Tombstone Pendants

When you say tombstone the person next to you (if freaked out easily) will usually turn pail at the very word or may just think your bonkers. Who talks of such things? Really!!. Well I do and love the macabre and spooky. I love Halloween and the grave yard settings. That's is what influenced these necklaces. Tombstones give that haunting feeling and that thought of what's on the other side,  I've tried to capture that feeling but encapsulate it in to something fun that every woman or teen girl would like (that's if they love the spooky side of life that is!) 

I grew up loving hammer horror films, Vincent Price films, a great love of Halloween, I was always drawn to rock bands who had that spooky feel to them example Alice Cooper, Gary Numan and good old ozzy, I'm not going to write every band or thing I like because I'd be typing until next year. Worlds longest blog haha!!.

These tombstone necklaces where easy as in making the basic shape of the tombstone, the rose and vines where the tricky bit. I used a powerful magnifying glass that I can attach to my work bench, If you ever want to make small detail in your jewellery and are just starting out get one it will be of benefit to your delicate work. When I'm making tombstones from polymer clay I like to add detail, such as cracks or shadows to the pedant it just gives a bit of character which adds more to the design than just a plain tombstone with R.I.P written onto it. Even using a small amount of cotton wool to make cobwebs on the tombstone is very effective, but don't bake the polymer clay with wool or the wool will burn!. I also use a glaze to toughen the polymer clay so that delicate pieces such as roses and vines don't brake when being worn. Another thing I try to make sure of when making jewellery from polymer clay, I make sure there are no finger prints in the piece of jewellery. No body wants to buy jewellery with a great big finger print on it!. If its not meant to be there get rid of it. I use a delicate cloth to smooth away finger prints and smooth out an uneven surface. 

Handmade tombstone made
from polymer clay

Handmade tombstone  from polymer clay

I hope you guys enjoyed reading this, you can follow or leave a comment, If you have any questions I'll answer them to the best of my ability. Keep it spooky children of the night!

 

Handamde from polymer clay
this one has a cool spooky skull

New Skulls New Style

I have been working very hard on trying to perfect skulls, coffins, Gothic black roses, spiders, bats and so on. So most of the cliché Gothic things I love. Over the period of four weeks I've been working on realistic skulls as I wrote in my previous blog, since then I have realised  where I was going wrong. I wasn't to great at sculpting the detail around the eye socket, So just by studying  pictures of the human skull and its contours, I  was able to see what I was missing out detail wise. When making skulls if your a beginner I would suggest that you look at pictures of the human skull so that you know the detail well and it will be easier when sculpting them from polymer clay. When you know the how something looks with detail in your head after studying it you are able to know what you should include in to what you are creating.

When I first started making jewellery I didn't realise how impact full fine detail was, but when first starting on a jewellery artists path you just love the fun of doing something new, as you get more experienced you start to realise how detail can make pretty jewellery in to beautiful jewellery. As I say I'm not an expert in jewellery making nor I'm a novice, I'm hovering somewhere in the middle. I would also say say to beginners don't rush in and try and make something off the top of your head. Draw out what you want to make first so that you know where to put the details and colours in the place you want them. Once to often when I began to make something I just horsed in there and tried to make what was in head instead of mapping out what I wanted to create. So having a few artists sketch pads in your work place is always good. Make sure you have good sculpting tools and also keep textures such as leaf skeletons, textured rubber sheets and lots of other textures that you can find around your home or work place. So have fun experimenting and coming up with new ideas.      

These are two of the newer skulls, the one on the right has a detailed background as I mentioned above textures and detail just add to the design. Thanks for reading and I hope some of the advise has been helpful

Shaded with pigments to give a spooky
old feel

Made from white polymer clay
but shaded and aged with pigments