Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo has always been one of my favorite artists. She was a very intelligent women who had more than her fair share of tragedies. Her artwork may not have always had the best technique and skill, but she was still able to convey so much emotion and feeling.

In a graphic design class I took in college we had to pick our favorite artist. We then had to find a picture of them that we would reduce to a black and white image. We did this part manually by placing a piece of tracing paper over the original image and picking out highs and lows in the picture.

We then did eight different treatments utilizing our new black and white image. One of the treatments was to use different textured or patterned papers to illustrate a message about your favorite artist.

I used a peacock paper for the black highlights, and a treasure map paper with an "x" marking over her brain.

I choose peacock paper because peacocks are generally considered to be beautiful. She never considered herself to be physically attractive, although others did. The treasure map was to illustrate her memories and experiences, since they were always a great influence on her work.

Paisley Cellphone Background

I created this cellphone background by first painting a small watercolor on an Artist Trading Card. I then scanned this in, did a small amount of editing in Photoshop for color, then tiled it. It works well as a nice bright, Summer background.

Foamboard Desktop Beanbag Toss Instructable

When I was living in Seattle, I wanted to create game that I could play indoors, especially during the rainy season. This was an Instructable I created to make a miniature Beanbag Toss board out of Foamboard. It was very fun to play!

Foamboard Desktop Bean Bag Toss.

Polymer Clay Espresso Cup on Plate with Chocolate Covered Biscotti

I wasn't able to get great pictures of these at the moment, so I will update later when I can get some better pictures. This was a gift for Christmas to my boyfriends Dad. We both share a love of espresso (he in fact got me real espresso cups for Christmas!) so it only made sense to commemorate that in clay.

This project was a bit harder than I thought it would be (isn't it always!). I wanted a magnet for their fridge, which meant either having it flat in the wrong "plane" on the fridge, or cutting about a third of the plate off to have it stick out a bit from the fridge (which is what I finally chose). It just didn't look right with the plate laying flat against the fridge. I also learned a lot about magnets during this project and chose a small neodymium magnet glued to the cup to hold the piece up.

I also really dislike working with white polymer clay. It picks up everything! Small pieces of dust, thread, other clay colors that are on your workspace already, everything! This means cleaning up your workspace (for me thats is a self healing mat) with rubbing alcohol and a lot of "post processing" with sand paper.

The biscotti was very fun to make. I started with white clay and added a little bit of brown to get a nice golden baked color. I then shaped the clay into a biscotti shape and gently added texture with a pointy tool. To get the holes to look more ragged look like a biscotti would, I inserted the pointy tool at a 90 degree angle, then with the pointy tool still in the clay I lowered the tool towards the table until it was about 45 degrees and then pulled the pointy tool out.

The chocolate coating is brown acrylic clay applied very thickly, then coated with a few thick coats of Gloss Mod Podge.

The espresso inside the cup is brown clay with a bit of translucent mixed in. Then I used acrylic paint in brown, light tan, red, and metallic gold to add the crema. I added a thin coat of Gloss Mod Podge to seal the espresso in the cup.

Chocolate Bar and Chocolate Covered Strawberry Earrings

Polymer clay is one of my top 3 materials to work with. However, one thing I had never triedto work with polymer clay before was molds.

I picked up a few Mod Melts Molds a few months back. These are small molds (I think are made of silicone but it's not specified) that are made to be used with a special type of hot glue called Mod Melts. When I bought the molds I didn't plan to use them with the hot glue they were intended for because it seemed like (through YouTube videos) that the hot glue did not pick up the level of detail that I wanted and were very prone to air bubbles. I have recently picked up some of the Mod Melts glue and hope to do a comparison soon, but I expect the polymer clay is a way better medium for these molds.

The first pieces I made with polymer clay didn't work as well as I had hoped. I thought it would be good to warm up a ball of polymer clay and push it into the mold with extra sticking out over the mold. I did this so that removing the new impression would be easy by grabbing the extra clay sticking out over the edge. The pieces came out well, however, the extra cleanup was impossible. I tried cleaning up the edges both before and after baking and it just wasn't worth the effort.

What ended up working for subsequent pieces was warming up the clay in my hands again, but making sure to get the perfect amount of polymer clay, no extra, to push into the molds. If I had a little over the edge I used a scraper (piece of popsicle stick worked well) to level it out. I then put the mold in the freezer for a few minutes to help solidify the piece. Once the piece was firmer, I gently worked the piece out of the mold. I didn't want to bake the pieces directly in the mold because I am not sure what the heat properties are.


The chocolate bar earrings below were made using the Mod Melts Trinkets set.

So after I got the hang of the molds I decided to try to do some more advanced techniques. I wanted to make a chocolate covered strawberry using another piece of trinkets set. I conditioned three colors of clay, a small amount of green for the stem, a small amount of  the same brown used for the chocolate bars, and red for the strawberries.

