I just found my new favorite site - and I have to be careful because I could easily while away whole days of my life there. It's called COLOURLovers.com. From the site's About page: COLOURLovers is an international community of designers and artists of all kinds who visit the site to get color inspiration, ideas and feedback for both their professional and personal projects. COLOURLovers' loyal members create colors, palettes, and patterns to nurture their ongoing love affair with color.
Today is the birthday of one of my other favorite artists, Mr. Charley Harper. Although he died in 2007, his iconic work is still very alive. From Wikipedia: Charley Harper was a Cincinatti- based American Modernist artist. He was best known for his highly stylized wildlife prints, posters, and book illustrations.
Today is the birthday of one of my favorite artists - Alphonse Mucha. Mucha was a Czech artist who painted in the Art Nouveau style. He is famous for his paintings of women with flowing hair, but also worked on other projects, such as stained glass murals for churches. The actress Sarah Bernhardt was enamored by Mucha's decorative style, and commissioned him to create many posters for her various stage appearances. He was big on series, and the above painting is from a sequence of 4 women painted to represent different seasons. This one is Summer.
A new earring design has arrived - my Dotty Pods! These are similar to my Peanut Pod Earrings in that the "shell" is the same form, but the inside is different. The shells are made of purple polymer clay that has been molded and baked around long wooden beads to give them their shape. Before baking the outsides have been textured. The middles are turquoise clay that has been textured and added after the shell has baked. They are attached with liquid polymer clay and the piece is baked again as a whole to ensure a strong hold. 
Here are some photos I took on my trip to the Bronx Zoo this past Tuesday. Images are from the Butterfly House and the Gorilla Exhibit. It was great to see those gorillas in such a well-kept large environment. They genuinely seemed happy in their enclosure and seemed to be having a great adventure play-fighting over a particular stick.
Blue bird image from toile textile was transferred onto tablet-sized pieces of white polymer clay. Holes were pierced prior to baking and a varnish was applied to protect the pieces. The tablets were hung on kidney-shaped earring wires which were adorned with blue Swarovski crystals. I do not know who designed this textile, so I'm sorry, I cannot credit the bird's artist.
Here is a new pair of earrings I made just this morning. They're composed of lucite and plastic flower components, Swarovski crystals and a silver-plated beadcap/earring wires. The creamy orange, bright fuschia, and juicy citrus yellow are perfect colors for summer - which is right around the corner. No polymer clay in this piece, but they're still quite unique.
Recently I found these really pretty floral file folders (tongue twister alert) from the dollar bin in Michael's. I loved the pattern so I made a color copy and did an image transfer onto thin white drop-shaped cutouts of polymer clay. I poked holes in them, baked them, varnished the cured pieces, and finally, attached earring wires. The result is these floral drop earrings. They're super light-weight and have nice movement.
* If you're making earrings, don't forget to poke your holes before you apply the paper. * To make sure your edges are clean, sand them if needed. * You'll also want to protect your piece with some kind of sealer or varnish. I prefer Delta Ceramcoat varnish in gloss.
