New Directions in Polymer Clay

I've been continuing to explore new techniques and new ways to cover eggs with polymer clay. I have literally taken my eggs in a new direction by orienting my egg shaped vessels vertically instead of horizontally like my first several eggs. This results in greater storage area within the egg and the vertical presentation is so effective in my opinion. One aspect of this presentation is a stand is needed now matter how well the egg is balanced. I just used a crystal napkin ring I picked up at a flea market for the photos and will eventually create stands for them from polymer clay.

I have also been playing with alcohol inks as a color medium and love the effects. With the alcohol inks you get a lovely transparent color, as opposed to acrylic paint which even thinned does not equal the saturation when trying for a transparent effect.

Both of the eggs pictured started out as pure white with color added using alcohol ink and in the case of the faux turquoise egg some black acrylic paint. The transparency of color seems to give the textured egg an appearance of glazed ceramic, and the darker one an extra glassy finish as there is some depth to the color.

The pendant I just finished uses the drilling technique perfected by Geffery Lloyd Dever which I learned from a tutorial in "The Art of Polymer Clay" by Katherine Duncan Aimone, and another in the March 2008 issue of "Art Jewelry" an magazine often featuring tutorials by leading polymer clay artists as well tutorials on creating fine jewelry from precious metals and gemstones.
My bead has some holes that ended up too large on one side but the larger opening allows for seeing into the object and opens up possibilities for adding elements to the hollow interior. I consider this piece to be wearable by me but I can see where my work needs refinement and continually try to accomplish this.

I've been playing with large hollow formed, drilled beads off and on for a while now and love the effects of layering colors and then drilling to reveal the under layers. This bead also features translucent overlay canes which are covered in Donna Kato's book "The Art of Polymer Clay Millefiori Techniques". I've come across this technique in some of my other reading as well. I read extensively on Polymer Clay and love learning new ways to work with it. I plan to continue on adding interest to polymer clay by texturing, drilling and also carving and backfilling, which I have yet to explore.