Sydney/Perth Workshop Examples

These are some different colours and finishes I've been playing around with as examples for the upcoming workshops I'm teaching in Perth and Sydney. I've also used silver leaf instead of gold for a change. The spirals (made from scraps left on the table) and pillow beads are finished with fimo gloss and the pendants and tiles are finished with Lisa Pavelkas Magic Glos which is more like a resin.

"Praying for Nature" wheel beads

Inspired by the beautiful BVLGARI tubogas technique and those fabulous tibetan prayer wheels... the middle ring moves around freely. I love the deeply etched stamps and home made textures I used to create these beads and couldn't resist the play on words...nature needs all the help we can give it if the planet is to survive...
Strung on magnetic clasped steel cable threaded with softglass and pewter daisy-like beads. These are keepers!

Aussie Hearts

Called aussie hearts because these colours are so aussie, they mimic the colours of the traditional aboriginal paintings with those delicious rich hues...
Using Premo polymer clay and Kathi's fabulous brain cane tutorial (three cheers to Kathi!). That tute is a little ripper!
What I like about the brain cane is that it's great for heart and other shapes because it doesn't mind being distorted like a geometric pattern would, in fact, a little tweeking here and there makes it even more interesting. Go on, try it! You know you want to...:)
It's been a real 'heart' focus for me this month. Our jewellery collective Hammer and Hand, is holding a 'hearts and witches' night and exhibition for friday the 13th of Feb, the evening before Valentines day. We're all making pieces to suit the theme. These (and the pmc hearts of the previous post) are my heart contribution, they will be for sale on the night. For the 'witches' side of the theme, I'm attempting a broomstick in silver metal clay. A very talented Lisa Moody from SA made one a few years back and I just loved it. I'm halfway making one of my own, am using a gnarly stick for the handle, yet to work out the brush part...

Heartscapes

Lets start the new year off with hearts. I'm calling these silver clay hearts "Heartscapes". They mimic my own heart, patterned with life's ouchies, big and small, in fact, made more beautiful for it all, so long as one stays open.........

Polymer and PMC pendants

More ideas for a polymer and pmc workshop I want to teach. Pendants painted with metallic acrylic paints and covered with translucent. The rectangular one has a strip of gold leaf sandwiched between translucent..and a window of arnold grummer flakes mixed with liquid clay. And for that touch of class, I added hand made pmc bails and garnets set in pmc...

Hammer and Hand

I've joined a jewellery artists collective called Hammer and Hand in Byron Bay. The way it works is that each of the seven artists display their jewellery ( gold, silver, stainless steel, pmc, polymer clay, glass) in a shop which is a part of the new Byron Artists Trail and give one day of their time to man it. There's a jewellery bench for us to work from while we're there and I believe cappuchinos can be delivered! Heaven on a stick for this little hermit who hardly gets out into the big wide world.
As luck would have it, I join them just days before the opening of the new Byron Artists Trail...which is on Friday this week. If you're in the area, pop in for a drink and nibbles anytime after 5...or come any time, we're open 7 days a week, I'm there every Tuesday, come and watch me play with clay!
Hammer and Hand at
1/4 Ti-Tree Place, Arts and Industries Centre

http://www.byronartisttrail.com/

Experimenting...

These pieces are not finished. I probably won't finish them as they've both got a terrible case of the moonies. I suspect the paint's moisture content is the problem although I made sure they dried thoroughly overnight. I've used Stuart Gills Byzantia acrylic metallic paints before underneath Premo Frost with good results...so I was disappointed to find moonies develop this time. Such a pity because I love how the rest of it has come together. Oh well, back to the clay table!
ps I do like the opal effects from the Arnold Grummer flakes, seems the best way to deal with these are to mix them with liquid clay and bake a thin layer directly on a tile...comes up a treat!
Edited to add: It just dawned on me what's causing the moonies...it's been raining here non stop for the past two days in our semi tropic climate...might have to put off using translucents for when the sun is shining!

