The simple set-up for my picture taking

Here is my photo bin set-up:

Taking proper pics ain't easy

Learning to take proper pics isn't easy. I thought it was, but being forever picky and not wanting to spend eons in a photoshop program, lol, welllll...
First I built one of those cardboard photo boxes. That didn't last because the paper inside kept getting crumpled. I looked at professional light boxes online, but spending more than a $100 bucks wasn't very appealing. So I finally bought one of those large clear frosted tote bins and some posterboard to line the inside, all for $12 bucks. I already have 3 daylight lamps for working. They aren't all the same, but they work. I had to fiddle with the exposure level in the camera. First tried EV-.3 and white balance for indoors. Awful! Everything had a blue tinge and very dark, even with all the lights. Finally worked myself up to a EV+1.0 and white balance on Auto. Much better.


Can't decide whether I like the EV+1.0 or +1.3 which is even brighter....What do you think?

Finished Pieces

This morning my relatives left after a week of visiting. It was hectic with a lot of cooking and outings. We had relatively good weather for this area and it only began pouring again yesterday, so we stayed indoors and I showed my niece how to make some flower necklaces. I also finished a few more pieces such as these ones which includes a couple of the imitative ceramic tiles that I had made a few days ago and also one of the faces:

Imitative Ceramics in Polymer Clay

Hubby says to me this morning:"Why would you want to make imitate ceramics with polymer clay when its so cheap?!" Wellll...I don't have a good answer for that except that I wanted to try a nice glaze on my face cabochons for beadwork and I don't have a kiln (which IS expensive). I used pinata inks mixed into liquid Kato Polyclay. I dabbed on a little mica powder onto the faces, then coloured 'glaze', then baked and gave the pieces a glossier finish with Fimo Varnish. The effect is a little dimensional and I'm pleased with the result. I only did a scan here and scans aren't showing dimensionality too well...I guess I should get out my camera.

Inspiring Polymer Clay Artists on the WWW

Blogs seem to be the link that binds artists together. Do a google for "polymer clay Artists" you get 1,130,000 results! For singular 'polymer clay artist' and you get 249,000 results and for "polymer clay blogs' there are a staggering 71,600! Not surprising, Polymer Clay Daily is #1 and is the most popular blog among us. I was, however, more than a little surprised to find myself on the 5th page between the 41st-50th result, quite interesting since I'm a newbie! Feels kinda good, I tell 'ya! :)
I was curious WHO is out there in the blog world and found some interesting Europeans. Just a few listed here that I thought are interesting and have a lot to offer:

Here is a neat tutorial for an Eye Cane by Kerstin (sorry Kerstin....you don't tell us your last name!). She kindly grants permission to link to her tutorial pages. Kerstin has some other interesting tutorials such as a snowflake cane and sanding lentil halves and gives instructions in both German and English!
Another wonderful artist is Naama Zamir who lives in Israel. Beautiful, beautiful cane work and also lots of tutorials on her pages which are both in Hebrew and English.

Need to keep an eye out ;-)....there are so many wonderful artists to visit....what a lovely thing to do on a rainy afternoon!

Then there is Parole de Pate who teaches us how to MICROWAVE polymer clay! UPDATE!! BTW...microwaving clay does NOT properly fuse polymer clay. An oven and thermometer is still the recommended method. Many, many wonderful tutorials and work on their blog though. Too bad my time ran out, I need to go cook dinner now!

More Triangle beads

Made some more mokume gane, translucent with red pinata, gold leaf, copperleaf. Made some triangular beads and carved them a bit after baking and giving them a bit of antiquing.

I love Pinata Inks

I simply love Pinata Alcohol Inks! They work so well with Polymer clay. Here are a couple of pieces I made by using Pearl Premo clay as the base. Drop random spots of the inks, using a brush to spread, leaving spots of the white pearl. I used small amounts of rubbing alcohol to give a sunflowering effect on the surface. Let it dry and run through 2 successively smaller settings of the Pasta machine, just as you would with a sheet of clay that is covered with gold/copper leafing. It will give a slight crackling effect and the mica of the pearl will add to the chatoyant effect. I use Fimo Varnish to protect after baking.
I've linked my a recent tutorial on here that I posted in the 'future' from this one...in case anyone wants to see....