Folksy Heart Swap Mark 2

Having had a short argument with Cheryl Cole over double creamed Devils Cake about whether Kylie and Danni were really sisters, I attempted my second whiz at the Folksy Valentines Heart swap.  I'm not quite sure where my head is at the moment, I guess the things in everyday life just make the creative side of your brain seize up and nothing really seems to flow.  I'm not short of other ideas, for other things I want to work on - so I'm just not quite sure why this seems to be such a challenge.

I started off with some mega hard red clay.  It took ages to get it to the right consistency.  I am not even sure why I started this so late in the evening. With the Waterloo Road Spring DVD blaring in the distance, I used my home made moulds of my dolls face and a heart mould I had made to try to form the idea rattling around in my head.

 

Ok, so the idea was to mould (as I normally do with my creations and then carve and clean up the piece as I go.  The clay at this point (polymer) was the right consistency.

 

At this point, I should have done what I normally do.  Put it in the fridge to settle and cool.  My hands were getting hotter and hotter, the room was pretty warm through me having turned up the heating and I just should have put it to one side.  But I didn't!

I began to clean up the edges with a view to making the face part merge with the heart part, so it could be hung from string once baked.  I used a paintbrush end to smooth around the heart and try to clean it up with my craft knife.  My tools are somewhere under the table in my tool box, but because things are still not in place in my work room, I failed to find them.  Long winded?  Yup, what more would anyone expect?

So it start to think, hmmm it's coming together.  It seems to be ok, the clay is holding although kind of sticky.  Knowing this, I carried on.

TUT!!!

I am never worried about the marks that come from a mould as I quite like the flaws a mould can leave on clay.  Although I had intended to clean up the clay as best I could pre baking.

I shouldn't have taken both parts out of their moulds at this part.  I have never attempted using moulds for a back and front piece to get the shape started.  So it was always going to be trial and error.

Just after carving and smoothing the piece, this is the point where I smashed it up into a ball and started again - stupidly!

 

So I rolled out the clay again and repressed it in both sides.

I thought, this time I would just work with one side in the mould.

I used a bigger piece of clay to make the heart much thicker.

Patted and smoothed it down before removing the other side of the mould.  Is mould spelt mould?  or mold?  I never know...  Anyway, guess what I then did with it?

Yup, I started again.  I kept getting into trouble (as it were) because I felt the face side was too small to mould a good sized heart on the reverse.

So I try a bigger mould, infact two bigger moulds, but because of the way the mouths were on those doll moulds, it again became a chore rather than coming together.  I didn't take the pic of the other dolls face, but it has an open mouth which mean the depth of clay used needed to be extra thick.  I dis-guarded the larger moulds and went back to the smaller one.  Don't ask why. By this time my eyes are hurting and I'm very tired.  I should have just put everything away rather than become frustrated with the idea.

I began again.

The clay was far too soft and the mould wasn't dusted with talc, so that caused its own problems.

 

You can see, the look of the impression is now quite different to the first.   I bashed the clay into one piece and went to bed, fed up!

So that was my evening and my second attempt at the Valentines heart swap.