Saturday, February 22, 2014

CFCF 2014 Pre-Conference & Jeffrey Lloyd Dever

I'm back! Cabin Fever Clay Festival was, once again, a wonderful opportunity to experiment, explore and expand my creative polymer side. Over the course of 8 days, I participated in 11 different workshops.  I'll be sharing some of the techniques and projects we worked on here and, in the future, you will no doubt see some of my own pieces evidencing influence from the outstanding instructors.
Today, I thought I'd show you the pieces I worked on during the 2-day pre-pre-conference.  Jeffrey Lloyd Dever was the instructor. If you haven't seen his work, be sure to google his name and sift through the images.  Amazing.  In class, we focused on simple techniques such as using small forms, layering clay, and multiple-baking, to create botanical elements such as seeds and pods that were light and strong.
These are my first pieces.  They all used a form that was removed after the first baking.  The lily was made with one thick layer of clay.  The pods had multiple layers, added over multiple bakings.  This was the first time I've ever "drilled" into polymer to create holes as part of the design.  The green/yellow pod started with a layer of yellow and a second layer of purple.  Drilling opened the purple layer to view.  Had I made the purple layer thinner, I would have been able to drill through to the yellow so that it showed, too.  On the purple/blue pod, the inner layer was not much of a contrast, so I back-filled the drilled holes.

Then we went to work on closed pods.  This is a bit trickier since the form has to be cut out and the pod re-sealed.




The two flowers in the last photo are just me playing with clay.



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