France’s Céline Charuau (GrisBleu) has taken her polymer clay beachball bead (see last week’s post) a few steps further and again shared her methods.
She explains how she carves baked striped beads with linoleum cutters and backfills the carved designs with acrylic paint. She sometimes embellishes the base beads with canes as in this Spring Snowflake necklace.
Celine uses polymer and wire in unexpected ways and with dazzling results. Her galleries and Flickr pages provide great inspiration to start your week. Here are earlier features about her.
Bettina ,
isn’t her work fantastic? She’s one of the most creative european clay artists. I was so lucky to buy one of her carved bead necklaces last week. I’m still waiting for it to be delivered but ‘m sure I will love it…
Ronna Sarvas Weltman ,
Oh. My. Her work is fresh and delightful. She credits the artists whose techniques have inspired her and then she takes those techniques to a whole new astonishing place. And then she shares how she did it. What fabulous craftsmanship. What an inspiring artist.
I also use a linoleum carving tool a lot. I’ve found the Dockyard micro carving tools from http://www.thecarvinggloveguy.com are the best — their narrow handles and strong construction make them real workhorses, and you’ll find they’re more comfortable to hold and easier to manipulate, particularly if you’re doing fine detail work. If you take a workshop from Robert Dancik you can also buy them from him. If you’re taking a workshop from me and want me to bring some along to sell to you, give a yell beforehand and I’ll pack a few.
I also like to fill it with paint sometimes (or shoe polish or whatever) and am getting fabulous results with Sculpey’s antiquing medium, which comes in chocolate and bone colors. It’s formulated for polymer clay and also somehow has a “good feel” to it. It feels a little creamier than other paints, and grabs the clay just the right way.
Thanks for a lovely start to the week, Cynthia.
Louise ,
I am her biggest fan. She does wonderful things with wire and clay and has a wonderful sense of colour.
naama zamir ,
what a stunning interpetation. it looks so much like glass beads- love it!!!
Francoise ,
Yes ! All what she does is stunning ! I really love it …
Jeannie ,
I love the pink flower. I’m here with my coffee, what a lovely way to wake up in the morning to see something so beautiful.
byZarah ,
These beads are so wonderful, good color and pattern combinations 🙂 They’re somewhat “autumn”. / byZarah.com
Sherry Bailey ,
I love the way people continue to do things with polymer clay that I never thought of — what other medium holds so many surprises??
cristalline ,
C’est toujours un plaisir de retrouver “gris bleu” ici !
ailleurs aussi d’ailleurs 😉
It’s always a pleasure to see “gris bleu” here!
Meisha Barbee ,
What can I say but WOW!!!!! Cynthia, thank you so much for highlighting yet another of Celine’s pieces. I took the time to look at her web-site and was amazed. Her creativity astounds. I am so impressed with her playful integration of wire techniques.
LOVE IT!!!