My latest beads...

As most of you know, in addition to drawing and other visual arts, I love to make beads. I have made paper beads, beaded beads, cloth beads...the list goes on and on. My favorite, and the one I always come back to is polymer clay. I mentioned in an earlier post of my new book by Linda Peterson. I finally got my studio cleaned up (which included sanding all the glues and gunk off of my table) and got everything clean and prepared to "go polymer". After several false starts, I got the hang of making a "bone" clay and proceeded with the following projects from the book.

This first one using the layered bone clay, has been rubber-stamped, baked and then painted with burnt umber acrylic. When paint is completely dry, you sand ( I always wet sand with automotive sand paper) to reveal the design from the stamp, which leaves the paint in the grooves. After using the same clay to make accent beads and using gloss varnish on all the elements, I put together this little piece.




Using the same bone clay, I made a large focal bead in the style of Karen (Klew) Lewis. This is a bead I have wanted to try for some time, but hadn't found a tutorial. Linda's is simple and easy to do. The embellishments consist of various canes that I already had made, and some metal eyelets pressed into the uncured clay (my contribution). After baking, once again I used the burnt umber and then wet sanded, the remaining paint makes it look more organic. I tried to show both sides of the bead here...




I'm sure this bead is bound to appear in many different variations on my work table. I have all kinds of ideas for drum beads. Hope you like them.

Sorry for the quality of these picture, my photo program has a mind of it's own. I hope I figure out the best way to photograph these beads, as that's probably really the issue. I noticed that my friend Michelle has a neat little set up to photograph her lampworked beads. Maybe I need to do something like that. I am sure you folks have all kinds of tricks about photographing your art. Please feel free to share, I'm all ears.

Well, that's all for now, I need to go take it easy for a while. I worked myself into a froth with the photo program, urggggh.

Hope everyone is having a great week. I am thinking about "hermitizing" myself this week and maybe getting some more beads done. Other than groceries, I have no need to leave the house...sounds like a good plan. Well, gang, have fun, create lots of art and hug the next person you see. (that's assuming you aren't at the library reading this).

Don't forget, I read your blogs all the time. I don't always make time to comment, but I'm out here supporting you all the way. Keep up the good work. Until then, take care.