First Explorations Into Faux Dichroic Glass

I have been wanting to try Faux Dichroic Glass ever since I started working in polymer clay and I did make one very early attempt using multicolored metallic leaf but wasn't really impressed with the results. Ever since then I have been looking for fabric foils and yes, I could and probably should have just mail ordered them but never did. So at Christmas when I saw that one of our local crafts stores had fabric foils for silk screen, I decided to buy a pack and try them out. I watched a DIY show by Fiskars with Lisa Pavelka demonstrating this technique and set off to my studio to try it out.

Evidently the type of foil she was using is not the same. The instructions are to roll out your clay on the pasta machine, set the foil shiny side up, smooth out all the air bubbles, burnish with a folded piece of paper to build up the heat necessary to release the foil from the mylar backing, rip the backing off sideways, and voila! Well, I didn't get any voila! I tried and tried. I read the similar instructions in one of my books. The book, an encyclopedia of polymer clay techniques, said that some colors of foil won't release and it is a trial and error thing. In desperation I read the instructions for using the foil on fabric. It said that you have to iron on the foil for 30 minutes to get it to release. Ahah!

Out with the trusty heat gun. I tried a few passes and combined it with the folded paper burnishing since I didn't want to cook the clay. No dice. So I rolled out a much thinner sheet on a #4 setting on my pasta machine since it was all too apparent that I would have to use the heat gun and in the process cook the clay, at least on the surface. This time I had much better results. Most of the foil released from the mylar. The clay was definitely cooked on the top, so I could not experiment with texture sheets as I had seen in the video. I decided to cut strips and shapes out of the colored clay and arrange them on some unbaked clay hearts.

For the first heart, I combined the foiled clay shapes with aurora borealis mica and some turquoise colored mica flakes, glittered embossing powder and Amazing Glaze. I had some trouble getting an even coating of resin on the surfaces. The hearts are in reverse order because I have issues with arranging photos on this blog! The first one is at the bottom and the fourth is at the top!

For the second heart, I left out the mica particles. The second heart is the second single heart from the bottom up. I had better results with the resin. On the third and fourth hearts, I had a small epiphany. When using the heat gun you reach a point where the entire surface of the Amazing Glaze and embossing powder is liquified. If you can immediately apply more powder, it melts itself a little to the very hot surface and is easier to keep from blowing off when you apply the heat gun. So my last two surfaces didn't take as long and were smoother, too. On my third heart, I started with a heart shape from the foiled clay and then added pieces on top of it. I didn't add any glitter embossing powder until the very last layer of Amazing Glaze. The fourth heart turned out the smoothest because I embedded the pieces of foiled clay into the raw clay heart before I began. Once more I didn't add the glitter embossing powder until the final coat. The third and fourth hearts are the next to the top and top photos.

There will be more explorations in this area, now that I have some experience with the heat gun and the powdered glaze and the foil. Trying new techniques involves a learning curve and can take quite a bit of time while one discovers the ins and outs of new materials and new tools. This was a very rewarding exploration and my boyfriend Jim made it even better when I brought the results down for him to see! His eyes got wider and he told me they were really impressive! I like them, too! Now I have to decide how to finish them--do I want frames? Should the frames be wire or metallic clay? I will post the photos of the final results once they are complete.

Rorschach Hearts

I have been making Natasha beads for years, but recently stumbled upon a tutorial called Elissahearts by Elissa Powell, which detailed how to use this technique for creating one of a kind heart shaped jewelry. I took that technique and changed it slightly, since that tutorial calls for molding your heart in a 3 d heart mold and I didn't have one--actually I later found that I did but I like my clay cutter heart shape better with a flat surface front and back, because I wanted to add to the design. I further changed the technique by adding decorative frames to the hearts and making them look more decorative.

