25 Fri Dec 2015
Posted in 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge, beads, My work
I got a bit distracted with Christmas preparations, so my blog for the 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge is a little bit late this week. I made some headpins with the leftover damascus ladder cane from last week.
Polymer clay headpins by Cate van Alphen
I also managed to finish the focal bead from last week. The ends are now neater, but I think I prefer the darker scrap colour.
Polymer clay focal bead by Cate van Alphen
Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you’ve had, or are having, a happy day. 🙂
17 Thu Dec 2015
Posted in 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge, How to, WIP
I’ve had to accept a work in progress for this week’s focal bead. All the extra Christmas activities have been taking their toll on my time.
Focal bead WIP by Cate van Alphen
The pattern on the bead is a crushed helix (or reduced Damascus Ladder). I still need to finish the ends (I’m going to wrap a string of polymer around the domes) and sand the bead.
Maybe I’ll finish next weekend (sometime after I finish making Christmas gifts, and beads for next week’s challenge but before we go Christmas shopping)? Hmmm, ok, maybe not NEXT weekend, but surely before the end of the year? Oh wait, that’s only two weeks away!
05 Mon Oct 2015
Posted in 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge, beads, My work
I have now finished my polymer clay focal beads for week 39 of my Spectrum Year (see the WIP in my previous post). The beads are thick slices of stylised flower cane. I drilled two parallel holes so they could either be used double stranded in something like a bracelet, or if only one hole was used for a necklace it would be off centre so the beads would not flip over.
Flower cane bead by Cate van Alphen
They are a bit clumsy in comparison to what I had imagined. My slicing is still not very accurate – the lines framing the picture are wobbly and the bead slices themselves are not very straight or even. I think I could do with a cane slicer 😉
Flower cane beads by Cate van Alphen
I suspect they would be improved with some sanding, but it will probably be ages before I get round to doing that. They are an inch square so they count as focal beads by my definition 🙂
Polymer clay focal bead by Cate van Alphen
P.S. The flower background is actually pale dove grey, not just poorly exposed photography.
03 Thu Sep 2015
Posted in 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge, jewellery, My work
This week of the 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge I made a ring to go around one of my beads from last week to make a compound focal/pendant.
Indigo compound bead pendant by Cate van Alphen
I even sanded it to make a smooth contrast to the textured bead.
Compound focal side view by Cate van Alphen
Compound indigo focal by Cate van Alphen
The only problem now is that I think several of them would look good all joined up together to make a necklace, but I don’t know when I’ll find the time to make them.
16 Thu Jul 2015
Posted in 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge, My work
I wanted to do something a bit different for the blue focal beads I made this week of my 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge. I started off with some dissolving packing peanuts which I threaded onto wire and wrapped with strings of polymer clay. I couldn’t find my extruder, so the snakes are more irregular and shorter lengths than I had intended. Then I added some spots and dots both for decorative purposes and for structural support to keep adjacent strings joined.
Necklace focal detail by Cate van Alphen
After I’d baked it, I dissolved the packing peanuts in water. I left gaps because I wanted the interaction of internal and external space, but I think I took it too far. As I was contemplating if it would be structurally sound, I dropped it and it broke in two places. I set about repairing it with liquid clay and more dots, but each time I baked it to cure the new clay it broke in a new place (I think due to the polymer clay being softer when warmed up).
I also made a focal flower bead using thick slices of cane which was safer bet both structurally and aesthetically.
Focal flower bead by Cate van Alphen
Blue polymer clay focals by Cate van Alphen
Then I decided I liked the two pieces together, so I attached the flower bead using fine wire and glass seed beads.
Blue flower focal by Cate van Alphen
Blue necklace focal (back) by Cate van Alphen
I added a few more dots to cover up the wire joins and when I baked those it broke again :(. Now we’ve reached a truce – I won’t touch it, and it won’t break anymore. So it’s an interesting look, but I need to work out some structural issues.
23 Thu Apr 2015
Posted in 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge, My work
So my grand plans for a fancy start to green have been slightly postponed because I’m spending a ridiculous amount of time painting skirting boards in our new (200-year-old) house.
