Fimo Friday

I was hoping I would have finished my secret project by today but I haven't so here is a sneak peak of what I have been working on:

Hopefully this time next week I will have many things to show :)

Super Sculpey

I've been working with Super Sculpey this week:

On the right is the first attempt at a rabbit and the black and white one is my second. The rabbit is the bride in the wedding cake toppers I am working on for my friend.

and the groom is the duck, trying to make it look like a Indian runner duck so its more upright then my previous ducks.

The two together.

Moar dragons..

Busy restocking my shop with dragons at the moment, here are some of the new ones:

Dragon's Dust: Wish,
For some reason the image in this blog has come out waaaay darker then he actually is :s My Facebook page has a better image  (despite it being the same image I have just uploaded here)

Going to be in the Etsy shop shortly

Dragon's Dust: Dreams, This little girl has a vial of dreams wrapped tightly in her tail.

Will be on Etsy soon

I loved the sleeping dragon pose so much I made a D20 dragon. The D20 is removable so it can be used for games and given back to the dragon for safe keeping afterwards.

He will be in the shop once I have finished varnishing him and he's dry.

Dragonsdust Dragons

Been kind of rubbish at updating this blog recently, so here is a summary of some new things I have been working on:

Started a new series of dragons, These are Dragon's dust dragons because of the little vials of dragons dust held in their tails.

The red one is Love and she is available here

The green one is Lucky and he already has a home.

I am working on another one at the moment, just waiting for his varnish to finish drying.

I have also been working with Super
Sculpey and Acrylic Paint, making these little duck figurines. The reason I am making little duck figurines is practice for some wedding cake toppers for my best friend's wedding.

Mute Swan.

Then I redid the ducks to have a more realistic head and neck shape.

Goodbye little art shop..

Yesterday my favourite Art shop closed after 63 years

Yes its deliberately spelled wrong lol.

I worked there for nearly 5 years and have accumulated a lot of art materials as most of my pay cheque went back into the shop he he.










The building itself is over 200 years old and suffered with the 2014 flooding which is why its closing, for building work. However the current owners do not want to carry on with the business, it may open again under new ownership but it will not be the same.

Some of the many paints.

Commission

This is what I have been working on in the last week, A watercolour commission of my friend's dog Oscar.  A4 hot pressed Arches watercolour paper and Winsor and Newton artists watercolour paints and some white Gouache. I also realised that its been many months since I have done any painting, maybe I should make it my new years resolution to paint more, maybe a little painting each day like Inktober.















And I've been playing with fimo again, following this tutorial for Faux leather tags. So my Christmas presents this year are going to have these tags.

How to make: Air-Dry Clay Christmas Decorations

I've been busy making decorations for the tree, this year its going to be a white theme. These were pretty easy (and messy) to make so I thought I'd write how to make them.

To begin with you will need:
Some Air Drying clay (whatever colour you want the decorations to be)
A rolling pin
A selection of cookie cutters
An easy to clean surface, as its going to get messy! maybe some newspaper as well
And a bowl of water to rehydrate the clay if it starts drying out

For finishing touches:
Sandpaper
Maybe a small file
Some pretty ribbon or string to hang the decorations with.

First off grab a handful of clay and mould it into a ball

Roll it out, making sure to keep it all the same thickness

Decide how thick you want the decorations to be, the thicker they are the longer they will take to dry

Start cutting the clay with the cutters, being as economical with the placement to make the most of the clay.

Remove the excess clay and find a straw and make some holes at the top big enough to fit the string or ribbon through.

If you want get something flat and neaten the edges, but you don't have to as we have sandpaper to neaten the edges once they are dry.

Move them on to a tray or a surface that is not going to have cats sit on them or something and let them dry for 24 hours. You can tell they are drying as the edges will start to become whiter. Now I found that some of the decorations the edges started turning up as they were drying, so every few hours I would turn them over.

Once they are completely dry thread your string or ribbon through the holes and then get your sandpaper and neaten those edges!

and if you have snowflakes like mine a small file is useful for getting the middle bits

Here is a comparison of the wet and dry clay for anyone who like me panicked and thought the clay wasn't white enough when it was wet.

Half a pack of DAS 500g makes this amount of decorations. Now you can paint them if you wish or leave them natural like mine.

Any left over clay remember to put in a grip seal bag or an air tight container as it will dry out and become useless.

Yay now you have pretty decorations to hang on the tree or wherever you want!