What’s more romantic than hanging out in the studio, hot cocoa in my thermos and paint on my hands?
For this Valentine’s day, I teamed up with The Arts Center in Corvallis to spend the evening expressing my love of crafting in a special workshop making jewelry with polymer clay!
Although it’s not my main artform, I love crafting with polymer clay. I like the feeling of being able to make something I can hold in my hand, with relatively accessible materials and equipment. For this class, we used Sculpey Premo polymer clay in various colors, acrylic paint, bakeable clay adhesive, gold foil. We also used various clay tools including rollers, styluses, and ball tools. This class was designed to be beginner-friendly, with step-by-step instruction and the goal of a completed project in 2 hours.
We started out the evening working on faux quartz charms for earrings, broaches, and necklace pendants. The process includes cutting transparent clay down and mixing it with a small amount of acrylic paint. Then we used bakeable adhesive and gold or silver foil to replicate the veins in quartz stone. We then rolled out slabs to cut or shape into desired pieces. Through the process, we got hands on with conditioning clay and using tools. The end products were really lovely!
The second half of the workshop focused on making jewelry from clay slabs, which included selecting contrasting colors, shaping pieces and then layering to create cool designs. In this process, folks got to experiment with representational pieces that evoked memories of classic jewelry elements, as well as abstract pieces that embraced the vibrant colors and textures of the clay.
This was a super fun way to spend Valentine’s evening with a group of cool folks just making stuff! Thanks so much to The Arts Center for hosting our workshop!
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