Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy

www.divadea.etsy.com

She’s the newly elected Vice-President of the PCAGOE. 

Alissa Plant (Divadea) is a  musician, voice teacher, internet junkie, and Buffy fanatic (not necessarily in that order…) Hailing from Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, Alissa and her sister, Robin, create many different items of polymer clay.  Her eclectic shop features many facets of polymer including pens, taro cards, ornaments, jewelry and household items. 

Alissa’s favorite supply at the moment is plastic Easter eggs.  She covers the eggs making shakers and ornaments. Currently, she is working on a series of fun animal ornaments – cows, pigs, owls and (her favorite) penguins.

Alissa is a self-taught artist and her love for bright colors and paper has inspired her to open another shop called thepaperwhisperer on Etsy.

From her feedback:
“These magnets are as beautiful as pictured. They are colorful, solid and well detailed. I adore the handmade box too. I would love to purchase from DivaDea again.”

In your craft store travels recently, you may have noticed a fairly new polymer clay formula called Studio by Sculpey. The two main traits of Studio by Sculpey that make it a bit different from other polymer clays are:

• muted colors, intended to blend with home interiors
• a suede-like, soft finish 

Several PCAGOE members have tried this new clay, and we have mixed reviews.

Beetreebyme says Studio is “just not the brand for me.” She feels that it’s too soft for her use and doesn’t like the feel of it.

SCDiva has a “love hate relationship” with Studio. She loves the colors but not the consistency or the suede-like finish.

NKDesigns has successfully made this beautiful kaleidoscope canework with Studio, and she likes the way photo transfer works on the clay.

The general consensus seems to be that the texture of this new clay is a bit hard to get used to, but that it definitely has some great uses.

What do you think?

(Faces by JanZio, pollyhyper, juliespace, lemachidesigns, and SarajaneHelm)

Faces, faces, faces. One of the things artists have been creating since the beginning of art is faces. Artists in every genre create faces, and polymer clay artists are no exception. So, how does one go about creating a face with polymer clay?

Well, there are lots of options: rubber stamps, molds, paint, image transfer, canework and sculpting, to name a few. I’m going to share with you a tutorial about a sculpting method today.

A wonderful, personality-laden face like this starts with balls of clay for the different parts of the face - eyes, lips, cheeks, etc. The balls are adjusted into shapes (like half-moons for eyelids, for example), and then the pieces are fit together and smoothed out to form a realistic-looking face. Read the whole tutorial here and try it yourself!

Thanks to Sarajane Helm for sharing this tutorial with us. Here’s her home page, with a wealth of polyclay information!

Thanks to all the voters and entrants in the PCAGOE Day of the Dead October challenge. Way out in front as our first place winner is one of our new members, SpiritMama, with her La Catrina with Chihuahua sculpture. Congratulations!

Our runners-up this month were tied for votes. Congratulations to juliespace and ametistagirl for second place…

…and to pollyhyper and beetreebyme just barely behind them in third place!

Wow, this page is colorful. Great work, everyone!

Two voters, Brenda and Betsy (greenegoddess) have won our fabulous polymer clay prize packs.

Thanks for voting! There are prizes to be won each month, so don’t miss November’s challenge, Autumn Leaves.