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.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been trying variations of a new technique. Inspired by Inuit stone carvings, which are fairly simple, often beautiful renditions of animals, birds, and people, I decided to sculpt some polymer clay figures that have a similar look. I wanted them to look as if they were carved from stone, so the clay itself had to look stony, and the sculpting technique had to be simpler, less delicate, than many of my pieces so far.

For my first few pieces, I used "White Granite" Premo polymer clay, and chose rabbits for my subject (Easter is coming, after all). I was very pleased with how they turned out. Next, I used "Gray Granite" Premo and sculpted a bear and a goat. I found that this type of clay looks better if it is varnished afterwards, so the pieces look like polished stone. I especially like the way the bear turned out.

Last night, I used some "Pearl" Premo polymer clay and mixed in some pepper and cardamom spices to give the clay some texture. The result was swirly and slightly speckled, looking similar to marble after baking. I made a couple more rabbits out of this clay. I decided not to varnish these pieces.

All in all, I have mixed feelings about these carved-stone-look techniques. Some of them I really like, and others I am more luke-warm about. Probably I will go back to my mica-powder-finished sculpting style for a while. I always like to experiment and push my boundaries, however, so I'm sure I will never stop trying out new ideas and following new inspirations for my sculpting in polymer clay.