I really enjoyed sculpting my turquoise dragon pendants. I have been trying for a while to sculpt dragons figurines in the round, but so far I haven't been pleased with the way they turned out, as my sculpting style uses more carving away clay than adding pieces such as legs and wings. With the dragon pendants, however, I think I've hit on something interesting.

These pendants are stylized rather than realistic. I wanted to try some more in a different color scheme, and immediately visualized the red color of carved cinnabar -- perfect for a dragon! Here is the first red dragon pendant I have finished. It resembles cinnabar, but has more of a golden sheen to it than the coral red of cinnabar. I plan to work some more with this technique as soon as I can. This dragon pendant is now in my https://www.etsy.com/shop/TouchstoneCreations" target="_blank">Etsy shop.

I love turquoise. It's my favorite stone, and my birthstone as well. So today I decided to create some pieces that would have the look and feel of turquoise, without worrying too much about getting it exactly right. 

I wanted these pieces to have some complexity and depth to their color, so I mixed two colors of copper mica powders into the turquoise polymer clay. One of the coppers was fine-textured, and the other was coarse, sort of like glitter, and I really like the results.

 I also tried to keep the pieces rough-cut, like stone, rather than smooth and sleek in their sculpting. After baking, I added touches of turquoise mica powder, as well as a bit more of the coppers, and hand buffed the pieces. I made a small bird figurine, an owl figurine, which I gave to my daughter's friend, a rabbit pendant, and two stylized dragon pendants -- very different from each other. My favorite of all these pieces is unusual. He is the piece that I am holding in the first picture of this post. I call him my Aztec Dragon pendant. All of these turquoise pieces except for the owl can be found in my https://www.etsy.com/shop/TouchstoneCreations" target="_blank">Etsy shop.

I had some cheerful, bright orange polymer clay that called out to be shaped into Baltimore oriole birds a week or so ago. Finishing them was a bit trickier than expected, however. The carbon black Pearlex powders turn out to be too messy to use for details, especially on tiny little pieces, so I had to use black paint for the markings on these birds, after they were baked. They have a touch of white on their wings as well. Even though my birds are stylized, and not meant to be exactly true to life, I think they still need the right colors in the right places. I also varnished them, to make sure the black paint didn't chip or rub off with use. The four smallest birds I made into two pairs of earrings, and the two larger were left as pendents or charms. I have listed the earrings on my Etsy store today.

Some more crows put up on Etsy today, in three different styles and sizes. Well, three styles and two sizes, I guess. Two charms, one in my usual style: shaped and rubbed with mica powders, charm wire inserted, then baked. The other was handled exactly the same way, and after baked was wiped with metallic black paint and varnished for a shiny finish. They are both small charms.

The other, bigger crow is still a miniature, about 1 1/4" by 3/4". He is similar to the even larger crows I posted a few days ago. He is sculpted in a style similar to Japanese netsuke, but black. Netsuke were often carved out of ivory.