"Claying Around"

Since we have moved and been in "retirement mode" I (Carolyn) seem to lose myself in the studio for hours at a time.  I find myself getting into more of a regular routine each day, photographing our work (this is at certain times of the day when the lighting is best), organizing, sewing (I started to make some of our little "gift bags" for the jewelry - I will blog on that another time) and then more time for just "claying around".  While the other things are essential, I enjoy the claying part the most.  

Because I now have more time in the studio, I am finding more time for creating and learning new techniques.  My work is piling up and while I didn't seem to have enough to blog about earlier, I'm finding I have a lot more now so will try and post more often.

One of the things on my "to do" list was to sculpt a face.  I sculpted my first face and then made a mould from that face.  I then made some faces from that mould which are shown below.

  

I want to create some angels so I made some faux cloisonne wings.  This basic technique came from one of Donna Kato's books.  I started with drawing my wing pattern and then carefully cutting that pattern into a thin sheet of clay to make a stencil.

 

With that stencil I created a mould from clay and can now make more wings of the same design from that mould like the ones shown below.

I applied green mica powders and antique gold paint and then a layer of liquid Kato to give them a glassy finish.  I drew the wing pattern to be used as either angel or butterfly wings.  Now I have to think about how to pull this all together.