Shine Workshops

What an amazing project I'm involved with at the moment.  I'm working with some beautiful girls, teaching them the wonders of polymer clay of course, from the Shine Programme.  Here's a bit of an outline of what Shine is (I've taken this from their Facebook page - Shine Today).

Shine is a values based training model, targeted at ‘at risk’ female youth aged between 13 and 15. These students are in danger of disengaging from the education system and society; negativity impacting their employment and life opportunities into the future.

In addition, Shine develops confidence and wellbeing in the young female participants, through a structured program of experiential learning.

The program’s hands-on nature assists in developing the participants skill set, in a purpose built hairdressing salon.

Through the structured Shine environment, the young women’s life skills and capacity are developed; having a great effect on fundamental skills such as accountability, responsibility, trust, connection and employability.

This project has been made possible with the support of ACDC and Healthways.  The girls ended up creating some amazing Symbolic Beads which were very impressive.  I was incredibly proud of them  We also had a play around with a very simple 4colour stack mokume gane - now this was fun that's for sure.  Huge thanks to Mandy and her gorgeous girls for making this day so enjoyable.  I loved it.

Image Transfer Bead Tutorial and Rachel Weaver Long Lash Lady Download

After lots of playing and testing and experimenting the new class (Image Transfer Beads) has been released at CraftArtEdu.  I used some of Lisa Pavelka's Waterslide Images and some images from my very good friend and exceptional artist Rachel Weaver.  Rachel kindly allowed me to use some of her Long Lash Lady images with the prints very kindly donated by Tricia at Midwest Prints.

Rachel has also very kindly created a free download of her images for those who purchase the tutorial.  Simply follow the instructions once the class has been purchased and you'll be able to create your own gorgeous Long Lash Lady beads.  Thanks Rachel.

To find the tutorial simply go to:    Image Transfer Beads

Luscious Debbie Sanders Inspired Beads

You know I totally blame Sage Bray for my current obsession with creating faux "Debbie Sanders glass beads"!!!

Sage featured Deb's glass beads the other day on The Polymer Arts Daily Blog and, as I've been in love with these beads for a such long time, I thought I should probably give them a go....but with polymer clay.

This was my first attempt

which I must admit I was pretty happy with...but I knew I could do better.  So out came all the products that I thought I could use to help get the particular look I was after.

This is what "tickled my fancy" the most:

yes, that's right....it's Friendly Plastic.  I've had a love of this product for a long time and have pulled it out every now and then to team it with polymer clay.  Nothing ever seemed to work so I would pack it away again ready for the next time I got inspired.  Well today was the day.  I simply loved how it turned out on the edges of these beads.  It was a little tricky to get it to work but after many failed attempts I was really happy with how these turned out.

Thanks so much to Debbie for creating such awesome glass beads and thanks to Sage for the "prompt".

Oh! How I Love "What If" Days

Today I had a free day in the studio!!  woohoo...that doesn't happen very often - there's normally always something to prepare for.  Anyway, today I decided to simply play around with "whatever".  I cleaned my workspace free of everything and grabbed a few things out I haven't played with for quite a while and just started experimenting.

What would happen if I do this?

What if I add this on top?

What if I folded it this way?

What would happen if I put these two together?

It's always so much fun and my journal was definately on hand to take some notes so I don't have to ever ask these "what if" questions again!

I ended up with some really cool things at the end of the day.

These are some of my experimental tiles.

Played with shapes and surface treatments.

I really love this one.

A good play but lots more to explore with this one.

Mullewa Ladies Image Transfer Beads

During a recent stint of workshops in Mullewa, I showed the ladies how to create their own beads using images of their artworks.  These are so incredibly special and will be produced by the ladies to sell at the Womens Art Centre.  This will in turn, enable them to purchase more supplies so they can continue to create more incredible polymer clay jewellery.  I really love the concept of these and am so proud of the ladies.  The blurb for each bead is below the image itself.  Thanks to the ladies for allowing me to share the images and stories for these pieces.

Story:  Mass rock was made out of a big rock. The people used to live at the Common in Mullewa years ago and the priest used to say Mass every Sunday. Artist:  Barbara Comeagain.  Bead created by myself.  Barb unfortunately missed the session so the ladies will be teaching her how to create these gorgeous beads.  

Story:  The hills, the waterholes, and the trees in the bush.  Artist:  Barbara Comeagain.  Bead created by myself.  Barb unfortunately missed the session so the ladies will be teaching her how to create these gorgeous beads.  

Story:  My Mum and Dad and their eight children. The green are the boys and the yellow are the girls.   Artist: Wendy Jackamarra.  Bead created by Wendy herself.  This was her very first attempt.

Story:  This is the Rabbit Proof Fence. The circles are some of the stations, some people sitting around at dinner, camp cooking kangaroo stew and damper. There are sand hills and rocky places along the Rabbit Proof Fence, and all the animal tracks up and down the fence.  Artist:  Susan Merry.  Bead created by Susan herself.  This was her first attempt.

The Clay House Workshops

What a whirlwind few days at The Clay House in Perth.  I met some beautiful people, saw some incredible artwork, played with clay with some awesome kids and had loads of fun.

I have to thank my hosts, Fleur, Richard, Heidi and Harry for making me feel so incredibly welcomed.  What a beautiful family - and all so talented.  Fleur creates some amazing works of art using porcelaine clay (which I'm not overly familiar with) and has some exciting projects coming up in the future.  You can check out her work here:  http://fleurschell.com/

Huge thanks also to Danica and Beste for helping organise the workshops and of course Chantelle for assisting during the workshops.

The majority of these kids have never worked with polymer clay before and many of the parents have never heard of it before - although a few mentioned FIMO, which seems to be the common response when you ask people if they've heard of polymer clay.  Well we certainly educated lots of people about the wonders of polymer clay and there are many more addicts now!!!  Always great to see.

What an amazing job the kids did!