Found Object Challenge

This month's challenge theme was "found object."

Rebecca Watkins
Found object: piece of old dry branch

 Barb Kaczor
Found object: piece of turtle shell that will be part of completed dreamcatcher

Denise Graham
Found object: the cord from broken earbuds was used to string the beads

Selma Andrews
Found object: the stone inside

Deanna Miller
Found object: old key

Denice Girardeaux
Found object: teardrop crystal

Taking Inspiration

After several of us attended Synergy and told our guildmates about Dan Cormier's Telephone Project and Christine DuMont's critique process, we embarked on our own version of an inspiration project to help us stretch our creativity muscles and continue developing our own design voices.

One of our members, Deanna Miller, is a photographer who has loads of creative Instagram photos. I asked if she would let us use some of her images as jumping off points and she kindly agreed. I chose about 15 photos and put each one in an envelope and each participant blindly chose one. Everyone was told not to show any other participant what they had.

We went home with instructions to make whatever we wanted using the photo for design inspiration. At the next meeting we would put all the items on one side of the table and the images face down on the other.

At the reveal session today, we flipped all the pictures over and as a group tried to match up the items with their associated photo. In most cases we were correct but a few tripped us up. We went around the table so each person could tell a little about their experience.

It was educational to see what everyone took from their inspiration. We had such a good time, in fact, that we decided to do it again. This time we're using a concept for our theme: Negative Space. Put your brainstorm caps on...the next reveal will be at our August meeting.

Judy Slater

Barb Kaczor

Denice Girardeaux

Selma Andrews

Irene Hill

Mavis Strakal

Rebecca Watkins

Denise Graham

Deanna Miller

Surf & Turf Workshop photos, part 1

Here's the happy group of clayers!
From Left to right (front and back rows): Deanna Miller, Judy Slater, Wendy Casperson, Laura Tabakman, Deb Zaniewski, Denise Graham, Cathy Roth, Randee Ketzel, Linda Small, Denice Girardeaux, Selma Andrews, and Jan Montarsi.

Below are a few photos of work by members of our Guild at the end of the Surf & Turf Bracelet (faux techniques) workshop with Randee Ketzel.
More pictures to come later this week.

Rebecca Watkins

Denise Graham

Deanna Miller

Deb Zaniewski

Laura Tabakman

Selma Andrews

Spring Workshop is just one week away!

Workshop weekend is almost here!

We're looking forward to learning how to make a variety of faux gems and imitation wonders of the natural world next week when Randee Ketzel comes to town for our Surf and Turf bracelet workshop. It's not too late to join us so send an email to berecca @ a o l . c o m if you're interested in attending.

Also next weekend, a few of our members will be manning a booth on Sunday, May 5 at the Creative Marketplace outdoor artists market in Verona, PA. This is the first weekend for the monthly event that will be happening all summer, so go check it out.

April 21 Clay Day report

We planned out a slate of demos and activities for the next few months which you can see on our web page, www.polymerclayintheburgh.org/clay_days.

Irene Hill demonstrated a faux ceramic technique. During our clay time the fire house alarms went off and the firemen and trucks went flying out the big doors. Thankfully, the alarm had nothing to do with our heat gun usage for the demo...we all thought it would be very bad form to start a fire in the fire station! No chance of that because we followed good ventilation procedures -- for the portion of the demo that required slight scorching of the clay, we took the project outside!

Our room at the fire house has plenty of space for us to spread out our tools, as you can see by this photo of  Selma in front and Judy in the distance. We didn't even mind sharing space with the fryers left out from the Lenten fish fry!

Spring Workshop, May 4-5, 2013

The Pittsburgh Polymer Clay Guild invites you to our Spring 2013 workshop, May 4-5, 2013.

　

Instructor Randee Ketzel, co-author of an upcoming book about faux techniques in polymer clay, is coming to Pittsburgh from Austin, Texas for two exciting and creative days of fooling Mother Nature. We’ll create a bracelet with all the faux natural elements we create.

The workshop will be held at

Georgetown Clubhouse | 900 Old Farm Road | Lawrence, PA 15055

Member fee $160; Non-member $175. Lunch can be purchased for $7.50 per day.

Please contact Rebecca Watkins at berecca(at)aol(dot)com to

reserve your place, receive instructions for payment and a supplies list.

Registration deadline is April 19, 2013. Class is limited to 20 students.

The deadline for the deposit ($100) is April 1, with the balance due by April 19.

Cancellations before April 4 receive a full refund of your registration fee.

Cancellations between April 4-19 will receive 50% refund.

After April 26, your registration fee will be refunded by 50% only if
your space can be filled with another student.

New Location for Clay Day!

Please join us Sunday, January 20, 10 am - 3 pm at our new Clay Day location in the new Swissvale Fire House. The address is:
7400 Irvine Street, Swissvale PA 15218

Directions to the Swissvale Fire House are below. Each will open a link in a DropBox account. (The link is safe. Give it permission to open if it asks you.) 

1Mb PDF:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/35064034/PPCG_Directions%20to%20Clay%20Day.pdf

4 Mb Word doc (.Docx):

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/35064034/PPCG_Directions%20to%20Clay%20Day.docx

The new location has great lighting, plenty of tables (on wheels!), kitchen, bathroom, no steps, plenty of outlets, some on-street parking and a lot across the street and down a bit that we can use. We can park in front of the entry door (NOT the fire truck garage doors!) and drop off our supplies, then park the car in the lot or on the street.
There is a sub and pizza shop nearby and an ice cream place for summer treats. You can also bring lunch if you wish.