Work as Usual

Busy weekend! Sorry for the day delay in updates, but I have been a workin' mama the past few days! Kyle and I are working on our collaborative art project for the gallery show in April, Kyle and I are collaborating with Annarae on some tech for her masters thesis project.

Yesterday we had lunch together at Anna's house and beforehand we made a bunch of origami stuff for a hostess gift. Look at the star I made!!! It was wonderful and lunch was a blast. (A+++ Would eat from again)

As if that weren't enough I taught Kyle crochet so that we can do some soft graffiti together. If you're in Lafayette, you should check out our first piece in person. I have loved soft graffiti since I first saw it three years ago on the Masquerade Blog. (So awesome!!) Kyle has been enthralled with it too, so we picked up some things at the craft store, and had a crochet lesson. Many thanks to Angela at the Lala Gallery for kindly giving us the site for our installation.

Last night Angela came over and we made polymer clay beads and pendants for an upcoming piece in the Journal and Courier on overcoming cabin fever. (for sale on Etsy later this week!) We went on a giant texture hunt throughout my entire house.

When you really look, it is amazing how much texture we have in our daily lives. It sort of reminded me of something out of The Island of the Colorblind by Oliver Sacks. In the book he talks about people who are born with no ability to see color, and how without that distraction they can see textures so rich that are practically invisible to the color seeing eye. Once you start to look for it, it is amazing how much texture there is in your life.

So we made polymer clay jewelry! I managed to dig up some suggested techniques from an old copy of Bead and Button Magazine which helped us tremendously. A few pointers from our toils of last night:

1. Use playing cards to control the thickness of the clay you are rolling out. 6 to 8 cards on each side of the clay offer a fairly stable consistent thickness.
   

1. You don't need a fancy rolling tool. We used an ink pen and it worked just fine.
2. Texture is FABULOUS! If it's hard to see, don't worry. We applied washes of acrylic paint to the finished projects before sealing them.
3. Be sure that your clay is all the way set and cool from the oven before you finish detailing and sealing it.

Past that there are some great tutorials out there. Good luck and have fun!