Mudcloth Beads--Sort Of

Longest tube bead: 2 1/2", biggest donut bead: 1 3/4"

I've been wanting to do some donut as well as large tube shaped polymer beads, and here are some black and white ones I just made. I was inspired by the mudcloth technique in Judy Belcher's book, Polymer Clay Creative Traditions. She has two interesting techniques for mudcloth in her book, but I improvised a little from her technique.

I carved the designs using a linoleum cutter v-gouge. I'd like to find a better quality carving tool as I want to do more precise designs than the tool let me do. But in trying to recreate the primitive African tradition of mudcloth, it looks pretty close.

One hint for success: if you want to carve through to an underneath color, make sure your top sheet of clay is reeeally thin. As thin as you can make it.

My Blogging Polymer Friends

I am currently compiling a list of polymer artists who blog...you can find it in the right hand column of this blog. It is a fairly new feature of Blogger, and I really like it as it connects like-minded people together. I have made a list of painting blogs I watch on my art blog, carengoodrich.blogspot.com. but I am finding it more difficult to compile a list of blogging polymer artists.

So I wanted you to know that there are some fine polymer artists who are not on my list. It is unfortunate but true. Some polymer artists have blogs but rarely update them. I also don't bookmark/add artists who use half or more of their blog to post non-art stuff.

I hope more polymer artists will have dedicated polymer blogs soon. It's free on Blogger.com, so why not keep in touch with other polymer artists in a painless way? You don't have to update every day, (I don't), but since we polymer people are scattered all over the place, why not start building links with each other through blogs?

Faux Coral Beads

I made some faux coral beads using the instructions in Tory Hughes' book, The Chameleon Clay. I made them a little more misshapen than Tory's examples. I like the natural look of the odd shapes. This is my first batch, I'm sure when I make them again I will tweak the recipe and shapes even more.

If you want to make your own coral, turquoise, jade, ivory, or other natural beads, consider making your own out of polymer clay. Think how much money you'll save by buying a bit of polymer instead of buying the real thing!