"Australia Speaks" Competition August 2008

Aussiepolclayers has just had a competition entitled Australia Speaks. While we didn't have names attached to the entries during the members vote on the 'Peoples Choice', I have put them all up now we have our winners.
The judges prize (judged by Heather Richmond, Lisa Henderson and myself, Melanie Dilday) goes to:
Esme Parr with Australia Speaks in "Green and Gold"
The People Choice award goes to: Christelle van Lingen with Dreamtime
CONGRATULATIONS goes to our winners AND it also goes out to ALL our entrants. Thank you so much for participating and creating such fabulous pieces and letting Australia Speak in polymer clay! I hope it has encouraged you to enter other competitions nationally and internationally and wish you all the best in finding your own Aussie Voice.

Australian Icons (Janet Masters-Miranda)

Australian Icons bracelet and necklace set.

Techniques -

fimo clay

hmmm found images and sculpted them as best as i could

i think put them on a black clay background and used texture sheets to give the effects i wanted

pearlescent powders were used

baked, floor polish to shine, rebaked and beaded.

Koalaroo (Carl Miranda)

The techniques used: Fimo clay hand-built + gold glitter

Ancient Beauties (Scott McDonald)

Well what tough subject to deal with, Australian culture, Australian spirit, Australian love and Australian identity rolled into one. It was a little daunting, but yet very exciting to get thinking about this subject.... mind you I think this is simply the beginning of my exploration in this area.

When I got to thinking about what Australia would say, should she be here speaking to me now, she would probably be whispering "Come into my wilderness and see what ancient beauties I keep hidden".

Ever since I was a child I found Australia's many natural wonders amazing. There are so many more I want to see. My grandmother did a lot of travelling over this land and she had a wonderful collection of photos. I would always marvel at the stuff she had seen. She also had a jar of many different coloured sands. I loved it. I couldn't believe there were so many coloured earths out there. She promised that jar to me back then, when she passed away however somehow it was lost and I still wish I had it now.

This inspired me in this piece.

I thought, hey , why try to mimic those colours when I could try to track down some different coloured sands and use them to colour my piece, let Australia speak her own words, with her own colours. I jumped onto ebay and found an old vial of many different coloured sands from Teewah Cliffs. These are cliffs near rainbow beach and the sands that come from these cliffs make rainbow beach what it is. It was a vial sold as a souvenir back in the 60's.

So I waited and waited for these sands to arrive.

They came late. I was wanting to try and make a picturewith these colours. I'm kinda glad I didn't go with my original idea, because I am quite happy with how these beads turned out. They look like real pebbles. The primitive shapes I made seem to speak of ancient Australian hidden treasures.

Technique:
I used only sculpey III translucent clay. I mixed it with many different coloured sands that I decanted from a souvenir vial of sand. I made some primitive shapes. I put holes in them pre-baked with a toothpick. I baked them. I strung them. Simple.

Australia United (Danielle Rapinett)

My entry is called "Australia United" and represents this country's diversity.

When I think of Australia I think about how lucky we are to have such a diverse countryside. From the endless outback deserts to the beautiful tropical rainforests and our stunning beaches/oceans. I have tried to capture this in the colours and the techniques I have used in my beads.

Primary technique is mokume gane and I have made lentils and 3 focal beads with creatures that represent the 3 environments that I think make up Australia.

Dreamtime (Christelle van Lingen)

This bracelet is called Dreamtime. Techniques used were: Bracelet forming, mokume gane, texturing.

Boomerang Bead Necklace (Debra Sutton)

The piece is called 'Boomerang Bead Necklace'. I've used traditional aboriginal/ australian colours and organic shapped patterns representitive of boulders and bushrocks.
The techniques i used were skinner blends, bullseye canes, veneer sheets, and hand forming beads.

Turquoise Bay (Zarina Ahmed)

Techniques used: Colour mixing, canework, hand rolling beads and polishing

My polymer clay necklace has sterling silver findings, and 4 turquoise Swarovski

faceted rounds at the clasp

The Green and Gold of my Island Home (Janis Frost)

My inspiration came from the rainforests here in Queensland since that is where I live. I also like the the green and gold theme because it's the year of the Olympics. I started off with an old wooden picture frame which I found at Salvation Army for 30c ( I like recycling). I borrowed ideas from Christi Friesen's books and I used Kato clay for all clay components including liquid Kato. The fine vines were created with a Makins clay extruder. The other non clay products include fresh water pearls, wire, pearlex powders, Lisa Pavelka blank waterslide transfers for the title which is on a base of Kato clay, gold paint for the picture frame and a top coat of varnish to preserve the pearlex and give the rainforest a wet look. The green clay was a mixture of aqua and gold in varying degrees to get subtle changes in the green. Most of the design was hand sculpted in a CF manner and a few of the smaller leaves were created with texture plates and leaf cutters. The tiny dragonfly which the frog has his eye on was made using a tiny mould created from a charm on a bracelet. The middle plate with the title will come out for the placement of a photo at a later stage for the person who has bought it.

