Planning Ahead

When designing a specific piece, such as the commissioned necklace for a wedding last summer, consider making more beads than you need. That way, if a couple don't look that great, you can choose the best ones, or you have left-over beads for making matching earrings, or, for designing a totally different piece, as you see here. The two side beads were left over from the original necklace, and the focal spiral lentil bead was made from the left-over scrap.

Finished Scrap Clay Lentil Beads

Here is the final product, sanded 1,000, 1,200 and 1,500, then buffed on the foredom. You can see how beautifully the edges retain their colour and contribute to the spiral pattern.

 

 

 

 

Design for Impact - Scrap Clay Process

In any artform the artist wants her/his work to be noticed, to grab the attention of the viewer, and to do that it must have impact. In my experience, one of the best ways to get that effect is to use the design element of value and to combine it with the design principle of contrast. Those together create tremendous impact. The greater the contrast between the values, the stronger the impact. To demonstrate this I'll explain my scrap clay spiral lentil bead process. I'm going to use scrap clay that is mainly within a narrow value range even though the colours will differ quite a bit from each other. I'll add a small amount of high contrast black and white and, hopefully, you'll see what I mean.

(click on pictures for larger images)

 I start with a pile of scrap, thick pieces rolled fairly flat, canes sliced open and rolled flat. Grab individual pieces and stack them on top of each other randomly.

Roll this stack flat, tear in half, stack, tear in half again, stack, roll out again. Look at the edges you retain when you tear the clay rather than folding and rolling or cutting and rolling.

The beauty of polymer clay is that it retains the original colours even though stacked and rolled several times, just as it does when you make a cane that you repeatedly reduce.

As the sheet becomes more homogeneous and greys out, these edges pull brilliant colour and strong contrast back into the sheet, and that's what I use to make the spiral lentil beads. I now tear the sheet into bead-sized pieces, making sure I get some of these edges and embedded edges into each piece, then it's time to fold the sheet into undulating folds, keeping as much of the edges visible as you want.

 

This bead has some interesting edges showing, but there is a fairly  large, bland part, and that won't translate into a spiral pattern, so you can cut int the bead in the boring area and the undulations will reveal more edges interestingly patterned.

 

The result is a related batch of interesting beads, even though the overall blends are grey. The interest comes primarily from the colours and contrast found at the edges. These are raw, so I'll bake them tomorrow and sand and buff and show the final beads. You can imagine how interesting your beads would be if you were selective in using scrap that included metal leaf, glitter, metallic clays, etc.

Silk Purse Bracelet - Using Scrap Clay

 Silk Purse Bracelet

I'm working on the process of creating interesting spiral lentil beads from scrap clay. The fact that they are made from scrap clay makes them difficult to control and therefore difficult to reproduce. I've been working on a technique - actually, I've noticed that I have a way of working with scrap clay that gives me specific results, results I really enjoy. Ergo, I've been paying better attention to what it is that I do when I work with scrap clay. I have a real problem using up scrap clay as, well, as scrap! When I start mixing up the scrap I go through stages where it surprises me with the beautiful, serendipidous juxtaposition of colours and patterns that appear. I have been known to tuck the sheet away when it gets to a particularly gorgeous state or to bake it up as colour studies for future work both in clay and in painting.



Baked colour inspiration, both sides.

Because of this, contrary to many clay artists, I have a serious lack of scrap clay. I'm at the stage where I really hesitate to touch it for fear of using up bits that would contribute to the next batch of unexpected beauty!!! Yes, I know, crazy, right?

The silk purse necklace, previously posted, and now this silk purse bracelet were both made from two different (but related) batches of scrap clay. So I'm now starting to understand how to control this wild process and even how to make sure I get certain effects that I specifically want.
Study the Silk Purse Bracelet beads below and tomorrow we'll talk about one of the most important elements of design for impact.

Silk Purse Necklace

Silk Purse Necklace

(click on image to make it larger)

I'm sure you've, like me, gone into the studio with the intention of cleaning it out, getting rid of "quap" as my 6 year old grandson says, throwing out old clay scraps, organizing, simplifying - in other words, being artistically adult. So I pull out this scrap that I've hung on to for several years because I wanted to remember the colors (why not just bake a sample disc, you ask?) I decide I'll use it to practice spiral lentil beads.

If you ever get the chance to pick up a book by Sean McNiff called "Trust the Process", you may find it fascinating. It deals with the fact that the creative process is independent of your deliberate intentions, and, that if you allow it to proceed and unfold, in other words, you trust it to be true in your case, things will happen that will amaze you. My right brain, in working to create beauty, even in practicing with lumps of scrap clay, made creative decisions, and "what if's" came to mind that caused me to handle the clay in new ways, exploring ways of manipulating this scrap to reveal it's beauty.

Here are some more close-ups:

 

 

Assembling the beads with black agate rounds and Czech crystal facetted ovals in dusty rose, picking up the hints of rose color in the lentil beads, silver spacers and a sterling toggle clasp definitely has turned a Sow's Ear into a Silk Purse!