November 2009 – Ornamento

Inspiration Scrapbooks

By: ornamento.blog November 26, 2009November 26, 2009

Art, art, creativity, crafts, inspiration, inspiration, Personal Growth, Personal History, repurposingArt, creativity, inspirationLeave a Comment

I’ve kept scrapbooks for years on jewelry, pottery, home decorating and design that appeals to me. They’re more than a source of inspiration; they give me a visual record of the ways my taste has changed over the years and how it has remained the same. Here are some random pages pulled from my scrapbooks. I recommend you start keeping scrapbooks if you don’t already.

I am deep into Polymer Clay Color Inspirations: Techniques and Jewelry Projects for Creating Successful Palettes, and having a ball making color collages. I plan to start a notebook just for color ideas.

Happy Thanksgiving!

What I made in Ellen Marshall’s class

By: ornamento.blog November 20, 2009November 26, 2009

Art, Craft demonstration, Design, Ellen Marshall, Philadelphia Polymer Clay Guild, Polymer Clay gatherings, Polymer Clay Guilds, Polymer clay new techniques, Polymer Clay tutorialsArt, crafts, creativity, inspiration, Philadelphia, Polymer ClayLeave a Comment

I took a little time off from working my way through Polymer Clay Color Inspirations to take a surface design class with Ellen Marshall at the Philadelphia Area Polymer Clay Guild. You can read all about it on the Guild Blog.

Ellen led us through making texture plates and gave a boatload of suggestions for clay surface treatments with a host of acrylic mediums, paints, pastels, stamps, and a secret discovery from Radio Shack. The pictures below show some of the work I did-a texture stamp make of scrap clay, and the surface-embellished clay in various stages. After texturing and coloring a sheet, I cut it in strips, rearranged them, cut them cross wise and rearranged them again. They offer some interesting project possibilities. It was an interesting, relaxing class. Thanks Ellen!

Jewels from the Sidewalk

I walk to and from work every day and I constantly scan the sidewalk for treasures I can use to make something. Trash day is the best day of the week!!!

Awhile ago, I wrote about making lampworked beads from glass I found on the sidewalk. Now I have added brown beer bottles to my cobalt blue wine and aqua Bombay Gin bottles. And a co worker contributed too! She had a beautiful yellow glass vessel sink in her powder room and when it cracked and she had to have it replaced, she gave me the broken glass.

The pictures below show each kind of glass, plain, fumed and fumed with stringers on top.

Since I don’t know the COE of the glass, I don’t mix the colors. I cut the glass as best I can and hold it in the flame with a long hemostat. It’s loads of fun and you never know what you’re going to get.

I’m Inspired!

By: ornamento.blog November 6, 2009November 16, 2009

Art, caning, inspiration, Lindly Haunani, Maggie Maggio, Polymer Clay, Premo, problem solvingArt, Color, creativity, inspiration, Polymer Clay, Tutorial5 Comments

I have started to work through Polymer Clay Color Inspirations: Techniques and Jewelry Projects for Creating Successful Palettes, and am quickly becoming obsessed with what this wonderful book by Maggie Maggio and Lindly Haunani has to offer.

I decided to limit myself to Premo in order to limit my choices and because that’s the clay I usually use. I completed the package color testing exercise and made a value sorter.

This was getting interesting. Terms like tint, shade and value started to make more sense. I read about pivot tiles and made six of them.

I was so fascinated by the color shifts that I made six more pivot tiles with different colors.

Then I made clay plugs from the leftover colors this time, extruded them and made canes. Since each cane started from the same pivot color, they all work on some level. Now I am hooked. To pivot beads and beyond!!!