Stuff to sell... Clay!

A LONG while ago, I mentioned that I had gotten a new clay book that completely inspired me. Then I got into all this craft show stuff, and while I've been making stuff like crazy, I haven't shared a thing with you. So no more complaining-- I'm sharing. I have always enjoyed making little characters out of clay. My sister-in-law loves the Wizard of Oz, so I created several characters from the story for her. While I'm not bringing them to the show, I've got to share a couple to show you what I used to do. I didn't know I could re-bake clay, so these figures were made in one piece. That means that while I was working to attach the hands, I'd inevitably mush the clothes and have to redo it. Then while I was redoing the clothes, I'd smoosh the head. The process of creating and recreating could take as long as 30 hours... so you can imagine how upset I'd get when one of them broke after I'd cooked it (the wicked witch here died shortly after these pictures...)!

After reading Artful Ways with Polymer Clay I was all over this. I learned that I could cook things more than once, so I could make a face and cook it before going on to the rest of the body. This in itself takes hours off the process. I also learned that you don't have to be a fancy big artist in order to have molds of your own work-- you can make them yourself! So, I found some mold-making clay, and made molds from the faces I've made. More hours off the process, and I still can make them different, because after they come out of the mold, little changes like adding wrinkles or adjusting the eyes are easy to make.

Even more exciting was my discovery of the Mokume Gane technique. I have always loved texture, and this is a wonderful way to create tons of texture in a flat piece of clay. I'll try to write an explanatory post sometime. In the meantime, let me show you what I've made using it! This is meant to be a pendant for a necklace. There are several like it, but none are exactly the same.