Robin Schar » Polymer Clay

“You Become Me”

Robin Schar — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:04:01 +0000

I tore it up and redesigned the frame for my mixed media collage. This was a lot of work but I’m satisfied with how it came out. I’ll be submitting this and a few of my other past altered art projects to be juried into the crafters guild on Tuesday night. Crossing my fingers and toes!

(Click for full size view)

Treasure Hunt Day :)

Robin Schar — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:21:20 +0000

On Saturday I was invited to go on a treasure hunt to a rummage sale and craft fair with Cathy. She always great company and we had a lot of fun poking into all the nooks and cranny’s we came across. First stop was the rummage sale, bah! It was postponed until next week. So whats the next best thing but to hit up the quilting shop and then an antique store? I purchased some neat vintage thimbles (or what looks like antique, hard to tell with all the distressing techniques that people use, lol) and a few placards of black snaps. I also got a neat silver bangle/charm bracelet thing (six bucks!) a silver ring, two Halloween themed kitchen towels and a rubber-band and bead bookmark thing. Fun fun! We ended the day with a trip to Cathy’s house to meet her bird (seems my lack of remembering names crosses over into pets as well) and her well-stocked studio. Hope we get to do this again, really a great time all around.

On the 27th I’ll be going to the crafter’s guild to see about becoming a member. To do that I’ll need to bring in samples of my altered art. Since I’ve spent the past year learning techniques and also trying to get a community started for altered artists in Las Vegas, I haven’t made too much to show off. I have an idea of what to bring… and yesterday I created one additional piece that they can look at so they can see what direction I want to lean toward in the future. I love creating collage in 3d bases such as frames, shrines, wooden blocks, boxes… etc. Anyway this is my latest creation… just coming out of a two month hiatus and glad to be creating again.

I think the inside composition (made with polymer clay!) and the wire thing across the middle looks way better than the frame… I’ve really got to think of something that looks more polished.

Altered Art Collage - "You Become Me" by Robin Schar

Altered Art - "You Become Me" (closeup) by Robin Schar

Polymer Finger Bones

Robin Schar — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 05:35:07 +0000

I visited with the ladies of the Las Vegas Crafters Guild today and finally made some art! Remember the Halloween finger-bone necklace tutorial I shared with you a while back? Well I finally got a chance to make it this morning and it was extremely easy to do. Here are my results… only hint I can offer to anyone else is to remember that bones are white, not beige like skin. What was I thinking, lol!? No wonder Cathy kept suggesting I add more white to the mix, roflol! I didn’t realize my error until they were baked but truly… I am very happy with how these came out and will definitely be making more. Bev was kind enough to let me know about Primo clay… and true to her word Primo baked up much harder than Sculpey did. The trade off is that the Primo takes more muscle to blend than the softer clays but for my uses (making accents for altered art and assemblages) polymer clay is perfect. Thanks again to Marie Segal of “Art from my Heart” blog for her tutorial… this was too much fun to create.

This is after “squishing” in my hands, before baking them

This is after baking and a little smidgin’ of acrylic in burnt umber

Polymer Clay Mishap

Robin Schar — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 03:17:51 +0000

I’m working on an Altered Shrine and needed some flourishes for the side made out of polymer clay. Because of the slight bend in the wood, I had to bake the polymer directly on the wood in the oven and this is what happened. I’m not sure if it was the wood varnish already on the wood piece, the polymer clay reacting to the wood, the epoxy resin I used to fix the top arch a few days ago or the acrylic paints I used to touch up the small “dings” here and there but it bubbled up and left a brown tinge to the rest of the polymer clay creations I had baking in the oven at the same time. Whatever it was I couldn’t repeat it if I tried, lol… and it gave the wood a great distressed look to it. Read below for some of the other things I made in Polymer today… so love that stuff!

Here’s the flourishes I made for the sides (funny THEY didn’t turn brown and were baked on the wood itself while everything else did turn brown that I had on the parchent paper, hmmm) a neat leaf and a few round doo-dads I can use on other future projects.

I saw the cutest buttons on another blog website this morning… so wish I had pretty vintage buttons and not all the ugly, plain ones in my collection. So polymer to the rescue… they still have to be painted but with some pearlescent and metallic paints they’ll be a knockout.

I ran some polymer through my paper crinkle hand tool thing and it made some neat textures! The polymer stuck to it like white rice on paper but the effect’s pretty cool. I think I’ll save these for a mixed media canvas I’m thinking about.

I’ve been dying to make atc’s out of polymer so I made a base sized at 2.5 x 3.5 inches. What I do with it I have no idea, but that’s for another day. I also made a few small square pieces to use on other projects and too neat… I ran my sheet of prepared polymer into a “stamp” shape punch-stamp and it worked! The impression came out beautifully. The second one didn’t align to the edges correctly and I only got 1/2 a stamp out of it, but it looks old and torn which is more than perfect.

That’s it for my polymer creations…. have to get back to my Altered Shrine and see what to do next!