I placed the clay on a piece of paper and used a plastic pointy Sculpey tool to pick up very small amounts of clay at a time to push into the mold. I started on the leaves, making sure to observe where the transition between leaves and fruit was. The chocolate dipped portion on the bottom was next. I took a small blob of brown clay and used a ball ended Sculpey tool to push it smoothly onto the bottom of the mold. Then I took a piece of red clay and pushed it overtop the green and brown, which connected all the pieces. I put the mold in the freezer like before, and removed it from the mold. I needed to do these one at a time because there is only one of each mold type in the trinkets kit.

The finished piece make for a slightly large earring, so you could make one and attach a bail for a necklace instead. I am looking forward to trying other parts of the molds with polymer clay.

Android Perler Bead

I love Perler Beads and I loved the Android logo. Therefore, the only solution was to combine the two. My next one will be made in a different color, not the standard Android Green. 

Rubber Band Bracelets

I have to say I love that rubber band bracelets became so popular. Even as an adult I had a great time making them. They are very relaxing to make, somewhat like knitting. It was awesome that kids and adults alike were able to become so creative with the color combinations and styles.

These are some of my favorite bracelets that I made.

I also put some up for sale and this was the first design of the "packaging" for them. 

Polymer Clay Pumpkin Necklace

I love pumpkins. I love their color, they taste good, and they're fun to carve. I wanted to make a pumpkin necklace to showcase my love of the fruit (isn't it crazy that it's a fruit!) and this was the result.

The cord is waxed linen cord. I wanted the top of the pumpkin to be the focus and face out so I drilled a hole on the back of the piece to put the cord through. The little curly stem is a piece of copper wire.

I finished the piece with nail polish to make it shiny, which is now not recommended for finishing polymer clay. Nail polish tends to react poorly with some formulations of polymer clay and makes the clay degrade and become soft and sticky. Luckily, 2 1/2 years later and this project isn't sticky, but I use other ways of finishing polymer clay now.

Favorite Fall Memory Diorama

This was a project I made for an Instructable contest for Merrell to depict your favorite fall memory in diorama form. There were a lot of great entries and I did not win, but I was still happy with how it turned out. Everything inside the diorama was handmade except for the bear sitting on the bed (that was an eraser.)

The memory I depicted was looking out the window at night when I was younger and seeing a giant pile of leaves to jump in. I don't know if there are many kids who do not like jumping into piles of leaves!

Materials:

Tree: Aluminum foil armature, Polymer clay, brown acrylic paint, hot glue
Leaves: Maple leaf craft punch on fall colored papers
Grass: Foam sheets in Green and Yellow
Floor: Skinny wood craft sticks, brown acrylic paint wash
Baseboards: Skinny wood craft sticks, white acrylic paint
Radiator: Toothpicks, Polymer clay, Silver acrylic paint
Figure: Aluminum foil and tooth pick armature, Polymer clay, red acrylic paint for lips and checks, beige acrylic paint for skin tone, craft doll hair.
Scarf, Bedspread, Pillow, Window curtains: Felt (I used one of the fancier stitches on my sewing machine to add the pattern to the felt for the bedspread and the scarf. Stores do sell patterned felt now though if you don't have a sewing machine.)
Window: Thick plastic sheet for window pane, white heavyweight paper, skinny wood craft sticks, white acrylic paint, hot glue

The diorama is split about 1/4 outside scene, 3/4 inside bedroom. It's open in the front so you can look down from the top or into it from the front. 

I used a flash light to get some moon light to go through the window. There are a pair of gloves and a hat sitting on the radiator warming up. 

I had never made a figure entirely out of polymer clay before so that was probably the hardest part of this project. I didn't entirely get the facial expression I wanted. I didn't want it to look entirely realistic, but the lip area was too flat. The proportions worked out well, and I really liked the way the pants came out. The shirt is supposed to look like a knit wool sweater. 

This is the outdoor part of the diorama. The big pile of leaves is on the right. I glued leaves onto an aluminum foil ball to get the form. The grass was made by cutting long strips of foam sheets 3 cm tall. I then cut blades of grass into the foam strips and arranged and glued them together. I added some yellow grass for more of a fall feeling and to add some color variety. The black window accents are masking tape colored with a Sharpie.

Anxiety Poster

This was a graphic design project I made for a project in college.

The project was to make a poster that brings awareness to the cause of your choice. I chose to do a poster on Anxiety since I have many friends who struggle with it, especially during all the stresses and changes that college brings.

In the poster I attempted to show how people are afraid of letting anyone know they have any mental illness by pushing the word anxiety to the side and blending it into the poster. The jagged lines were supposed to represent the feelings one would go through during an anxiety attack.

This was the first poster I ever made so I would likely change some aspects now, but at the time I was proud of the effort I put into it.