Inside the Studio with Creative Impressions In Clay

Welcome to Inside the Studio!

Each week one of our contributors gives you a sneak peek into their studio, creative process or inspirations. We ask a related question of our readers and hope you'll leave comments! As an incentive we offer a free prize each week to bribe you to use that keyboard. The following week we choose a random winner.
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I decided to test a technique I read about eons ago. You know, those little tidbits of information you store in the "That's interesting, I need to try that one day" folder in your memory filing cabinet. This week was it was time to pull this one out of the filing cabinet.

The "in a nutshell version" is an embossing technique for clay. Their version was carving Foam Core or something. I don't have the time or patience for carving right now. I don't mind my designs being recessed, most of mine are for that matter. I was thinking about using puffy paints. Of all the supplies in my studio, Puffy Paint isn't one. I have had them in the past, a must with kids. I remembered I purchased a product with a fine that you could make raised dots & lines, it dried hard and the lines stayed raised. Perfect!

I made a design on the side of a box to see if I could draw holding and squeezing a bottle at the same time. It is hard sometimes to get the liquid to flow smoothly and then comes the annoying air bubbles. Then I realized it didn't have to be perfect (the anal Graphic Artist in me has to have it perfect). After all I was going to be pressing a clay slab on top of the design and I could make corrections to the clay impression. Above is how it dried.

This is the result of pressing clay down onto the design. Pretty cool!! 

My little test worked! And the crowd goes wild!!

I found a shelf I have taken out of my cabinet…recycle, reuse. The shelf had a texture I liked, so let the doodling design begin!! The plan is to continue to add to the design so I have about an 8.5" x 11" design space to work with…bowls, mugs, plates, pendants, many possibilities. Enough space so the design changes with each piece. I like possibilities!

Stay tuned for the results in 3D.

My question is:

What have you tried in your "That's interesting, I need to try that one day" folder in your memory filing cabinet?

Leave a comment answering the question and you could win a Circle Button!

Have a great day!!

Feeling Sassy as usual!

Tari Sasser

Creative Impressions In Clay

November Monthly Challenge Color Palette

The thing that strikes me most about this month's lovely painting from Cezanne is the tonal quality of all the colors. We've had inspiration paintings in the past with a full rainbow of colors represented. But this month, and in this painting, all of the colors are all the cool side. See how even red and yellow, the warmest colors on the color wheel, seem quieter, colder?

So as you design this month, aim for those cooler shades.

For warmer colors, like red, orange, and yellow, you want to look for darker, less saturated shades. Dark ruby instead of fire engine red, browner oranges instead of tangerines, mustard-y yellows instead of sunshine. You'll have more range of colors to work with in the yellow and orange family, but the reds don't change nearly as much.

Similarly, aim for beads in that very specific shade of dark blue (third swatch from the left). That color is seen in touches all over the painting, and doesn't vary very much, like the red. On the lighter side of blue (and blue-green), you have more to play with - light aquas and blues, medium teals, and all of those subtle shades in the background area. For the greens, stick to dark green, yellow-green, and brownish greens.

And because I'm working on a project where I'm playing with color proportions, I thought I'd share the breakdown of this month's colors. You tell me, is seeing the color proportions helpful?

Which colors, or combos, are you drawn to this month?

November Monthly Challenge Sponsors + Prizes

Our Wonderful sponsors for the November Challenge.
We will have 2 Lucky Winners this Month!

Swoondimples

Heather Millican of Swoondimples creates wonderful pendants and beads using Polymer Clay. Each is carefully handcrafted with a heartfelt saying, throw in a bit of texture, patina, love and you have something to hold onto.

Heather is donating a 2 Pendants & 2 Beads (shown above) valued over $50.

Visit Heather at her Etsy Shop, twitter and Facebook.

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Captured Moments

Cindy Kovar of Captured Moments makes ceramic Pendants, beads and jewelry components. She even has pendants with built in bezel cups that can be used with resin!

Cindy is donating a $50 gift certificate to her Etsy Shop.

Visit Cindy at her Etsy Shop, Blog and Facebook.

: : :

Submit photos of your wonderful creations using one or more Art Beads.

Basket of Apples by Paul Cezanne has with many different elements that can be used for inspiration: apples, reds, greens, yellow, brown, fruit, fabric, bottles, baskets, bread and still life.

We can't wait to see where your creativity takes you with the art for this months challenge! 

Please remember to put NOV ABS in the title or tag of your submission(s).  

