Of Cold Casting, Tentacles, and Conventions

Halfway through a very busy fall. Watch for more about what's been going on.

Clay Withdrawal

When I started my self-imposed vacation from all things clay I didn't realize I would go through sculpting withdrawal. I keep looking longingly at my supply of polymer clay. I know I need this break and time to focus on drawing an painting so I'm going to stick with it for the remaining 3 weeks. I am allowing myself one concession: I can work on sculpture and jewelry concepts as long as I'm only sketching ideas and not actually working with clay.

 In related news I started up a new blog on Tumblr that is only for my WIPs so I have a central place for posting them. Go check it out. I'll be posting progress shots of my work, 2d for now and sculpture and jewelry once the clay vacation is over along with notes on the process and answering questions if I get any.

I've finished a couple paintings and some more Bargue plates over the last week. The paintings are up in my Etsy shop.

Life at a Thermal Vent - 4"x4" acrylic painting on canvas board.

Orange Cuttlefish - 7"x5" watercolor

Bargue Plates 5-8

Clay Experiment and New Biz Cards

I had fun last night working with a new clay mix. I really love how it turned out. The mix is 1/4 block promo frost translucent clay, pinch of purple premo, healthy scoop of sparkle copper pearl ex (the larger sparkley pieces), and small amounts of misty lavender and true blue pearl ex.

I also just got some great brand new business cards that I ordered from Zazzle. I'm so happy with how they turned out. the quality of the printing is very nice.


I'm writing a review of Zazzle for the Handmade Business Blog tomorrow so keep an eye out for it.

Translucency Test

Now that I have some test cuttlefish with this new clay blend I needed to test just how translucent it really is. I'm very pleased with the results. Here's a photo of the cuttlefish pendant held up to a candle.

I eyeball amounts when mixing clay so this isn't exact but the mix is basically 1/4 of a 2oz package of premo frost, a pea size ball of white premo, a smidgen of blue premo (maybe 1/6 of the size of the ball of white). You want to add just enough white and blue to make the premo frost look whiter, it's normal color is a little beige or cream colored but much less so than normal translucent premo.

Next up is painting these cuttlefish. I need to be very careful to only slightly tint them with paint and pearlex, I don't want to hide the translucency at all. I'll probably wait until after my new beads arrive to start painting because I want to be able to compliment the bead colors nicely.

Can't Make Up My Mind

I bought some really pretty glass beads last weekend, lavender briolettes (teardrop shaped with a hole through the point) and oblong frosted clear beads. I put them together with some clear size 6 seed beads, those are the larger of the two common sizes, on my bead board into a very pretty necklace design. I also made wire-wrapped dangles with 3 of the briolettes, 2 are for earrings. The third is where my problem comes in, I want to sculpt a central pendant with that briolette hanging from the bottom.

I have no idea what to sculpt! I'm totally drawing a blank, about all I've decided is that it should be in the same general color palette as the beads. This is a very different design in color and mood than what I normally do so it's really frustrating me, flowers come to mind but so many designs use flowers.

Gearing Up for the Holidays

I'm working on new stuff for the holidays, mostly jewelry, some ornaments, and small sculpture. What would you like to see more of?

I don't know if I've announced this before but if you wish your order to be gift wrapped just tell me so in the notes when you order or drop me an email right after ordering to let me know. Please don't wait long, I'm likely to have already packaged it up and shipped it. I can also include a card if you let me know what you'd like to be written on it.

Been Busy This Week

When I'm stressed I work even more than usual, it gets my mind off things. My uncle is in the hospital and this are just generally awful with that. So this week I did quite a bit of work.

First some jewelry stuff. Here's the list:

• Green Trilobite Necklace
  
• Blue Trilobite Necklace
• Round Ammonite Pendant
• Teardrop Ammonite Pendant
• Blue Trilobite Earring Drops
• Green Trilobite Earring Drops
• 4 Watermelon Cuttlefish Earring Drops
• Watermelon Cuttlefish Pendant
• Jellyfish Earring Drops
  
• Faux Fossil Fern Pendant
• Wire Wrapped Faux Stone Pendant
  
• 8 little polymer clay cabochons
  

Second, I've been working on the sculpture commission some more and it still looks all rough and weird but it's coming together some more.

Brand New Jewelry

So I've been busy this week making jewelry. First are a brand new design I made using some new premo frost along with purple and yellow premo and some pearl ex pigments. They are tiny little jellyfish earrings and they are quite translucent and almost glow when back lit.