Metal clay focal toggle clasp

Here's something different for me. Not the green...we all know I love green...but I've never made a large focal toggle clasp before and rather like the way this came together. Thanks to Ann for the idea! Don't you love how arty people share ideas and learn from each other. That leaf charm is a sage leaf...a leaf I had read wouldn't take the PMC paste well. Ha! Just goes to show you not to be put off by what you read. I've thrown it together with some green turquoise and freshwater pearls. Remind me to take a proper beading class. I've no idea how to use thread, I've always wired my necklaces with a really ultra flexible wire but only for simple necklaces like this. The instant I want soft dangley bits and additional loops of pearls, I'm in trouble cos the wire doesn't cut it. So it's off to a beading and knot tying class in 2009! Good heavens, that's only about 6 weeks away! Whoosh! What a year!

Now is the time to smell the flowers!

It's very weird...I hear all this stuff on the news and see all the red arrows on the stock market...the media is having an absolute field day with all the hype that everyone is listening to and clucking about...and yet...my own world doesn't reflect this. I'm still in my studio almost every day creating or sharing what I know. I'm still watering the garden and picking flowers. I'm still taking the dog to the beach a few times a week. The sun still rises like the big beautiful orb that it is. Sure, my teaching diary isn't as full as it was...and I can't go to all the workshops I want either. I'm drinking $8 wine and growing vegies. If money gets really tight, as it's done before and not necessarily because of the 'market', then who cares that I can't have that holiday or buy those Berkies I want. I don't. I still have me...cuddles with my dog...artful adventures... flowers...friends... endless love, creativity, abundance everywhere I look. My tummy is full, my heart is open...and as luck would have it, I have enough clay and equipment to last me well into next year...
When the goddess gives you lemons, you make lemonade. When business is quiet, we all get to stop and chill for a while...a pity it took economic distaster to get us to slow down, but there ya go! That's often how it is. I'm sure you'll all agree that now is the time to get creative...in our work and in living our lives. I love how Christine Kane puts it..."Being creative at it's deepest level means that you're a creator, not a reactor, that your life is your work of art, that you get to choose what to put in it."
If business is slow, then NOW is the time to write tutorials for mags...to attempt those projects you never had time for...to learn new skills...to start a blog/journal/write a book on claying and creativity...to approach those summer schools/colleges/vacation care and aged care places regarding teaching workshops...to do demos at markets/fairs/sidewalks/exhibitions...
Life is what you make it. Always was. This is simply just another opportunity for you to shine. NOW is the time.
Kinara (friend pictured) doesn't miss a chance to smell the flowers...

Earrings from another time

I'm really enjoying the look of these, they look like earrings from another time, unearthed. I must get myself some gold wire, that's what lets these down, they need gold ear hooks.

Keum-boo

While in Sydney, I had the opportunity to learn Keum-boo from Roz Eberhart at Eclectic Studio. Oh my! I was instantly hooked.
I can envisage many happy hours ahead immersed in golden goodness! I particularly like it for when I'm going for a really ancient feeling piece which I think these little experiments have highlighted well. I want to make little boxes now!

Fun and the 'follow this blog' button

I had to provide a few pics for an article in Australian Beading mag and didn’t have any high res shots of me teaching so my next door neighbour obliged in ‘being the student’. This isn’t a very ‘professional’ shot so it didn’t make the magazine but I love it for the fun value.

Try the new 'follow this blog' button starting to creep in on many blogs. I just added a button to my blog (under aussiepolclyers sign)

It's a new feature that allows you to let the bloggers you follow know that you are a fan. As a follower to my blog, it also ensures you get linked! Neat eh! For more info:

FOLLOW ME

Possible Grafton Artfest projects

I live in a beautiful part of Australia and am surrounded by trees...60 acres of forest at our back door. And where there are trees, there are birds. These metal clay pieces have been inspired by my love of nature. They make my heart glad...
These will make great projects to teach at the Grafton Artfest in Spring 2009. I'm very fond of the copper look patina. I also had a chance to try out pre-made fine silver tube bails for pendants (see back of tree goodess pendant) that I bought from the Eclectic Studio ....very handy indeed! And that gorgeous ginkgo leaf is pasted pmc on a dried gingko leaf...one Pam Annesley found for me at the Sydney Botanical gardens. You're s'posed to paste over fresh leaves but none of them survived the trip home so I'm thrilled that this one on a dried leaf was successful.

