Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

   My last post told how a mixed media wall piece combined wood, metal clay, feathers and ribbons to produce a story.   I introduced the 'Gastornis' - an extinct flightless primitive bird.  This week I'm sharing the 2 pendants I made at the same time I made the 'Gastornis' wall decor.   This post is about telling a story with jewelry and shows how color can add to the message. The pendant on the left above combines warm brass beads, meaningful red prayer beads and a handmade bronze wire clasp.  Does it made you feel excited?  The pendant on the right combines Hubei turquoise with silver and bronze.  The greenish color along with the silver cools the bronze.  Maybe this pendant makes you feel calmer?   Each of us bring our own color experiences with us.  I find it helpful to understand what we like and why.  That makes selections more meaningful and enjoyable.   Let's look at the pendant on the left and I'm going to call it 'The Warm Bird'.  This sto

                                                                                   New Direction Cleaning up my art studio always produces new directions in my projects.  As I reorganize and open drawers that have been closed for a while, I find tools I've forgotten.   Metal Creator This cleaning session uncovered The Metal Creator I purchased in a crowd funding several years ago.  It was invented by Bill Struve and consists of a foot pedal, a CO2 canister, two tubes and a regulator.  The purpose of this tool is to save hand stress as the CO2 pushes the metal clay paste through a syringe.  If I were using a typical syringe, my hand would push the plunger as the clay is extruded.  That gets pretty tiring after a while.   When I first purchased this tool, I also purchased 3 syringes of bronze metal paste.  Fortunately I used one of the syringes and stored the other 2.  One of those syringes was still a good consistency.  I hooked up the tool to try it out -thinking it was time to use

It seems that this 'stay at home' enforced time due to Covid 19 spurred many artists to challenge themselves.  Here's mine!  The Challenge:  Select an artist you love and a painting you love.  Apply the style of a 2 dimensional painting to a 3 dimensional object.   It was my challenge to myself and I chose Gustav Klimt and his painting 'Tree of Life' https://www.gustav-klimt.com/The-Tree-Of-Life.jsp My hollow turkey egg was ready for the first covering of polymer clay.   While that was curing, I looked through my stash of polymer canes (designs in polymer) and selected some that would work.  Next I made a few more and extruded strips to use for the tree and branches.   The design was sketched on the polymer covered egg and using a type of liquid polymer I applied the branches in areas and cured them in the oven.  I've learned to do a few at a time to keep shapes stable - that means baking the egg several times,  After the branches were done, the flowers and leav