I always seem to be apologizing for not posting more often. Oh well, I’m not making any promises because I can’t seem to motivate myself to post more regularly at the moment. The big problem with taking so long between posts is that either I’ve got more than one thing to talk about or I forget what I wanted to say altogether.
So what have I been doing with myself? Well, I did manage to do and teach a bit of polymer clay this past weekend. The Southern CT Polymer Clay Guild had our annual Weekend of Clay. It’s my favorite regular guild event, a genius idea of having a weekend of 4 inexpensive classes taught by guild members for guild members. We’ve got a lot of talented artists in our guild and it’s a hard choice when we vote on the proposals.
I taught Bisque Beads & Beyond, a class about making thin textured beads and then playing with liquid clay glazes. 
We explored the properties of some of the liquid clays and various additives to make them into lovely ceramic-like glazes. Then we went on to touch briefly on how we could add additional depth, dimension or color with markers, pencils, inks or powders used either before or after the application of the glaze.
It was fun and it would have been a great way to get me back in the swing of things creatively. But the universe seems to be conspiring against me. My studio flooded a bit the day before my class. It wasn’t horrible. We figured out what caused it, and hopefully it won’t be a problem in the future. It only ruined a few skeins of inexpensive yarn, but it managed to dampen the bottoms of all 4 of my bookcases. So, my unbelievably wonderful husband spent some time on Saturday unloading all of my bookcases and laying them flat so the bottoms could dry. Now my studio is covered in bookcases and piles of books etc. (all carefully numbered and diagrammed so they could be returned to the right shelves - Did I mention my husband’s undergraduate degree was in engineering? LOL) It’s going to be a project to put it all back where it was, even with the numbering system. Right now I’ve got a cold and I am putting the task off to another day.
I was going to write about my recent trip to Fatima, Portugal, but I am running out of steam so that will have to wait for another day too.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Anonymous 03.15.07 at 5:46 pm
I think you were saying you made bisque like beads out of polymer clay and then used liquid polymer clays to ‘glaze’ them? Way cool beads by the way! How did you do them? We all want to know!
Jeanne Dumond
Libby 03.15.07 at 5:51 pm
“Bisque Beads & Beyond” is a class I teach. Basically the technique involves making thin textured base beads and then adding color with a “glaze” of tinted liquid clay. Different effects can be achieved with different liquid clays and various tinting mediums, such as paints, inks, powders. There’s a lot to play with when using liquid polymer clay.