March 31st, 2006
The photograph above belongs to my schedule book. It may say "love notes" on the cover, it may even have a couple of real love notes inside but in reality, it is schedule a book that I don’t even want to see.
March 27th, 2006
Finally I moved to my new study room. I still have quite a lot of work to do on the room but I was a bit scared of my love’s interest in the room. I should put a combination lock on the door or an electric fence could be a great idea too.
The teabag holder you see in the picture is a follow up of my previous post. I hate putting the used teabags on the sauces as much as I like trying different flavored teas. The solution is this…
Fist slice the cane.
Then use the roller to merge the slices without thinning them too much.
Place a teapot drawing on the clay and go over the lines with a pencil.
Cut through the pencil marks.
Use a piece of clay to form a donut shape.
Place the teapot shaped sheet on the donut apply some pressure while giving it the final look that you want.
March 23rd, 2006
The other day, my love has called me at work and told me that almost all of the Turkish products in the market that sells them had past their expiration dates. Then he suggested to adopt Chinese cuisine at home. We like Chinese food he says and Chinese markets are everywhere. For a moment, I thought I lost him. I thought he was in love with a Chinese girl too. I dived into the conversation right there and urged him to talk to me openly if he had a relationship with a Chine girl. Then I got warning about not taking him seriously. He was only trying to find a solution to our kitchen problems. Moreover, he just loves me, a lot. Then he told that he already bought a wok, sesame oil, rice wine, black vinegar, ginger, etc… As soon as we hanged up, I started looking for cooking classes in the local community college. When I get home, a part of the kitchen was already allocated to Chinese cooking, and he was already preparing kung pao beef with a recipe from internet. I was still not convinced till I ate. It was surprisingly delicious.I wanted to make a flower cane for some time. I thought a star-shaped flower would be the easiest. You need three different colored polymer clays. I chose metallic white, blue and orange (metallic orange is prepared by mixing metallic yellow and opaque orange).
Form the white clay into a long cylinder and divide into five equal length pieces. Then shape the cylinders to triangular cross-section with your fingers as shown.
Prepare a cylinder of equal length with the orange clay too.
Then form the shape shown below.
Apply the same method to prepare five triangular cylinders from the blue clay too and fill in the gaps with these.
Lastly, roll a thin sheet of blue clay to wrap the cane to obtain the pattern shown in the top picture.
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March 19th, 2006
I finally took my ceramic masks from the studio. Actually there is a
strict rule in the studio that nobody touches others’ work. But these
masks have seen a lot of hands since everybody in the studio wanted to
have a close look at every stage (forming, baking, glazing etc.). I
even gave intructions on glazing technique to one of the teachers in
the studio yesterday. Now that I have some wall decorations, I started
to move to the room upstairs which I will use as my own studio.
Friday
and Satuday was very calm and peaceful but Sunday was just on the
contrary. Due to a chat that I made in the morning, I had to make a
decision that I was postponing to this date and waiting for the matter
to resolve in time. The decision upset me a lot and likely to upset
some others too. I guess, I have no other options than hoping to have
done the right thing.
March 16th, 2006
The jewellery I wear is attracting a lot of attention nowadays. I started to meet with new people thanks to the jewellery. First they
compliment, then when they learn that I am the designer, long chats
begin.
The jewellery I present here is specially designed for a person who
liked my work and wanted to buy. I am only publishing some components
here to keep them personal to the owner.
March 14th, 2006
I really want to freshen up. I mean it wasn’t enough for me to greet
spring with making polymer clay butterflies. For one, I got tired of
wearing layers and layers of clothes like a cabbage the whole winter. I
want to start wearing nice thin dresses, skirts… Everyday I receive a
mail from the skin care products brand that I use. I used to delete
these without having a glance before. But now I decided to get an
appointment for 19th of this month. I will change my make-up this
spring.
I frist sketched the shoe above and added the polymer
clay later. I cannot describe how happy it made me feel. I had so much
fun preparing crebro’s first shoe.
I was sketching randomly the other day when I realized I had drawn a lot of shoes. Why? because I am crazy about shoes.
Anyway, crebro eventually had its first shoe. I hope I am next.
March 11th, 2006
I don’t know when did the last week pass. It was already Friday before
I knew it. And spring had already come. We were just starting to enjoy
the cafe that we have newly discovered but now came the times for the
lake-side and open air. It was getting warmer on Thursday when we
stopped by the lake for a few minutes though there was still a thin
layer of ice on the water. A bunch of ducks and swans were also there.
I wish I had my camera with me that day. Anyway, we will be going to
that lake side again pretty soon.
I had come up with the pattern below before.
When I was convinced that the spring came, I could not resist but
started to make butterflies. I could not stop there and decided to
introduce my butterflies to nature.
I cut the polymer clay patterns 1 cm. (~1/3 in) thick and used the roller to join them.
Then I used a cookie cutter to obtain a butterfly planform. You could
always use a paper print of of a specific shape instead of cutters.
A cute butterfly already ….
Before baking, I wrapped a baking sheet around the wings to give them a kind of flying form.
And they flew…
March 6th, 2006
My weekend accompanied by my polymer clay candleholder photos.
What
a weekend. I could not spare a minute this weekend. Mom used to say:
"Even if somebody tries to clean up after you constantly, he couldn’t
catch up with your mess." Now we are two. My love and I constantly
clean up after each other but we can’t keep the house clean for an hour.
Our
taste has evolved to a strange mix since we can’t find Turkish goods
here. We now have weird menus like General Tso’s and a salad with
pasta.
I have seen a freezing rain for the first time in my life here. Everywhere got covered with a thick layer of ice.
This week, I will make the room upstairs my study. I have started
making some ceramic masks for the walls. I will also try to make a
torchiere lamp if I can. I’m so excited about the new room.
March 4th, 2006
I was at home yesterday and worked
with polymer clays from eight in the morning to ten in the evening.
Since I was trying new techniques, nothing remarkable resulted. Around
10 pm, I threw all the things I made to trash and just as I was having
a disappointment crisis, my love came and saved me. We watched a movie
together and I tried convinced myself that the time I spent was not
waste since I learnt a lot of new things anyway. I get more upset when
I remember my plans of spending a total of 7 hours in ceramic studio
today and tomorrow. How to find time to all the things in my to-do list
is still a big question mark. The only useful product of yesterday is
the photos of the work that I prepared for my site.
Using a pasta machine to mix colors is very easy and fun. I chose two close colors but you could try contrast colors as well.
I cut the clays as seen above and rolled through the machine.
A key point in folding is that each color should fold onto the same color.
Repeating the folding and rolling for a while produces a nice gradient of colors.
When it reaches the level of mix that I want, I fold the clay in two as
seen above (again each color fold onto its equivalent) and roll through
the machine one last time.
Lastly, I wrap the clay as seen above and I obtained a spiral of colors
as seen in the first picture. Of course you can use this gradient
colored clay in many other applications.