Green polymer clay beads by Cate van Alphen
I managed to make these two hollow focal beads because I had the blank cores ready to be decorated. So all I did was extrude a snake and mash it together to form a cane. They have a velvety matt texture with a dusting of green iridescent mica powder. No sanding, see?
Hollow beads by Cate van Alphen
The beads are pretty chunky and make a noise when you shake them. I was experimenting with making a rain bead (a mini rain stick that is round) which is why I had the blanks on hand. The sound is ok but not like rain. I think a length of tube is required to make the right sound.
12 Sun Apr 2015
I finally put the edges on my polymer clay focal bead from a few weeks ago. Unfortunately when it came out from the final bake it had cracked 😦
I did notice a tiny crack after baking the back onto the dome which I thought was due to the air expanding inside the newly sealed dome. Therefore I drilled a vent hole via the threading holes. When I make pieces like this, which I bake several times, I usually to a partial bake for 10 minutes or so, and then a full bake at the end. I suspect the cracks are due to the partially baked clay waiting around for a few days before the full cure.
So from now on I’ll be doing longer cures between and hopefully avoid the cracks.
02 Thu Apr 2015
Posted in 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge, My work
Tags
2015PCchallenge, Cate van Alphen, focal bead, handmade bead, mokume gane, polymer clay, slider pendant, yellow
This week I made yellow polymer clay focals. I started off making a domed slider pendant that could also be used as a cabochon in a bead embroidery project.
Mokume gane slider pendant by Cate van Alphen
I made a shank button to go with it too. (The wire in the pictures is there to show the position of the hole in the slider pendant.)
Then I remembered I had timed yellow to this time of year so that I could make daffodils :). I decided to sculpt little daffodils, and to protect the tiny petals while the pendant is worn, I reused the mokume gane dome idea and cut a window to show the flowers inside.
Daffodil pendant by Cate van Alphen
Since I had matching beads from an earlier week, and a shank button to use as a closure (made using the clay from the hole of the dome), I couldn’t resist making a necklace.
Daffodil necklace by Cate van Alphen
The back of the pendant also has a mokume gane pattern.
Back of Daffodill necklace by Cate van Alphen
But that’s not all! I also made a tassel pendant using a cylinder bead and some of my rustic sequin beads together with silk yarn, satin ribbon and coloured copper wire.
Tassel pendant by Cate van Alphen
The last pendant is a work in progress. I still need to clean off the sanding dust and finish the edging. But I thought it was interesting to show the progression of the dome idea.
Concentric dome pendant by Cate van Alphen (WIP)
05 Thu Mar 2015
Posted in 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge, My work
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.
12 Wed Nov 2014
Posted in Art Bead Scene, Challenge, My work
Tags
art bead, Art Bead Scene, Cate van Alphen, flower, focal bead, orchid, pendant, pink, polymer clay, purple
Back in 2010 I made my “Imperial Orchid” necklace. I really wanted to explore the idea further, but I never got round to it.
Imperial Orchid necklace by Cate van Alphen
So this month’s Art Bead Scene challenge painting was just the nudge I needed.
“Cattelya Orchid and Three Hummingbirds” 1871 by Martin Johnson Heade
Oil on Mahogany Panel, 34.8 x 45.6 cm
I started off making a pinstripe of magenta and lavender polymer clay as I could see those colours in the petals. Unfortunately the colours ended up too dark for what I was trying to represent from the painting.
Purple Pinstripe Orchid by Cate van Alphen
For the next orchid I made a subtle marbled mix of white and a speck of the previous pinstripe cane. I dusted on the pink using mica powders. I was much happier with these colours, but I preferred the proportions of the previous purple orchid.
White Orchid no. 1 by Cate van Alphen
So I tried again, and made a third orchid…
White Orchid no. 2 by Cate van Alphen
This time I was happy with both the colour and the proportions. It seems good things come in threes as today, for the third time, my work was featured on Polymer Clay Daily :). This time it was my Spectrum beads.
Polymer clay orchid evolution by Cate van Alphen
The outer two of these are now in my Etsy components store. I’m working the middle one into a necklace.
Fulgorine 