"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.