Sunday, October 31, 2010

What I Made Yesterday - Steampunk, Grannie Style


Here is a photo of my experiment in the studio yesterday. It started out from two separate needs.
First, I have gotten quite a few of those Cricut type dies for embossing because I hoped to use them for subtle texture but was not having the results I sought so I wanted to work on that. Second, after seeing all the photos David took, I was really, seriously unhappy with the edges on most of my aluminum armature cuffs. They look okay on the arm, but not good at all in the photos. Since one of my main goals is to promote polymer clay as a fine art, art jewelry material, I have to find a better, more visually pleasing way to do cuffs. And these reasons were why I was in the studio.
The first problem took multiple conditioning and set up but I finally got the embossing tools to work exactly as I had pictured when I purchased them. So now I had a piece of clay, roughly 6" x 8" with a steel & copper metallic colored subtle mica shift type pattern of gears and sprockets.
Now time to try the new covering technique I thought up. And it worked well I am happy to say. It is even easier and less time consuming than the other method. But the cuff was very plain. So I dipped into my supplies and found some of those Tim Holtz sprockets, gears and game spinner pieces he markets for paper and collage (told ya "if it doesn't run away, I'll try it with my clay" is my mantra). Still looked too plain.
My understanding of the steampunk look is to have the mechanics of a new industrial age with the romance of Victorian times. What is more romantic than pearls? Back to the supplies. Numerous pearls were tried and discarded. Originally I thought I wanted them to match on each side and then I remembered about "Pearlies". In Victorian times, these were street type performers who were known for having all sorts of pearl buttons (mother of pearl) sewn all over their clothing in a random fashion. Hence the name Pearlies. So now I was looking for two very different looking pearls. I was very happy to find one in my stash which echoed the coppery color I had mixed and to also find one with all those lines on it. Almost as if it had been given a machined edging. Perfect!
After getting my components together I put a couple of "aged to imperfection" marks on it and into the oven. No sanding on this one. The metallic clay gives it just enough sheen. Voila, subtle steampunk any Grannie can wear. Or a radical steampunk girl/guy can have one not so flashy piece as a complement to the others.
And I have enough of the patterned clay left over to make some tile beads today. I think I like the look enough I will make several more pieces. I'm thinking of mixing up a dark, mildew/mossy/verdigris green with a brassy/dull gold for the under layer and a brighter/softer metallic green for the top layer. Then doing the same thing with blues. No pinks though. I am so tired of pink from all the mokume I did. Just can't face pink right now.
Enough rattling....back to the studio.

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