Provide us with the artist of the Art Beads used and we always love to know all the materials you used. 
***Art Beads MUST be used in your entry.***

November Monthly Challenge

Basket of Apples by Paul Cézanne, 1893

Oil on canvas 65 cm × 80 cm (25.6 in × 31.5 in)

Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection, Art Institute of Chicago

About the Art

Cézanne sought out the structural regularity of his subjects. By repeating the round and angular shapes in The Basket of Apples, the artist demonstrated his formalist approach.
Despite his attention to the shapes and structures of his subjects, Cézanne animated the objects in the painting. He placed the basket of apples on one of his characteristic tilted tables; it careens forward from a slablike base that appears to upset rather than support it. Upon closer inspection, the tabletop seems to be fractured, since it emerges on the right side at a different level than on the left. Cézanne's use of geometric form and disjointed perspective made him an inspiration to Pablo Picasso, Cubism, and abstract art of the 20th century.
This painting is most notable for the disjointment of perspective, as if the two sides of the painting were completed using two different points of view. The right side of the table is not in the same plane as the left side of the table, which was a stylized method used by Cézanne to incorporate the differences of viewpoint into an impressionistic still life. It was this technique that made it possible to bridge the gap between impressionists and cubism, which employed varying perspective and varying angles to depict subjects. As such, this still life is an example of the way in which Cézanne tried to deal with the complexities of visual perception.

About the Artist

Paul Cézanne  1839-1906, was a post-impressionist painter who created the bridge between impressionism and cubism, and is said to be the artistic father of both Matisse and Picasso. Although he was dissuaded by his father at an early age to pursue his passions in painting, he left his hometown of Provence for Paris, in 1861. It was there that he met Camille Pisarro, a popular impressionist painter, who served as his mentor and guide. He began painting in the impressionistic style, but later began to structurally order what he saw and painted into simple forms and planes of color. He also began to simplify the forms he painted into shapes, such as a tree into a column. Unlike many of the painters of his day, who focused on one or maybe two subject styles, Cézanne concentrated on still lifes, portraits, landscapes, and nude studies. 
He began slowly in Paris, as all of his submissions to the Paris Salon between the years of 1864 and 1869 went rejected. He finally successfully entered a submission into the Paris Salon in 1882, which was also his last. In 1895, there was an exhibition held of all of his own works, signifying his growing success as an artist, but that same year he moved back to his hometown of Provence, where he continued to work in isolation.
Cézanne was early depicted as a rude, shy, angry man, given to bouts of depression, and later in his life he withdrew into his paintings, spending long periods of time a recluse, painting in solitude. Although his paintings were not well-received by the public, who supposedly reacted with hilarity, outrage and sarcasm, and laughed at his art, young artists held him in high esteem, and often sought after him. Cézanne s legacy is that he developed the practice of fracturing forms, which most immediately influenced the development of cubism, and later the foundation of modern art.

Our Sponsors

Our Sponsors this month are Swoondimples and Captured Moments.

Please visit us tomorrow to see the prizes!

Monthly Challenge Recap

• Please post at least one single shot of your creation in the Flickr pool. This will be used to make a collage for the Monthly Challenge Gallery. Every creation will be added to the collage, regardless of a blog post. So everyone gets included!
• Be sure to share with us the name of the art bead artist in the description of your photo so that if you are selected for the weekly Perfect Pairings on Mondays, both you as the designer and the art bead artist can get the credit you both deserve!
• An InLinkz button will be added to the bottom of the Monthly Challenge Recap post. Here you will be able to link up your blog post if you have one. It is no longer necessary to add your blog post URL to the description unless you want to. Be sure to hop around and see all the great inspiration and leave some comment love!
• The Monthly Challenge Recap with Blog Tour will be posted on November 29th.

Monthly Challenge Winners
• One prize winner will be selected at random from all pictures posted on the Flickr pool.
• One prize winner will be selected at random from all blog posts added to the hop for the Monthly Challenge Recap post. So if you want to be in the pool for the second prize, be sure to use the InLinkz code at the bottom of the post to share your process and inspirations!
• Winners will be randomly chosen from all the qualifying entries on December 1st.

Perfect Pairings :: Designer + Art Bead Artist
• Formerly the Featured Designer of the Week, our new Perfect Pairings will now focus on both the jewelry designer and the art bead artist. Be sure to point out all the art bead artists in your work in the description of the photo in the Flickr pool. Links to their website or shop are appreciated. That way we can all find new art beads to love!
• From all the entries during the month, an editor will pick their favorite design to be featured every Monday here on ABS, so get those entries in soon.

How to enter the Monthly Challenge:

1. Create something using an art bead that fits within our monthly theme. We post the art to be used as your inspiration to create. This challenge is open to jewelry-makers, fiber artists, collage artist, etc. The art bead can be created by you or someone else. The challenge is to inspire those who use art beads and to see all the different ways art beads can be incorporated into your handiwork. 

An Art Bead must be used in your piece to qualify for the monthly challenge.

***Beads strung on a chain, by themselves and beads simply added to wire or cord will not be accepted.***

2. Upload your photo to our flickr group. Detailed instructions can be found here and click here for a tutorial for sending your picture to the group.

Please add the tag or title NOV ABS to your photos. Include a short description, who created the art beads and a link to your blog, if you have one.

Deadline is November 30th. Photos are approved by our moderators, if a photo hasn't followed the guidelines it will not be approved. You may upload 2 photos a day.