Here's the process: Take different colors of clay--scraps are fine. Include some cane pieces if you have them, because it will increase the complexity of the design. Twist the colors together and try to have contrasting colors adjacent to each other for more impact. Once you have twisted them all together, roll them into a ball and then further refine the shape into a teardrop shape. Slightly flatten the front and back of the tear drop with the heel of your hand. Cut through the center of the teardrop with your clay blade, open it up and make the inner cut surfaces the new face of your heart. You have two possibilities here and I would try positioning the two heart halves with the two different mirror image edges together to see which one you like best. If you don't like the design, simply push the two halves back together, twist, and shape and cut again until you get something you like. If it gets too muddy, add more clay. Try to get your mirror images to line up perfectly and then put a little baby powder on your finger and smoothe out the seam.

Some of the accidental pictures that you get with this technique are pretty startling. My favorite so far is the face that appeared on a heart I used on a Christmas ornament, which is pictured here.

Now for the frames: I condition a sheet of metallic clay on #1 setting on the pasta machine and select a texture sheet to use for the back of the frame. I apply baby powder to the texture sheet and thump the back of it to remove the excess (and yes, my workspace floor is a little dusty right now from this activity!) and then lay the clay sheet on the work surface, apply the texture sheet and press it down and then use my roller to further impress the design into the clay. I then take my raw heart and lay gently on the texturized sheet and cut around the heart leaving about a 1/8 inch margin on all sides. I use a knitting needle to smoothe the edges of the texturized sheet against the sides of the heart. Next, I take the scraps left over from the texturized sheet, and roll and roll them into a cylinder until I get a nice tight cylinder with no air bubbles and place this in my extruder gun and extrude a triangle shaped snake which I can then coil into a decorative border for my frame. Once I get the border evenly twisted, I lay it gently around the heart to determine where to cut the two edges to get it to match up for a perfect fit around the edge of the frame. I smoothe it gently against the edge of the heart and the textured frame piece and hold it up to the light to make sure I have a good seal all the way around. I then take another slice of the twisted snake to make the bail for the pendant. I slice the ends diagonally for a nice fit against the front and back of the pendant. I smoothe in place with my knitting needle tool, add my initials and the date to the back of the piece, twist the bail slightly (this is just my preference) and we are ready to bake!

Because the frame is texturized, mica powders can be added for additional interest, and when you sand the finished, baked pendant, only the stamped depressions in the clay will retain the mica powder finish. I have included a photo of a pendant frame using Pearlex powder. This frame technique also lends itself well to mica shift, because you are using metallic clay and a texture sheet which re-aligns the mica particles in the clay. My most successful use of mica shift with these hearts so far was on a piece that I impressed and then went over gently with a roller to reduce the amount of relief between the raised and depressed areas. By doing this step, I was able to just sand away the raised portion after baking and got a very nice ghost image which is also pictured here. It is the top right photo.

Kaleidoscope Cane Extravaganza--Thank you, Sarah Shriver!

I am so grateful to Sarah Shriver for her wonderful instructional dvd

on her very complicated and intricate technique for designing kaleidoscope canes in polymer clay. She has really saved a lot of people a lot of time and frustration by making this information available in such an entertaining and easy to follow format.

This is not to say that I had perfect success with my first attempt at creating one of these canes! My first cane was far from perfect--I left out the very important dark strip of clay that creates the illusion of the cane weaving over and under itself. Even though I left out this very important step, I still came out with some very interesting and attractive pieces in gold and violet. The other difference in my canes was due to my choice of materials. Sarah uses Fimo. I decided to use Premo and I also added in equal portions of pearl and translucent clay because I like the depth and the glasslike qualities that these additions impart to the clay.

I went back and reviewed Sarah's instructions after this first attempt so that I could see where I had failed to follow her instructions. Once I understood the process a little better, I tried again. This time I made blue and pale gold canes and these were much closer to Sarah's instructions. The canes made some beautiful Christmas ornaments and a bangle bracelet. My third attempt was in red and gold. I wanted to mix up a Christmas red for the holiday season. I believe I came close, although there is not as much value contrast in this third cane due to the tendency of the red clay to bleed into the other adjacent clay. This third batch of canes made some very nice earrings, bangle bracelets, and rings.

There will be a second installment of this blog after I watch Sarah's instructions once more on the even more complicated canes that can be derived from this process which in Sarah's words, paraphrased are "infinite and limitless."

