PLAYING WITH MORE NEW THINGS

Once I began playing with the clay, it began to speak to me - I became quite enamored with the work of Barbara McGuire's work - especially her faces.  I just fell in love with them and found an old book written by Barbara with a tutorial in the back for her face canes.  They are not easy to create and take quite a bit of clay, practice and effort.  Much like an artist learns by copying the masters at first before going on to make their own mark, I began studying Barbara's work.  Fairies have always spoken to me, in fact, they are here in my studio clamoring to be 'next' in line.  I'm sharing these because hopefully, one day, I will look back and see just how much I have improved!

Here are my first attempts and although they are far from perfect, I can't stop - there are others just waiting in the wings for their turn :-)  Honestly, I go to put it all away to felt and I come up with  one more idea and there goes another 7 or 8 hours.  Very good to keep ones mind occupied.

. . . . . and here are the first attempts - not a pretty sight!

PLAYING WITH NEW THINGS

As much as felting is my first passion, I love learning new things and have become quite obsessed with polymer clay.  The interest began with coming up with some sort of closure for the collars knitted with curls as I sat with Mom in the Kline Hospice House.  I could see that felted buttons would be lost and regular buttons would be blah - they needed something that made a statement and then my friend Pat Smith told me about a polymer clay technique named Mokume Gane.  When I get a new interest, it is full speed ahead and I read everything I could get my hands on, purchased books, viewed a myriad of videos on youtube and bought some as well.   Even with all that, next comes the hands on learning with quite a few disappointments as well as some quite thrilling results after a while.  I just loved that I could tailor the colors of the clay to complement the curls.

This is the first pendant that I made - I want to incorporate my felt with the clay and I was so pleased with the Pebeo paint I found.