Polymer clay challenge week 9 – focal

Tags

2015PCchallenge, cabochon, Cate van Alphen, focal bead, handmade bead, pendant, polymer clay, yellow, zigzag

This is my first week making yellow components for my 2015 Polymer clay challenge. To explain how I got where I got, we need to go back to orange, and then even further back to when I was in primary school.

/\/\/\/\ Cue wibbly screen /\/\/\/\

For some of my primary schooling I went to a Waldorf school. This meant that all my books were little works of art. So for maths, instead of drawing a line between a day’s sums we drew a little pattern. The paper was grid lined so I invariably ended up with zigzags of increasing complexity. Sometimes there was more pattern than sums. So when I came to tidy away my orange canes, I saw a load of triangles. Lots of triangles = zigzag!

Zigzag pattern polymer clay cabochon by Cate van Alphen

The first sheet I made was slightly clunky and approaching visual indigestion. I realised I needed areas of plain colour to break up the busy canes.

Polymer clay pattern sheet – WIP

Then, all too soon, it was time to switch to yellow. Since I’d spent so much time fiddling with the orange pattern sheets, I knew there wouldn’t be enough time to make yellow canes AND another zigzag sheet. So I made a mokume gane pendant that was a little underwhelming because it didn’t have the contrast (and I was worried other colours would swamp the yellow).

Yellow mokume gane pendant by Cate van Alphen

Along came Suzanne Ivester’s “Painting with Polymer” class on the Virtual Retreat and I realised I could use sheets of marbled clay like inlay.

Yellow zigzag polymer clay pendant by Cate van Alphen

I also made a matching pair of focals, which I’ll probably use for earrings.

Earring focals by Cate van Alphen

I also made some cabochons that will probably become shank buttons.

Polymer clay cabochons by Cate van Alphen

And I put some of the pattern off-cuts into a ready-made metal bezel.

Polymer clay pendant by Cate van Alphen

It has been really strange working with a new palette of colours especially when I was part way through another project and some of the colours are the same. I think the biggest challenge with yellow will be not overwhelming it with its companions.