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My Pet Bracelets

I have been exploring bracelet construction for about a month now and happened upon the sculpture booklets by Katherine Dewey. She had some ideas for animal cuffs in one of her manuals and it occurred to me that lizards and salamanders would adapt themselves very well to a bracelet that swirls around the arm since these animals like to climb.

My first pet bracelet was a translucent green gecko with mokume gane strips for the skin overlay and seed beads for the suction cups on his toes. I loved the way he turned out, except that his armature was memory wire and I was afraid that someone might bend his tail too far back and accidentally break him, so the search was on for a less flexible armature.

I decided to visit the hardware store to see what kind of wire was available there, thinking that I might pay less than I would at a craft store. You should have seen the face of the man in the electrical section when I explained to him what I planned to do with the wire! "Oh, I'm looking for some wire to use in some bracelets that I'm making!" I need to take the bracelets back to show him some day.

I decided on aluminum clad electrical wiring and brought a box of it home. It is about 1/4 inch in diameter. I decided that this would make a nice backbone. I had planned to remove the wire and just use the aluminum cladding but it is too flexible without the wire so I replaced the wire and worried a little about the plastic coating on the wire, but not too much. So far, cooking at 275 degrees I have not smelled any burning or noticed any other ill effects and this does make a nice semi-rigid armature with just enough give for a bracelet cuff. Of course, the resulting lizard is quite a bit bigger! This second lizard was modeled on a day gecko. Their skin ranges from green at the head to blue at the tail so I made a Skinner blend of sea green and ultramarine blue Premo, mixed with some Pearl and Translucent Clay--33% Pearl, 33% Translucent and 33% color, because I like the metallic effect and the depth that adding the translucent gives the clay.

I used vintage glass foil beads for the eyes and mixed up a mokume gane bullseye cane using multicolored metal leaf in the translucent to wrap the skinner blend to use as scales down the back of the gecko. One photo above shows both lizards so that you can compare their sizes and construction.

The third lizard used the same aluminum clad armature but this time I used the Northern Red Salamander as inspiration. I was surprised to find out that these salamanders have four toes in the front and five in the back. Isn't nature amazing in its variety? I used a mix of neon pink and a red and gold clay mixture with a lot of translucent for the skin to try to capture that wet, translucent look that salamanders have and I made up some tiny bullseye canes with inner cores of skinner blend going from brown to gold wrapped in some of the red gold clay with a final wrap in translucent with metal leaf just for a little added sparkle.

I received lots of compliments on all three lizards, but several people said that they really liked the smallest of the three because they would never wear "big" jewelry. So I began exploring other possibilities for the armature. I visited an art gallery and the manager there was very helpful and suggested that I look for moldable pvc at the art supply store. I found some very nice round tubes about the same circumference as coffee stirrers, but about 12 1/2 or 13 inches long. The man at the art gallery suggested that I use a heat gun to work with them and I tried this, but I think I misunderstood. The tubes are flexible so I had already bent the tube in to shape and when I applied the heat they straightened right back out as if I had never touched them!

This was a good lesson, though, because now I knew that I would need to find a way to secure them in a curved position while baking the clay. Luckily I had some very thin copper wire covered in silver plate that I had been unable to use for jewelry making and it was perfect! I thread the wire through the curved armature and twist the wire together, leaving about 1/2 inch of free wire on each side before the twist. This means that when the bracelet is complete, I can remove the wire--it slides right out! It does leave two tiny holes in the clay at the mouth and the tail but these are easy to patch with a tiny dab of clay and you can sand away any telltale signs of the addition.

I suppose you could leave the holes in place if you wanted a lizard that drinks and wets--just kidding! There were some very successful baby dolls with this feature when I was growing up. Anyway, my latest attempt is the baby dragon bracelet that I made using this method. I decided to make her skin and wings out of some kaleidoscope canes that I have been learning to make since she is a fantasy creature and I named her "Mariposa" which is butterfly in Spanish, because her wings remind me of a butterfly.

These bracelets and more like them are available at my Etsy shop: Blessedbeadjewelry.etsy.com