Bad weather prevents photographing

This morning I have finished mounting all my new polymer clay brooches on their individually painted canvases. I am pleased with the way they look and, after much experimenting, have found a simple but effective way to keep them in place on the canvas. This method should prevent another theft of the brooch occurring, when they are being exhibited, unless some takes the whole canvas off the wall.

Unfortunately, the weather forecast for this Queen’s Birthday weekend (the Monday is a public holiday here in New Zealand) is not good – it is grey, wet and windy! So, I do not know if I am going to get the opportunity to photograph my finished canvases, which I really need to do outside, to get some good light.

As it is currently raining, I have started on another circular brooch. This is currently in progress – it still needs sanding and some satin glaze and doming resin applied to selected circles, to give a variety of different surface finishes.

Once I have finished this one, I will make a conscious effort to make some different shaped brooches. Next weekend, I intend to focus on the ‘mica shift’ technique, creating some asymmetrical triangular shaped brooches. I am also really keen to try some layering techniques, for the focal part of the brooch, but I am waiting for some supplies for this to come from Shades of Clay. This is a Canadian company, which I am trying for the first time – they seem to have very reasonable prices, especially for international shipping.

‘In progress’ photos

Last night I took these ‘in progress’ photos, just using my OTT (daylight) lamp, as I think I may struggle to complete them in time to photograph this coming weekend.

In progress

They still need a bit more fine sanding and each one will have resin added to certain parts to provide a glossy contrast to the matt clay surface. I am not sure whether to use MagicGlos (UV curing) or the two part mixing resin that I have. The MagicGlos gives a good domed effect but if I use this I will be relying on natural sunlight to cure it. This week we have had really wet ‘stormy’ weather here in New Zealand, as we are heading into Winter, so if I do decide to use the MagicGlos, the brooches may not be finished this weekend.

Post Note: I can see that I have returned to the comfort of some of my favourite colours, with these three brooches, after doing the 'orange-gold' one - I am really not an orange person!

Finishing brooches

Spent today finishing off the brooches shown in the May 25th post, as I intend to wear one of them on the opening night of the “Anything Goes” exhibition, tomorrow. I could not wait for the rubber stamp of my initials to come, to imprint the clay backs before baking, so I will have to print it on the surface of these ones at a later date. It was quite tedious but I spent a good part of the afternoon sanding, working my way through the different grades of wet ’n’ dry sandpaper, to get a good finish.

I have also finished another brooch that I have been working on for sometime. It started as a circular piece of interesting blue marbled clay, to which I have added some white triangles to represent yacht sails and then set it in a raised darker blue rim. It will be called “Ocean Blue”. I have just put resin over the centre part, so I cannot photograph it until it has set but I will post a photo in a few days time. I am really pleased with how this one has turned out, in fact, dare I say it, it looks quite perfect.

'Creative Meltdown'

Sunday afternoon, I finally had a few hours to be creative. Yesterday, a creative friend gave me some off-cuts of her paste paper to play with, until I get a chance to make some myself. I am keen to try this technique for my paper mosaic work, after being inspired by the work of Lorrie Abdo Grainger.

I sat and looked at the paper strips but could not get in a creative mood. It may have been that it felt wrong to use someone else’s work in pieces I intended to make for sale, or, it may be that after my initial experiments at coating paper mosaic pieces with resin, my heart was not really in it. Or was it just the humid Summer heat here?

I had what I can only describe as a ‘creative meltdown’ - I could not concentrate on anything, my head was just spinning. One minute I was going back to Friendly Plastic. Then it was resin. Should I try polymer clay? Or go back to doing paintings? Then a rethink about paper mosaics. Just round and round in circles! I think this was just the culmination of what had been a growing feeling of depression at having to start from scratch again, building a creative reputation. Since emigrating to New Zealand, I have been trying to find suitable sales venues and attracting a client following (this had taken many, many years to do in the UK) – and now I did not even know what medium I wanted to work with!

In the end, I decided it was just not meant to be a creative day, so I went for a long walk on the beach and tried to clear my head. When I thought everything through, I came to the conclusion that I really wanted to continue with my Art-Brooches. As for what to make them out of - well, maybe I should not get that hung up about it. I always seem to be trying different media, so why not make the brooches out of different media – they don’t all have to be the same, I can just use whatever inspires me. Problem sorted!

Designs for moulds

Over the last few weeks, I have been sketching out ideas and trying to work out how I would make moulds for brooch bases, which I can then add to/embellish to make each one different. I am a bit torn, as I like the idea of making my own moulds and casting (this would help to speed up production) but I still want to keep my pieces as ‘one-off’ originals (even though people do not seem to fully understand what this means).

Before I plunge into another new thing, that requires more materials, tools, etc, I am hoping to get some little kits (one for making moulds and one with resin for casting) to experiment with over the Christmas break. This should be fun and will give me an idea as to whether I am going to pursue this line of thought further.