claying with Julie Picarello

after a busy couple of weeks finishing up my Sr Cert Art Clay  projects, I'm rewarding myself with a weekend with Julie Picarello and her mokume gane mixed media workshop through Bead Designers International (check out her amazing work at http://www.yhdesigns.com/).

lots of clay to condition in preparation for this great class and I'm looking forward to getting together with friends and claying for a weekend.

amazing wood sprites

I've been busy since returning from Maryland, Cabin Fever and Synergy, dealing with the after effects of two weeks away from the real job - and from the flooded basement that awaited by return to Massachusetts. This time, because I was away when the basement flooded and we lost power for several days, the sump pump that keeps me relatively dry was not attended to,  the water rose about 8 inches and entered the finished half of the basement. so I've been pumping, wet vacing, dehumidifying and tossing out.

this is the first weekend I've really had to myself, so today, after some metal clay work with Carol Babineau and a Central Ma Polymer Clay guild meeting, I decided to finally check out some of the etsy sites - and came across some incredible polymer clay wood sprites by Chopoli  .

This polymer sculptor from Rosenheim, Germany has quite a talent for combining polymer clay and wood bark. Some of the sprites'  and gnomes' faces are incredibly beautiful and human like, others are pure fantasy.