Dayle Doroshow Workshop: Messengers & Storytellers

Messengers & Storytellers

Day two of Dayle Doroshow's polymer workshop was Messengers & Storytellers. We spent the day making figures, learning the techniques for making them and embellishing them with canes and mokume gane that we brought from home. This is normally a two day class, so we had to cram a lot of ideas into one day.

One of my ideas, sparked by a freeform method of collage that Dayle had us do, was a polymer figure I called "What To Wear?" My figure is a funny looking woman who isn't as good looking as she thinks she is, and her attire (various canes applied to her body) was all over the place color and design-wise. Maybe some in the class thought I had no feel for combining colors....but it was intentional on my part as I wanted this figure to be odd looking.

The above photo shows her in the middle with her soul mates, the fish (left) and bird (right). The door in the center of her opens and reveals the message "What To Wear?" The fish will have a message, too, but I'm not sure what it is going to say yet.

Here is the group of us at the end of the day before we departed full of ideas! I'm in the back in the middle. I'm so happy to have new polymer friends! These are the first polymer people I have met and it is so much fun to talk polymer with artists who understand and more importantly I learned something from every one of them.

Thanks, Dayle, for your warm and friendly approach to sharing your polymer ideas!

Fun With Tory: More Imitative Ivory

imitative ivory beads-fish 1 1/2", horse and rabbit 1"

I carved and sculpted a fish, horse, and rabbit bead, then made a two sided push mold for each design. The figures appear on both sides of the beads. I used the imitative ivory technique that I learned from Tory Hughe's book. I have been making these types of beads in ceramic for many years, but for the polymer version, I was inspired by Dayle Doroshow's Imitative Ivory Face Beads shown in Tory's book.

Speaking of Dayle Doroshow, I am taking a two day workshop with her in Colorado Springs on April 19th and 20th! I couldn't be more excited and will report back here on how the workshop went. Colorado Springs is about 225 miles from where I live, and it will be a nice weekend road trip and I look forward to meeting the clay artists of Pikes Peak Polymer Clay Guild.