While wandering through the craft store yesterday I hit upon a solution to hold my beads and little fishies still while I take photos of them.
Neutral colored decorative sand in a glass dish! You can position the items any way you wish and they stay in place.
You don't want grains of sand that are too small or they will stick to your items. But at the size shown here, the grains easily brush off when you need to reposition the item for the next picture.
My friend told me about art abandonment (google it) and I've been making items to give away ever since. My weapon of choice has been colored pencils on balsa wood cutouts for the last few weeks.
Pics from the East End Brewery's Pedal Pale Ale Keg Ride ride today.
We were out on the bikes from 11 am to 6 pm. Rode all over the East End, ending up in the Strip for the end of the "official" ride. Had a quesadilla lunch from Edgar's, Peace, Love & doughnuts (maple bacon!), and Presto George coffee. Rode the jail trail out of town and came up Panther Hollow to Squirrel Hill and home on Forbes. I did pretty good up small hills in the morning but had to walk the bike up any incline by late afternoon.
I took a ton of photos along the way. Here are my favorites...
My friend Jo told me about the Sketch Guru app. You can draw some pretty nice things with it. The tools are intuitive and flexible.
When I'm killing time in the waiting room or on a plane I make pictures to entertain myself. My phone (Samsung Galaxy Note 2) has a stylus so it's easier to control the drawing than if you had to use your finger.
You can draw a realistic things (This guy was in the in flight magazine)...
Or just make simple designs from inside your head ...
You can also schetch ideas for your next project. This funny face may become a new series of beads.
It is my opinion, based on personal experience, that an artist is never bored. Rather, there are so many different things to try that there are not enough hours to fit all the interests.
I often ask an artist "what other art do you do?" in addition to their work I am viewing at the moment. They usually have a list of many.
What do you do frequently (now or in the past), what have you flirted with occasionally (or even just once), and what is in your future on your art bucket list?
Here is mine:
FREQUENTLY: polymer clay, sewing, drawing (pencil, colored pencil, markers, and ink), painting (pastel, acrylic on paper and things), jewelry making, photography, graphic design
FLIRTED: mosaic, glass (flameworking, fused, stained, paperweights), enamel, batik, marbleizing, paint (watercolor, oil, spray, faux finishes, airbrush) knit, crochet, cross stitch, PMC, papier mache, printmaking, wool rug hooking, ceramics, and murals, decoupage, handmade books, quilting, macrame, rolled paper beads
FUTURE: woodturning, weaving, sculpting, collage, ribbon flower embroidery, felting
...and I'm sure I'll think of more! Maybe you'll give me some ideas!
In other news, I finally created an Artybecca "business" page on Facebook. If you want to follow my polymer there instead of (or in addition to) the blog, go on over and Like me!
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| Start with any color you like. This is on the thickest setting of my machine. |
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| Add other colors and put through pasta machine multiple times to blend it. Put it into the pasta rollers in the same direction every time to end up with stripes. |
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| I didn't think I had enough colors so I added more. |
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| Use a long bolt to create the ribs. Make sure it will be long enough to cover your bead form. |
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| Line a pre-baked bead up at the end of the sheet making sure to keep holes pointing out to each end of the sheet.. |
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| Wrap ribbed sheet around the bead. Trim and fit where the start and end of the sheet meet. |
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| Holding the bead with your fingers on each end, gently pinch and twist the edges while turning the bead around and around. Be careful not to squish the ribs. I use Kato clay which is firm and holds its shape well. I don't know what kind of results you would get with other brands. |
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| Twist it a bit more. |
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| Slice off the ends to make them straight and gently pat the edges to round them. |
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| Brush the whole bead with a mixture of carbon black Pearl Ex and a tiny pinch of Pearl Ex gold for shimmer. Bake according to the instructions for your clay. |
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| When it's cured, sand the bead with a purple 3M Sandblaster 400 grit sheet, to remove the black from the high surfaces but leave it in all the grooves. You can leave it matte or buff it with a muslin wheel. I don't recommend using regular sandpaper. It is not flexible and will end up removing too much from the high spots and not enough from the grooves,. Your bead will probably end up splotchy instead of prettily graduated. |
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| And there you have it! |
