Illustration Friday

This week's theme is "Linked", and here is my entry entitled "Nice to Meet Ewe":



This little lamb and sheepdog puppy are linked by their curiosity towards each other, and of course, by the puppy's playful tug on the lamb's ear!

Created with colored polymer clay on a canvas background.

WORKTABLE WEDNESDAY

I haven't done a Worktable Wednesday post in so long that I thought I would today. On my worktable today are some Halloween miniature scenes featuring dogs. Here are two quick pics I took on my stove top of an Old English Sheepdog and a Schnauzer when they were fresh from the oven. :o) They'll be up on ebay, along with several other breeds later this week. With better pics of course. ;o)

WORKTABLE WEDNESDAY

Last week I showed the beginnings of a Halloween jar I was working on. Well here's the finished jar. It turned out much differently than how I had originally envisioned it but I'm quite pleased with it all the same:


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WORKTABLE WEDNESDAY

Sometimes I get these great ideas, and I'm all excited to create them - until I sit down to actually DO it and remember that what I planned to do presents a bunch of challenges! For example, I purchased these really cute and inexpensive pumpkin-shaped treat jars from Wal-Mart with the intention of covering them with clay, and then creating bas relief Halloween scenes around the center of the jar. It's been a while since I took on one of these projects, so of course while all caught up with thinking about the darling designs I wanted to sculpt on these jars, I completely forgot what a royal PAIN it is to cover curved surfaces like this! Especially when the piece is narrower in some places then others. UGH.

I contemplated taking them back, but I really wanted to use them. I just didn't want to spend hours working on them driving myself over the edge into insanity (a short drive I admit) while doing so. So I altered my plans a bit. Instead of covering the entire center of the jar with one continuous piece of clay, or having to seam several pieces together to create the background for the scenes I wanted to create, I decided I would do little vignettes instead. I have a large square cookie cutter with a decorative edge and I decided I would do 4 squares with little scenes in them instead. I did however cover the entire lid of the pumpkin with orange clay. I have to say that after trying a brand of clay that shall remain nameless to cover that lid and having nothing but problems with air bubbles, stickiness, etc. I decided to try Studio by Sculpey clay. I had a bunch of it on hand that Polyform Products had graciously sent me to try. It worked FANTASTICALLY! It was a dream to roll out, no air bubbles, and the seams blended smoothly. I know this stuff is controversial in the clay community for reasons I won't go into here, but I have to say it was wonderful to work with for covering the glass jars. This clay has an interesting feel to it, almost powdery. It's hard to describe. It's soft right out of the package but not overly so. It bakes to what the company calls a suede-like finish. It doesn't really feel like suede but it does feel different from other polymer clays when baked. It was a pleasure to work with. :o)

This shows one of the jars in progress:


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