where I am happy, I bake the entire thing again and then varnish my painting with several coats of matte gloss. This not only protects my painting from being scratched but it also helps to really enhance the colors within the piece and really makes the mica powders shine.

For the final touches I use a very strong metal glue to adhere the pin back to my piece and often will use this glue to really make sure that the glass bead and freshwater pearls stay put as well.

Well there you go! Hope that this was helpful. I will try to do another one of these soon and I promise to try harder to stop myself in between steps and take some pictures!

Paradise and the Peri

I finally finished my entry for the Polymer Clay Smooshers Mythology Challenge!

I've been reading a lot of my usual fairy tale books and things and stumbled across Thomas Moore's poem "Paradise and the Peri" (part of his Lalla-Rookh) The peri (a persian creature thought to be a fallen angel or fairy) gives God 3 gifts in an attempt to enter heaven. The first gift is "he last libation Liberty draws/From the heart that bleeds and breaks in her cause", the second gift is "Precious sigh/of pure, self-sacrificing love" and the third gift that gets her into heaven is a "Tear that, warm and meek dew'd that repentant sinner's cheek" It was in reading this poem that this brooch came about.

As the story was written in 1860, a time when the art nouveau sensibilities were emerging, I created this brooch with a similar look and feel.

The wings are a colored pencil drawing that has been transferred onto polymer, they are then painted with mica powders for luminescence and given three coats of varnish. During this time period many pieces of jewelry would have faces carved out of moonstone, carnelian, etc. I wanted to give this piece a similar sort of feeling so the face was created from a transparent polymer. It allows the light inside it to give it a bit of a glow. Overall I'm really happy with the way this turned out. It's the most complicated piece that I've done and I'm hoping to start doing more pieces along the same lines.