What is an Art Bead?

An art bead is a bead, charm, button or finding made by an independent artist. Art beads are the vision and handiwork of an individual artist. You can read more about art beads here.

***A bead that is handmade is not necessarily an art bead. Hill Tribe Silver, Kazuri ceramic beads or lampwork beads made in factories are examples of handmade beads that are not considered art beads.

Beaded beads, stamped metal pendants or wire-wrapped components are not considered art beads for our challenge.***

p.s. If you have a blog, post your entry and a link to the ABS challenge to spread the beady goodness.

Amuse Your Muse Monday with Rebecca of Songbead

Happy Monday, and Happy November to you all! It's certainly quite brisk outside over here in the UK - my winter boots are well and truly out, and I've just bought myself a new winter coat. I have flown over to Edinburgh for the weekend, as I was exhibiting in my first craft fair of the season yesterday, through in the lovely city of Perth, about an hour north of Edinburgh. This evening I'll be back over to Belfast for almost 2 weeks, before returning for another fair in Scotland. This move over to Northern Ireland certainly does make life a bit more complicated - or at least, it makes me have to try and be more organised! 

I'm sure I'm not the only one starting their holiday fair season, so November's theme is holiday beads. I wonder what you think about the idea of 'holiday' beads? I have to admit, I don't make holiday designs that often….but I do like to incorporate the odd snowflake into my designs at this time of year. Part of the reason I don't 'do' holiday designs is that I don't like it when they suddenly become unseasonal in the new year, but this year I was surprised when a pair of earrings I had featuring Kylie Parry snowflakes were put out on my Summer fair stand erroneously, and sold almost immediately! I'm sure there's a lesson in that. {And by the way, Kylie is most likely having an update today, including many of her beautiful holiday-themed designs, so do hop over there later to see if you can snag some loveliness from one of my favourite bead designers!}

We had quite a few lovely shares this week, so I'll hand over to our readers for now. First up, Linda Landig's gorgeous earrings, featuring snowflakes by Bo Hulley, and lampwork beads by Beads and Botanicals. 

Next up, Bead Swede Supplies shared these absolutely lovely stacking enamel flowers - Kristen says she thinks they look like poinsettias and I would definitely agree! 

Green on Red

 Red on Green

And lastly, Kathy shared Suburban Girl's cute porcelain snowflake set, as she too, like me, loves snowflakes! Love the frosty colours here. 

Share your favourite holiday beads and art bead-laden jewellery in the comments below! And for anyone starting holiday fair mayhem - good luck!!

And now for the Beadblogger Links. Enjoy your week.

A Bead A Day

The holidays are coming and Lisa's dreaming of a non-traditional holiday jewelry piece. How about you?

http://abeadaday.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-holidays-are-coming.html

Art Bead Scene

Check out the beautiful entries for this month's challenge piece - spooky!

Carmi's Art/World

Baroque style is the type of jewelry I most want to create. It begins with a purchase I spotted online.

Resin Crafts Blog

You can turn your favorite pencil into a pendant with resin clay.

The Writing and Art of Andrew Thornton

Check out what the participants of the Inspired by Reading Book Club made in response to the October selection, "My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me" edited by Kate Bernheimer!

Snap out of it, jean! There's beading to be done! 

A story of a jewelry piece by jean which became a holiday gift instantly! See jean's blog! 

Beading Arts

If you're going to make gifts for the Holidays, it's probably time to get started…

Rebecca is a Scottish jewellery designer, currently living in Belfast, Northern Ireland. You can read more about her and her work at her blog, songbeads.blogspot.com and see more of her jewellery at songbead.etsy.com. She also has a supplies shop at thecuriousbeadshop.etsy.com.

Inside the Studio Winner

The winner from last Friday's Inside the Studio is Christie/Charis Designs.

You have won a $20 Gift Certificate from Humblebeads.com!

Please email Heather to receive your Prize.

Thanks to everyone who left a comment!

October Monthly Challenge Winners

Congratulations to this Month's winners! 

1 winner was chosen randomly from all the challenge entrants.
1 winner was chosen randomly from the InLinkz blog entries

Our first lucky winner is wildjewels2/Cassandra Graham. 

She has won a 3 Jewelry Kits from Erin Siegel Jewelry valued at $55.

Our second lucky winner is Pam Traub/Klassy Joolz.

She has won a $50 gift certificate from Glass Bead Art.

    Erin Siegel Jewelry                     Glass Bead Art     

                 

Thank you Erin Siegel and Glass Bead Art for being our October Monthly Challenge sponsors!

Winners, please E-Mail Tari, tari@claybuttons.com with your information (Name and address) so your prizes may be sent to you.

A Big THANK YOU to everyone who entered this month using "Owl On Ginko Branch (Scops Owl Under Crescent Moon)" by Ohara Koson, as your inspiration. 

We were so fortunate to have so many beautiful entries and experience such creativity from our wonderful readers.

Visit us Monday to see what November's challenge brings.