I also sculpted 10 cuttlefish pendants and 30 tiny cuttlefish for earrings (told you I was busy). Here are the first batch I've finished painting. If you notice there's onyl one pair of earrings, that's because I ran out of earring hooks and need to buy some more this week.

From left to right. Top row: Violet Cuttlefish Necklace, Watermelon Cuttlefish Necklace. Bottom row: Mechanical Cuttlefish Jewelry Set, Midnight Cuttlefish Necklace.

I also put together this little video of some of my cuttlefish jewelry. These are all slightly older ones since I did it before finishing these new ones.

Update on the Commissioned Sculpture

Here's a little update on my sculpture commission. This is the sort of messy, ugly looking stage that I hate showing but just wanted to show everyone reading that I haven't fallen off the face of the earth and have made progress on this sculpt.

The body and neck still need a lot more filling out and you can see that I've constructed the basic shape of the drapery. I've left a lot of room to be able to build up the folds, under a very thin layer of clay is some wireform mesh. I love that stuff, it's you've never tried it, wireform mesh is made by Amaco and is a very flexible fine aluminum mesh that you can cut and shape really easily (heavy duty scissors will do the trick). Great stuff for fabric, wings, and other thin areas that need support.

Started on New Commissioned Sculpture

So I've begun my latest commissioned sculpture, Mike is a wonderful client to work for since he really didn't specify anythign more than final cost and that he'd like a full figure (he already has a bust I created for him). Things are still very rough right now, only an armature but I have an idea where this is going to go. I ran across these gorgeous stock photos on DeviantArt by Lockstock while browsing for reference photos last week.

I'm going to be doing a combination of these two poses and all that lovely drapery, it's size is 1/8 scale (a little over 8 inches). Here's the armature, it's mostly aluminum wire though the weight bearing leg also has a piece of much stiffer steel wire reinforcing it and helping anchor it into the base.

It doesn't show that well in the photos but the fingers have some extremely fine beading wire wrapped aroudn the fingers and then secured with a little super glue. I always have trouble getting clay to stick well on fingers and when I saw this wire I thought it would be perfect, it's really not much thicker than a hair or piece of thread that's how fine it is. Since I'm going to be doing so much detailed drapery in this sculpture I made the arms so they can be removed, the head can also be removed to make working on it easier.

I used a little aluminum foil for bulking and then covered it all with Sculpey Ultralight which after baking is much more secure than just foil and I can write on it. You can see the center lines I drew on the chest and head as reminders of the positioning I want.

To support the drapery I'll be using some wireform mesh, it hasn't been added yet because I had to order more (probably won't arrive for at least another week, a few things are backordered) and I also think it might be easier to get some of the torso roughed in before adding the mesh.

Got a New Commission

So I received a sculpture commission this week from the same client who commissioned the Lionfish Mermaid. I want to do a full figure sculpt for him, it'll probably be about 6-8 inches high. Only problem is I have no idea what I'm going to sculpt right now. He doesn't want it until around Halloween so I have plenty of time (he lives in New Orleans and wants it shipped after hurricane season which is completely understandable). I've got a few ideas floating around in my head but nothing that has solidified yet into something I want to sculpt.

I have to say I've had such an amazing couple of weeks that I haven't really come down off it yet. A free plushy, art shows, an award, sales, and a commission. Also apparently there's a surprise in the mail for me from bdkz for being a giant squid on Squidoo.

Tentacle Bug WIP

Finished sculpting this little tentacled bug Monday night. It's sculpted from super sculpey and is about 2.5 inches long. Turned out kind of cute actually. He still needs to be painted and I want to make little terrarium of his "natural environment" as a display.

Rainbow and Sculpey Ultralight

So yesterday was one of those days when the weather just can't make up it's mind. It switched off and on between light rainshowers and sunshine. Now that's a perfect recipe for a rainbow and about 8 o-clock PM (yes, I am far enough north that the sun is still up at 8pm this time of year) I caught this one. I've tried taking photos of rainbows before usually without success but these photos came out quite nicely.

Now to something about sculpting. A few weeks ago I picked up a package of sculpey ultralight to try out for making armatures. There are just times when aluminum foil isn't the best choice for an armature. For example sometimes the foil can show through when using translucent clay, like on my cuttlefish pendants and permapets. I decided that for large armatures that what would probably work best is still to use aluminum foil and maybe cover it with ultralight when using transluscent clays (I wouldn't bother with opaque clays like my gray super sculpey mix unless I really needed to cut down on weight). I just realize one very useful benefit of this clay as an armature tonight, I can draw guide lines on it.

