Mokume gane pendants and earrings

I'm preparing for some shows this fall and these pendants and earrings are some of my new works. They are in the Julie Picarello style of mokume gane technique.  For those who don't know, you make a stack of different colors of polymer clay and poke holes in it.  Then you take shavings from the stack and use them to make your objects.  It's a fun technique because you never know quite what you will get.

A showcase of shawl pins

I've been making shawl pins using every technique I can think of.  Here are some examples:

This is a "Bend it Yourself" safety pin with silver zinc beads, silver-plated wire swirls and red glass beads.

This pin was made from black, white and gray layers of clay, imprinted with different texture sheets, and then the high spots shaved off.  Sanded and buffed so it is completely smooth.

Imprint mokume gane using Dan Cormier's wide peeler,

Mica shift with gold clay.  Imprinted with Helen Breil's texture sheet and then high spots shaved off.  Sanded and buffed so it is completely smooth.  It really looks 3-dimensional in real life.

From the cane I made in Carol Simmon's Kaleidoscope Cane class.

Design made in raw clay using various implements.  Antiqued after baking.

Imprinted with Helen Breil's texture sheet and then highlighted with Perfect Pearls while raw.  Wondering if I need to seal it.

Made using Wendy Orlowski's Feather Boa texture sheet.

Another vessel

Here is a second vessel from Seth Savarick's class.  I'm quite pleased with it.  The top and cord are navy blue, which is the same dark blue in the mokume gane.  It just looks a lot lighter in the mokume gane.

I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling some creative malaise lately, probably as a result of a much too long winter.  Libzoid has been feeling the same way.  If you check out her blog, you can take a peek at the studios of different clay artists.  She features a new one each week.

My First Vessel

TA DA! Here it is:








my first vessel ever. This is one of the three I started in Seth Savarick's class. Not bad for my first mokume gane and first attempt at a vessel, but I know I can do better. It should have a cord attached to make it wearable, but I don't think I will bother. The turquoise clay had some plaque that I didn't notice until it was baked. And I don't care for the TLS surface over the mokume gane. It is still too cloudy for my taste even though I used a heat gun on it. My TLS is old and a bit thick, so I don't think the coats I applied were thin enough. I'll try the Fimo Gel on a future project. It came out much clearer in my tests.