geraldine newfry

binding and polymer clay

yesterday i went down to the studio, totally wanting to play with polymer.  but i have a commission for which to bind.  i sighed and put together the papers to fold.

 

then i remembered that i like to put the signatures in the book press overnight.

 

so there was time to play with clay!  i was working from donna kato's millefiore book.  i want to make beads for book marks.  i figured it would be helpful to make some fresh canes.  i was a bit impatient with the clay, not wanting to mix my own colors.  in the end i should have taken my time.  i made two ugly canes and two nice ones.  i think i'm going to turn the ugly cane into a kaleidoscope cane.  we'll see how that turns out.

i really need to prioritize my time.  i'm creating a few books for publication and they need to be full of journaled pages.  that's going to take a long time.  so i should really focus on that before making beads.  it's hard to tell my muse what to do though.

how do you set your priorities while still allowing the muse to roam free?

works in progress

i want to write about the remainder of the ipca retreat, but couldn't help sharing what i've been working on the past few days.  at the retreat, heather campbell demonstrated a polymer batik technique (i couldn't find a way to directly link to the post, but if you scroll down one post you will see the example).  i seemed to have used the wrong inks, and made some other mistakes, but here is the book cover i came up with.  i'm considering what to do with it, since it didn't quite come out like i'd wanted.

these are the covers of an address book i'm making for my mom.  she had a small three ring binder, and the original cover came right off.  i have to create a case out of these and then figure out how to attach the original three ring element.  i saw iris weiss use these white dots at the retreat and i fell in love with them.

this is a commission.  i haven't pressed any of the elements down yet, or done my texturing.  i'm not sure that this is what i want the final piece to look like.  i'm going to play around with it more today and take several pictures so i can compare.  kim boehm made the PMC piece.  the book is for her.

i also have a self portrait for "self portrait wednesday".  i took it this morning while chechu kittie was making it impossible to work on the computer.