Making of lotus pond

This post is for those who were interested in knowing how the necklace "Lotus pond" was put together.

This is my own design.  This took lot a of time to draw (I know it is simple but I took time) and decide the color combination.  I was just new to the polymer clay medium at that time, around one and a half year ago.  I was so apprehensive about how everything will turn out to be and so on. Especially the baking part of it is very tricky.  I have burnt a tons of them and also under-baked so many of my jewelry.  Let me get to the point.

Assuming the lotus is what is of interest, I have explained how I went about.

I have used gold, translucent and alzerian crimson (the middle one) colored clay from Sculpey.

To get the color of the lotus flower. Color recipe:  Mix 2 parts of translucent clay with 1/4 part of alzerian crimson and you will get this.  It will look opaque but once you bake it the alluring color evolves.

Mixing the above mentioned colors of clay and roll it out to a plug.  

Slice the plug so that you get nice circle shaped pieces and fold it to a petal shape.

Take a small blob of gold clay, it need not necessarily be gold, it can also be the color of the base of the necklace.

Arrange the petal shaped clay on the gold block in a circle.

You may bake the flower at this juncture and then do the second inner layer.  Or if you are comfortable to put another layer, you can finish the flower and bake it once for all.

Now make a thinner plug for the smaller petals of the inner circle.

Repeat the above steps 

slicing circle shaped pieces and making smaller petals.

arrange the inner layer of petals and make a small ball of gold and place it in the center and use any tool which can give  neat dents to the clay so that it will look like the stigma.

Now the baking part of it.  Bake it as per the instruction on the packet of the clay you are using.  This is baked at 130 degree Celcius for about an hour because I have used Sculpey brand.  I bake all my projects for an whole hour at the specified baking temperature.  Before baking this kind of 3D projects, you may want to take some precautions.  You have to prop them with aluminium foil, or embed them in corn starch or such things.  This one I have propped with aluminium foil.  

Grab some foil from your kitchen and make a small cup with it. 

And place the flower into it.

And of course do not forget to keep the project closed while baking.  If not, it may discolor the piece.  You can stick the baked flower into your unbaked base and add buds, leaves and more flowers as you may please :)  This flower was just pressed in to raw clay and it will just stay put when baked.  If you wish, may add a tad bit of Sculpey bake and bond so it stays secure and no doubt about it coming off on you.

Behind the scene:  I had no pictures of making this flowers at all with me.  I had to redo it, so it is not the same flower on the completed picture above.  Luckily, I had the mixed pink translucent clay in my stash box, it had attracted a lot of dirt in the meanwhile, that is the reason it looks dirty in the photos.

The other pictures of the necklace are the ones below

The lentil beads which went into the construction of the necklace. 

And the textured folded beads.  You can find lots of tutorials for the lentil beads and for the folded beads, I would recommend watching Helen Breil's video.

Beach

After the batik, I was emboldened to try something new on clay.  This color pallet comes from the sunset hues, it reminded me of the beach too.  I am very cautious when I take out my white clay out of the box - clean my hands, clean the surface, switch of the fan and so on.  For that madness, I will think every possible way not to work with white :).  But once it was done I did not want to mush neatly rolled out clay and put it back and hence this piece.  I wanted to try something else than the usual stuff I end up doing.  The white made me think of my canvas and so I decided to paint on it and the result I loved.  Quickly rolled out some matching beads to go with it.  I will always forget to make earrings.  This does not have one and oh! it  already has a new owner who does not care much for an earring. BTW the painting is done with pastel chalk colors and alcohol ink and once again I realized painting is my realm.

I can bat(ik) too!..

Whew, I can also batik.  A technique which is so intriguing.  I keep staring and staring at the beautiful pieces made by people and then I realized it is each ones own imagination and not a fixed formula to create this.  So I had decided to do it on my own and no attending workshops or purchasing tutorials on this.  Of course many sleepless nights thinking of the way to go about.  Finally, I managed, not perfect, but something I felt somewhat close :).  But I failed to get the crackled effect.  I can improve, is it not? :) 

Black Silver

Playing with textures.  This is not with any texture plates but with some trinkets lying in my stash box and designed it to my liking.  A domed pendant with adjustable satin cords.  Each and every bead is textured , applying rustic style technique to give it an antique look. Earrings not yet done.  It is accentuated with crystal black beads. It took almost a month for me to decide the type of beads to go with this.  contemplating the type and color of beads to accompany this creation.

Mystic

A necklace and matching jhumka.  An idea springs from sometimes a flower, leaf, a scene, a shop, so many other weird things.  This was from a jewelry cord, even the necklace I call "forest" is also from the type of cord I picked up from the craft shop.  Anything I look at, I will think of using it for my clay projects.  Oh, when I talk about this, I remember I have completely forgotten about my old love, painting.  I have not touched a painting brush for such a long time but otherwise only to apply polish or mica powder on clay. In fact, the background I nowadays use to photograph my jewelry pieces is a burlap multimedia mounted canvas I got to paint some time back.  See what I am using it for now.  Find my paintings on my other blog Sketch Diary.

Coming back to my "Mystic" necklace - the name - i could not find any better name :), It is an adjustable necklace strung on rattail cord of the same fuchsia color.  The beads are handcrafted and the design on the necklace are simple cane. 

The jhumka is cone shaped ones.  This I think will keep it to myself.  

Fuchsia on Emerald

A disastrous project turned to be a beautiful piece.  The fuchsia colored clay is Fimo. After using Sculpey for almost all of my projects, I find the Fimo very crumbly to condition (I admit Fimo is best to do canes, very sturdy).  I was tiered conditioning it.  When I am irritated, to over come that I tend to do something intentionally wrong. This is an example, I rolled out the clay very thin and cut out small pieces and did some flowers on the emerald clay uneven and ugly.  Then I went on do something else and forgot about it.  The piece was missing and found it sticking to my long sleeve which had the texture and all the flowers pressed and embedded to the base clay, voila!, beautiful texture, good looking, did a pair of earring and did the edges with gold and it is sold out too :).  The necklace is strung on nylon cord, not adjustable.