This is the view from my studio/office window today:

It’s actually more white out than gray. I altered the picture in Photoshop to reflect my mood, which is pretty melancholy this afternoon. We’ve had a mild winter so far, but the last few days have been foggy and overcast, and today’s snowfall has definitely soured my mood. I’m ready for spring and sunshine.

In the last post I showed you some polymer clay beads I was working on. I baked them, then added raw umber acrylic paint to give them a distressed, more matte appearance. I finished the light blue, green and off white beads. Here’s the result:

I like the overall idea of the distressing, since I’m personally not in love with polymer clay in it’s naked, natural baked state. Too often it looks like plastic. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this of course, it’s purely my personal taste. I like texture, distressed finishes, natural stones, things that look worn. While I like that the polymer was toned down here, I’m not totally happy with the way they came out. So I’ll have to keep working to perfect my surface altering techniques.

Last night I made some more beads, and they’re ready to be baked, just as soon as the temperatures rise above freezing again. I’m not keen on leaving my studio window open to get good ventilation when it’s like the antarctic outside.

Here’s what the next batch looks like.

I plan on adding paint to the blue and green ones. Maybe white this time, or a colored paint. I’ll let you know how they turn out.