CCIP conference 2008

We've just had our first CCIP retreat/conference in Sydney. It was just fabulous to meet all the students who have gained certification over the past year and to reconnect with all the senior instructors from the various states in Australia. My old friend Pam Annesley was there bearing gifts! She had recently been to the USA and had done a workshop with Klew. She knew how inspirational Klews drum beads were to my early days with polymer and so she brought me back a bead!
The CCIP conference was a huge success with demos given by all the senior instructors i.e. bronze clay, flexible pmc, scultping, mosaics, colour blending, use of core adaptors with Makins extruders...something for every taste! Many of the students submitted pieces for the competition we ran and honestly, it was such a joy to see such a huge array of original art and so beautifully finished. For me that was the highlight. To see that they have all adopted a really professional attitude to finishing...makes me proud to be a part of this team and gives me hope that these 'contemporary clays' will become as much a part of the Australian art scene as it has in America.
I hope to show you pics of some of these pieces but am waiting on names to link to them. In the meantime, I've been claying myself...those pics to follow shortly...

Sydney Botanical Garden Inspiration

This little blogger has been too busy teaching and travelling this last month and the few pieces I'm working on in fits and starts haven't been finished so by way of apology I have some inspirational pics I took at the Sydney Botanical Gardens while there for our first CCIP conference/retreat (which by the way was a fabulous success!...more on that later in the week).
The pic directly above looks like giant bok choy doesn't it? And how do like those carnivorous beauties in the hanging basket? My particular favorite was the reb bamboo...I wanna plant some of those in my own garden...that red is so striking. And don't you think that sculpture would be fabulous in silver clay syringe or flexible clay ropes...? In miniture ofcourse.
After today's teaching little ones at Mullumbimby school vacation care, I am a free bird till sometime next week so I'll be claying my little heart out. Am soooo psyched to be finally getting some ME time! Have a heap of new things I want to try. Back soon...pwomise!

Endless Mokume Gane...translucent this time!

Ok, so I finally figured out a way to get maximum silver leaf effect under layers of spectral coloured translucent clay...and wrote a tutorial about it for Australain Beading. It won't be published for a while but I'll give you the heads up when it is.

The mokume gane journey continues

Remember these colours? These are made from the same mokume gane stack I used to make the workshop piece earlier. Since the workshop is aimed at beginners I didn't want to get to complicated but add a template you designed yourself and a layer of translucent and some delicious fibres and some end beads to finish...and this is what you get. I'm also rather partial to the pin.

Mokume Gane: The next level

One of my regular workshop participants, Hector Vera, commented he wanted to take his mokume gane skills to the next level, saying he loved the work of Ann Dillon and could I teach him how to make a similar looking mokume gane. I so love a challenge, esp if its focus is on one of my favorite polymer clay techniques. So, in true Melly fashion, I experimented with different layering techniques and different finishing techniques till I got it just right. When Hector came for his workshop, I was able to show him the different results I got using varying thickness of layering and methods of finishing...and we forged ahead and these are his fabulous results. You really get to see the gorgeous crackled leaf better if you click on the pic for a larger view.

Mokume Gane and Transfer workshop

Here are some workshop examples I taught this week. Mokume gane is originally a metal smithing technique that can be used with polymer clay. Multiple (thin) layers of different coloured clay impressed with objects then shaved, revealing the glorious mystery of colours underneath. This is a really popular technique with my students as are methods of transferring graphics onto clay and creating stylish pendants like this one...

The Fabulous Redheads

Greer, Gill and me (right to left) on a Saturday polymer clay adventure! Greer turned out to be one of the naughtiest students I've had! Who would have thought? (big grin) And Gill was her usual inquistive creative whole-hearted dive right in there self! I had a ball with these two gorgeous redheads.