Sunday, May 10, 2015

May Challenge Winners

The winners in the PCAGOE May Challenge: "Fish" are:

Top entries selected by the public


1. Farrah the Fantasy Fish  by Lisa of HiGirls



2. Flossy the Flying Fish by Betsy of StrebeDesigns




3. Punny Phish Rainbow Trout by Beth of CreateMyWorldDesigns



Top entries selected by members


1. Punny Phish Rainbow Trout by Beth of CreateMyWorldDesigns



2. Farrah the Fantasy Fish  by Lisa of HiGirls



3. Feeling Tropical by Marie of MarieYoungCreative




View all of the entries:
http://polymerclayartists.blogspot.com/2015/05/may-challenge-fish.html




Congratulation to the drawing winners:

Doreen Haskell
Maite Mora Ferrer
Dulcie Harris

They get to pick a prize from one of our lovely participating sponsor shop owners.


Comments from the voters:


So hard to choose this month great work everyone!!!!

Beautiful work.

Wow, it was really hard to pick this month, the submissions were all great! Beautiful work everybody!

Thank you for allowing us to see all the entries and vote. I'm a new to polymer clay.

They are all beautiful as usual!!

This is a wonderful challenge, well done!

I liked the beauty of #10 and #12, and #3 made me smile, so I voted for them, though I could see a lot of effort went into others, too, especially the ones involving a lot of cane work, as well as the coral and beautiful little fish in #9. I liked the humor of the idea of a literal "rainbow" of bones for the trout in #11, too, and vacillated between voting for it or for #3, but finally settled on #3 because besides the humor, I actually felt affection for the fish!

Again they are all beautiful.

Great work!!

As always, entries are amazing!

So hard to choose sometimes, everyone does such a great job.

This challenge has really brought out the creativity. I loved all of them!

I think each of the fish submissions is outstanding. Have just sweated over a pair of blue octopus earrings, including microsurgery (a pin) to one tentacle! Great work everyone!

A link to additional photos or a blog can influence my vote. The 3-D views cannot be underestimated. Even something as simple as listing an item for sale with multiple views really helps.

Love to see the beautiful results of their imaginations.

I always enjoy looking at these wonderful works of art!

I am blown away by these entries. My mouth just dropped open. Wow, ladies.

There is no end to the talents! Hard choices to make.

Wow! Super creative submissions this month!

These fish are beautiful.

Cool theme--they're all so good!

Fabulous work by all...hard to pick just three!

Do more fish!

This month was one of the toughest challenges to vote for... outstanding work by all!!

Such a creative group. I can't wait until I have listed PC pieces in my polymer store so I can join the group. Thanks for creating such a wonderful group.

Beautiful designs and creativity.

Love love love all the fish!! Almost had to get out my rod and reel!

Monday, May 4, 2015

Featured Artist Julie Benner


Meet Julie Benner  of Touchstone Creations
featured artist for the weeks of May 4th through May 17th

Julie lives near Kalamazoo, Michigan and has been working in polymer since 2004. Julie has a way with animal sculpts, as you will see throughout the next 2 weeks. Her unique style brings character and life to many critters. Julie says this about her journey to polymer:

“I have been an artist all my life. I started making a variety of jewelry and small sculptures from mostly for my own and my family's pleasure. On January 1st, 2013, I launched the Touchstone Creations line of hand-sculpted figurines and jewelry in my Etsy shop.”

Find more of Julie’s work at these online locations:

Friday, May 1, 2015

May Challenge Fish



For our May challenge we are featuring Fish. Vote for your favorites. Three lucky voters will be chosen in a drawing to win a gift certificate from one of our sponsor shops.



To see larger images visit:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/1089891@N25/

1. Flossy the Flying Fish by Betsy of StrebeDesigns
I made this polymer clay fish for the PCAGOE May challenge "fish".  Flossy is 10" tall and 11" long.  A big piece for me!  She was shaped first with Sculpey® UltraLight® to keep her lightweight.  For more views and a little about the process visit my blog post at strebedesigns.blogspot.com/2015/04/flossy-flying-fish.html

2. Bluefish Valet No. 148 by Susan of 11BOLDstreet
Originally, the "fish" association was going to be more subtle - only the "scales" on the bottom of this valet. But, as I mashed some scrap polymer into a ball and rolled it, a definite fish shape lay on my work table! Abstract, but recognizable, with very little refinement necessary :D

3. Farrah the Fantasy Fish by Lisa of HiGirls  
PCAGOE May Challenge: Fish
Farrah started out with a chandelier light bulb. Covered with layers of tinted translucent clay and lots of added textures. Please check out more views of her here: www.flickr.com/photos/39493796@N08/

4. Swimming with the Fishes Journal by Arlene of Ashpaints
This started out as a plain black lined journal. Then the seaweed began to grow and stretch and curl. All sorts of strange and wonderful things happen in this magical undersea world including this very fanciful fish. His scales are made from 3 skinner blends rolled into a spiral, then sliced thinly. The same spiral cane is then flattened, sliced and stretched to shape the fins.

5. Fantasy Fish  by Freda of  FredaK
Fish made of polymer clay flower canes after a demo from Jeannette Kandray at Buckeye Bash.

6. Fish Tissue Cover by Marcy of marcympc
Since this has 4 sides, I had several opportunities to refine the design. This is the most recent side and the one I like the best.

7. Feeling Tropical by Marie of MarieYoungCreative
On March 18, I had emergency surgery that put me out of commission for about 4 weeks. This little fishy is my first foray back into working with clay. It is about 2 inches long and is roughly based on techniques from Helen Breil’s Shapes book. You can see more of the process here: marieyoungcreative.com/fish-challenge/

8. Fish Necklace by Line of PlaySculptLive

9. Blue Ring Angel Fish with Coral Mirror by Linda of Claymation3d
Blue Ring Angel fish swimming in coral on a 12" mirror. 

10. Rainbow Trout by Angela of polymerclaycreations  
The May Challenge theme for our PCAGOE team is Fish. I couldn't think of what to do, and then one night as I was falling asleep "rainbow trout" popped into my head. My specialty is colorful rainbow millefiori so a millefiori rainbow trout seemed like a no brainer. The background river is from a tutorial by Christi Uliczny of Cabin Fever Clay

11. Punny Phish Rainbow Trout by Beth of CreateMyWorldDesigns
Polymer wind whirl decoration. Polymer Rainbow trout fish head and tail, created using Ginger Davis Allman's holo effect technique. For the details on the creation of this piece, please check out my blog post: createmyworlddesigns.blogspot.com/2015/04/punny-phish.html

12. Fish in the Deep Blue Sea by Jill of Beautiful Essentials
Jellyroll cane and glow in the dark clay for the fish fins, mouth, and 3-D ocean plants are part of Jill Stone's light switch plate with original cane work.


Full Name (required for voter prize notification):
Email Address (Required for voter prize notification, you will not be sent other e-mails unless you sign up for our e-mail list):
For current Dues-Paying PCAGOE Members: What is Your Etsy Shop Name?
Please select your 1st choice: (2nd & 3rd choice must be different from your 1st.)
Please select your 2nd choice: (2nd choice must be different from your 1st and 3rd.)
Please select your 3rd choice: (3rd choice must be different from your 1st and 2nd.)
How did you hear about the PCAGOE challenge?
Would you like to join our email list? (former Newsletter subscribers already included!) monthly reminder to VOTE in our Challenges, along with important Guild announcements. Please add pcagoe@gmail.com and pcagoe.news@gmail.com to your approved senders. I already signed up
yes
no
Our members love comments! Please comment here on the entries and/or the challenge in general.

This contact form was created by Freedback.