Australia speaks in 'green and gold' (Esme Parr)

Australia speaks in ‘green and gold’
Australia’s official national colours, green and gold, were proclaimed on 19 April 1984 by the then Governor-General, Ninian M Stephen. The Government’s decision was prompted by widespread community support for official recognition of the time-honoured green and gold.
Green and gold have strong environmental connections with gold symbolizing images of beaches, mineral wealth and grain while green symbolizes forests, gum tress and paddocks in our Australian landscape.
Green and gold are also the colours of our national floral emblem, the golden wattle. Acacia pycnantha (golden wattle) enjoyed popular acceptance as Australia's national flower for much of this century but it was not proclaimed as the national floral emblem until 1988, the year of Australia's bicentenary.
The use of the national colours is unrestricted in any way and totally free from copyright issues. Green and gold may be used in any design or arrangement of colour, emphasising the green or gold. The boxing kangaroo flag is one popular interpretation of green and gold.
My interpretation of ‘Australia speaks’ is based around our national colours and includes our floral emblem, the wattle. The work consists of three individual pieces which have been designed as one cbody of work and work together to resemble the medals awarded in various sporting achievements, particularly those won at the Olympic Games.
The focal beads are primarily designed using the Mokume Gane technique. This technique is very seductive and can be used to produce imagery which is often totally unpredictable while still being interesting. The pieces in this body of work are unable to be reproduced again. Using this technique I have been able to
achieve what seems to be a textured look for each focal but in reality has a smooth and shiny surface. Small round polymer spacers have been included with each piece to further reinforce the roundness and colour of each wattle blossom.

Natures Gifts (Helen Wilmot)

Nature’s Gifts

Branches

I used a mix of chocolate and caramel colours. I wanted them fairly well blended but wasn’t overly fussy about different shades sowing through. I created some rolls about .5cm thick. I cut two logs of similar length then others at random lengths and cut on an angle. The two of similar length were crossed over each other. The others were attached by using a knitting needle to smooth the joins. I used a pencil to make some shallow dents and gouges in the wood. I inserted two eye pins at the top of the branches.

Leaves

I used Metallic Opal Green clay to create a short, fat log. I cut the log in half lengthways and covered one flat side with metallic gold clay. The log was then reduced and shaped into a tear drop cane. Each leaf was cut from the cane and then shaped before adding it to the tree. I added leaves over where the eye pins went in so that they were hidden.

Koala

This was a Christi Friesen inspired model. I mixed black and white clays to achieve the grey I wanted. I made two oval ‘beads’ one larger than the other then joined them. Using a small grey tear drop shape I attached this to the front of the ‘face’ and smoothed the join using a knitting needle. This was then covered with a black clay oval. Two small white balls formed the outer eyes and I strung a black seed bead onto wire and twisted it before piercing the middle of the white ball. This created the eye. Using a toothpick I teased the clay around the eyes to feather it. The same process was also used under the nose to form the mouth. I shaped the ears and pressed some white clay along the edges and feathered this as well. Then I attached the ears to the head and smoothed the seams over with the knitting needle. I formed the arms and legs out of grey logs and used a craft knife and toothpick to form the toes and fingers. Finally I added small black claws to each hand and foot.

Kookaburra

I used a piece of scrap clay to form the shape of the body. I made a blue/grey log, white log and brown log. These were reduced into tiny tear drop shaped canes which were sliced very thinly to create the individual feathers. The tail feathers and flight feathers were brown logs with a white thin log attached to one side. I cut the clay in several places and covered the flat side with a darker brown. Once this was formed into a teardrop shaped cane slices were used for the feathers. I used black seed beads again to form the eyes and a small triangle of brown clay with a layer of orange was attached as the beak. I then used my craft knife to open the mouth and inserted a small blue log of clay. The feet was a small ball of caramel clay which I cut in half then used a craft knife to form the claws.

Gum Flowers

I used tiny logs of caramel clay. I held it between thumb and forefinger and flattened one end. I slowly pushed and turned a burnishing tool into the clay so it formed a bell. I used red clay and the extruder to create the tiny flowers. I cut these off and inserted them into the bell with a craft knife. I used a mix of Liquid PC and yellow oil paint and dabbed it onto the ends of the flowers.

Green Tree Snake

I made a log out of scrap clay and flattened and shaped one end to look like the head. I mixed emerald and metallic opal greens to make the green colour I wanted. Then I put it through the pasta machine on the second thinnest setting. I lay the log on top of the green sheet and cut around the log with a craft knife. I blended white and yellow to make the underbelly colour. I also ran this through the pasta machine on the second thinnest setting. I lay the other side of the log on the yellow and cut round it with a craft knife. Very gently I went around the snake smoothing on the skin and joining it along the edges where the green and yellow met. I added black seed beads for eyes then used a tiny daisy cutter on its edge to press on the scale effect. I made a hole for the tongue and used a small log which I cut into a fork with my craft knife. Then I wrapped it around the tree.

Overall

I made the branches first. Then I baked them before making the koala. The Koala was wedged into the ‘v’ formed by the branches before baking the whole lot again. I made the kookaburra next and used some liquid PC to strengthen the attachment to the branch. Then I baked the piece again. I added the leaves and then the gum flowers before baking it again. Finally I added the snake and baked it for the last time. I did a small amount of sanding on the koala to remove fingerprints. Then I used thin layers of gloss on the green of the snake, the koala’s nose and on the leaves. I strung it on a grey/brown eyelash thread before adding the catch to finish it off.