The downside of ultralight is that it's a little chalky and not as strong as other armature materials like axpoxie sculpt so I wouldn't use it to support weight, only for bulking out so I may not use if much for really large pieces. For things like my cuttlefish earrings where weight is a big consideration for the wearer's comfort it's perfect.

Writing About My Business

Not my personal business of course, I mean Noadi's Art and even more specifically how I do things. It's been a slow evolution for me to become really serious about my artwork as a business. First I just though if I get better at sculpting I'll make money, well that's not really how it works. There's so much more that goes into this that I didn't even imagine when I started a few years ago.

Marketing and branding my business were things I never even considered. I started this blog just as an easier way to keep people updated on what I'm doing than updating my main website all the time. Now I understand that blogging can be a big part of letting people know who I am and promoting my artwork.

It's getting into that time of year when art festivals start cropping up locally and I have to decide which ones to participate in and do a lot of preparation for it all. So all of these things have come together in a series of Squidoo lenses that I've been working on. Partly to help other people and partly as a reminder to myself of what I need to be doing. I hope you check them out and I really hope you learn a couple things.

Make you Handmade Products Stand Out!
Preparing for an Art or Craft Festival
Branding you Handmade Products

I will be participating in a few art festivals, still working out details on which ones but I'll let you know when I know.

Fire Dancer Sculpt WIP

I meant to post this last week but decided the photos I had taken weren't good enough. Life sort of got in the way of sculpting in the last week, one of my cats passed away and I had chicken and pheasant chicks arrive. Now I've got better photos to share so here they are, the first stage of my Fire Dancer sculpt.
If any of you have ever wondered how I make sculptures like Odin's Runesong, Selkie Emerging and the Fire Dancer balace the way they do I've written an article on it. You can check it out here: Building a Balancing Armature.

I've been a Busy Squid

I have an ever growing number of Squidoo sculpting tutorial lenses. Here's the current list, I hope you find them useful.

Polymer Clay Sculpting Tips and Techniques
Techniques for Curing Polymer Clay
Painting Polymer Clay Sculpture
Building Armatures for Polymer Clay Sculpture
Using Liquid Polymer Clay
Polymer Clay Sculpting Tools

And here are some miscellaneous lenses built to be useful for artists.

Taking Successful Photos of your Artwork
Resources for Figure Artists
Resources for Animal Artists

I've also been named a Squidoo Giant Squid which has really motivated me to want to create even more resources for sculptors and artists. So keep a look out here or on Squidoo for them.

Curse of the Turtle

I don't think I've ever had anyone say anything negative about my Hatching Turtle sculpture but it just won't sell. I've now had the fourth potential sale of my turtle fall through (yes, four separate people). It's really getting funny that people seem to like my turtle enough to want to buy it just not enough to follow through.

The first time I got really excited and actually packed up the little turtle ready to be shipped out and the buyer backed out. Second and third time I got excited but both people were from outside the US so I knew the shipping cost might be a little too much to be worth it. This last time I decided I wouldn't get excited until I recieved payment, which I haven't yet.

For now turtle has a place in my display cabinet and I'm starting to think he's cursed and will be living there forever.

So what happened to the Carnival of Sculpts?

Well it was supposed to be yesterday, but I only recieved one entry for the carnival. Obviously I'm a little disapointed but I hope that the reason I didn't get entries was that everyone is too busy sculpting to blog. I'll set up the carnival again for next month but if it also flops I'll have to discontinue it.

Now for that one entry: A. Lee presents How Is A Bronze Sculpture Made? posted at eArtFair.com.

If you've read this blog much you know that I can't mold or cast to save my life. I greatly admire anyone who can so it's pretty cool to read about how bronze is done.

Fun with Perma-Pets

I had a little fun with my Perma-Pets this weekend. I created a Squidoo lens about them in the style of old fashioned advertisements.

Perma-Pet Sculptures by Noadi's Art

Submit Posts to the Carnival of Sculpts

I'll be hosting a blog carnival starting this month for sculptors. Go to BlogCarnival for more information and how to submit your blog posts. It will be posted on the last Friday of every month, for April this will be the 25th (the submission deadline is the 23rd).

The carnival is open to any blog post about a sculptors finished work, works in progress, tutorials, or other interesting posts about your sculpting. Posts needs to be about your own sculpture not other artists work.