Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Claypen fun every Thursday

Each week a group of us get together to play in the "Claypen" the creation of Jackie Sieben. For eight years clay artists have sent pictures to Jackie and she posts them into the clay pen. On Thursday we chat. The chat is a part of PCC Delphi forum. I am not sure how it works, only that it does and is a good time with like minded folks.

Occasionally Jackie will suggest a theme for the week.  This week's theme is "Translucent". Referring to a clay that, while not see-through, it will allow light to pass through if thin enough. The photos above left and right were shot on a sheet of vellum laid on an Ott light and photographed with my Android phone. The one on the left shows the earrings, a leaf, two paisley designs and a very thin pendant that allowed a lot of light to show through.  The one on the right is a close up of the pendant design. The black dots are opaque copper clay.

I used some old canes made of translucent clay to create all the designs. The lines and outlines are of opaque copper colored clay. Some of the translucent clay has been tinted with a bit of blue and red for very pale colors.

The photo to the right is of a number of designs created from the scraps. These will be baked and made into earrings or dangles.

The chevrons were cut and formed into a variety of shapes from a stack of layered clay.

The leaves are from a leaf cane and will have holes in them forming a pair of earrings each with three dangling leaves. I'll also add some tiny copper beads.
Left is the stack of canes that form the stained glass butterfly. The areas that appear to be white in both the butterfly cane and the samples to the right are Translucent Kato Clay. The center of the butterfly is a flattened leaf cane, see slices right, and added to the wings to make a 'body'.  After making the slice of the cane, opaque copper clay was rolled into tiny balls to for eyes and to secure the wings to the body.

Thanks Jackie for getting me started on this fun project. Pretty jewelry is in the works.

Penni Jo

2 comments:

Jackie said...

Thanks PJ for being such a faithful Claypen chatter! We sure have fun. I love the things you made for this week, they are SO translucently COOL! Pretty butterfly, especially. :)

Penni Jo AKA Claylady43 said...

Thanks so much Jackie! It has been fun 'meeting' the folks on the chat.
PJ