Jiya dhadak dhadak jaaye

Hello Folks,

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It all started with a heartbeat! We were given a whole range of choices from chemistry molecules of Caffeine, Insulin, Heme, t-RNA ( Transfer Ribonucleic Acid). Having done the first three, at the t-RNA, we were a little handicapped by the intricacy of the design so we opted for another unusual one out of the odd 15 ideas that were presented to us - Electrocardiogram (ECG).
While doing a polymer clay workshop for a technique called 'Skinner blend', we deliberately chose these colours. The transition started from Wasabi Green into Jungle Green and finally, Black.


We had been itching to use our glow in the dark clay, and this presented the perfect opportunity. The glow in the dark comes from the phosphorescence property of this clay. The only challenge was glow in the dark came in only Sculpey 3, which if you have used polymer clay before, is an extremely soft clay. Using a scale, we approximately marked a reduced size graph, as in the reference image. and then plotted the sinus rhythm, all complete with a heart!!!



Then we faced our old enemy, Symmetry!!! When one is as easy the second one always becomes difficult when it has to be an exact mirror image. We managed that too! Now they are ready to dangle away in someone's ears soon!!!

Photography was a little bit tricky, to catch the exact glow of the clay! The principle of phosphorescence came in handy again - that is, the clay would continue to "glow" even after light source has been switched off. And it's just a matter of a fraction of a second, within which to take the photo. Using our expensive mobile phones, we managed to do that too! The Samsung S5 played the role of our Camera, and the iPhone 4S as a torch and then, we capitalize on that "one tiny slice of time" to show us the glowing heartbeat. In the end we got it just right, didn't we? 

Pouring our blood into polymer clay

An endless budget not only lets you explore a new idea, but also encourages you to experiment.....

The lady who ordered put her trust in us, with an order for her wedding reception jewellery. We were tasked with creating a matching neck piece for a beautiful Sari with a pink, blue and gold combination.  In India, wearing gold jewellery for special occasions is a must, and here she was, opting for customised Jewellery not made from gold. The decision to go all out grand went unspoken! We opted for Polymer clay as it gives us an advantage in selecting colours matching with her Sari and the oh-so-gold-like 3D features.........

We had been contemplating creating a faux metal look. If you are familiar with Silver formation jewellery, you will see that there are intricate patterns, beautifully symmetrical designs, three dimentional settings for precious stones.  While using Polymer clay, it is very common to use texture plates or stamps to give us the intricate patterns required. Our uniqueness comes from the fact that, we upped the ante with completely hand-designed and handmade pattern. Every little 3D effect is completely hand crafted, with no extra help from anything but, a scale, a graph paper and our own imagination. In this particular piece, we kept a beautiful Ice blue Swarovski as the central piece, around which we wove our magic. And it IS magical, how it turned out.

It is a multiple step process you need while narrowing down to the final design. While choosing the Swarovski, we went back and forth, trying to match the colours we had, with the sari and nothing really gelled at first. Having used a Swarovski before, we had decided upon a princess cut as its facets enhance the 3D effect we were aiming for. Once the central colour was settled, we moved on to the designing. Bending to traditional jewellery for inspiration, we chose flowers. At first we experimented with a lotus like 3D look, but the over all design did not leave much space for any intricate work as we had originally planned, so we scrapped that. Our strongest suit so far, has been Calla lilies and while working on another design,

we chanced upon the idea to use smaller petals in a darker shade to offset the central Swarovski colour. Keeping the background gold, we sparsely embroidered using pink and blue in the design. People with symmetrical faces are said to be beautiful, and we used the same idea with our design. With precise cuts to scale, markings to graphs and transferring those onto the polymer clay base was perhaps the most challenging part of the entire exercise. And after almost 2 days of constant cutting, rolling, pasting and molding it was ready! And the only thing that would measure up to the grandeur of the neckpiece was a topaz as dangler.............so, we did that too! Three spiral cut topaz stones fit there like they were made for it! :)

Yesterday we had only handled polymer clay, and today we had moved a step ahead in our own minds with a traditional design.

~ Art'zire/ Pritesh / Richa/ Team