November 20 & 21
Canyon Elementary School
Canyon, California
Jean Sheppard and I had made reservations to join a class with Grant Diffendaffer to learn how he textures his astounding Ghost and Texture Beads. We emailed him and received the following list of items to bring:
Supplies:
One pound of favorite Premo polymer clay colors
One pound of scrap clay.
Necessary tools:
A pasta machine for rolling out sheets of clay.
A tissue blade or other sharp flexible blade for slicing polymer clay.
A non-stick work surface.
A Speedball linoleum carving knife with u and v gouges. You can buy this at most art stores.
A ball stylus
Your favorite rubber stamps or texture sheets
Any paints or other surface treatments you likeLet me also recommend the following.
Bring a sandwich baggy of items you can use to impress texture into the clay with. Think small, nothing bigger than the size of - say - a Coca-Cola® bottle cap (which, by the way, also renders an intriguing pattern). Grab a wad of clay and wander through your house and yard. Look at everything in the tools (I especially liked my drill bit.), in the kitchen, in the kid's room, bathroom, garage, yard - literally everywhere. When you see something that might have an interesting texture, pick it up and press it into the clay in your hand. If it looks cool, pocket it. I used everything I could dig out of my travel bag, purse and pockets. Jean used a pinecone from one of the redwood trees while one of the other students found some neat bark. These texturing tools are for a different use than the favorite rubber stamps.
Throw in two feet of the cotton kitchen string you use to truss your poultry with or something similar. Yarn won't do, it's too soft. Hemp string will work nicely.
Don't bring many stamps - 2-5 are more than enough. Make sure they're deeply etched and unmounted.
Bring a small bottle of Sobo glue or some other heat tolerant glue compatible with polymer clay.
If you have a mini-lathe, take it along with the accompanying safety goggles. If you don't have one, no biggie.
You need wet/dry automotive sandpaper 800 grit and up for polishing. A couple kitchen sponges to go with it are handy.
Bring a small 1" square block (children's building blocks work well) or a 1" thick board to put under your machine in case you need the extra thickness to clamp your pasta machine to the table. If you have one, bring your pasta motor, too.
You don't really need more than one color of Premo and I recommend it be one of the pearls for the best effect. And he's not kidding when he says just one pound. You really won't need more. And - at most - you can go up to two pounds of scrap as you'll probably get addicted to what he uses it for.
Surface treatments work best if they're not powders. Acrylic paint, Lumiers, Byzantine - just not an oil paint. The Pinatas (Fiesta?) would be a challenge.
Bring a notepad and make sure your writing utensil won't run out of lead or ink. Grant will feed you more information than you can hold in your head. He packs the demonstrations in faster than you're manufacturing, but that's okay. He does that so you can just go into "The Zone" the last afternoon.
And - of course - your favorite hand tools for working with the clay: something to roll with besides your pasta machine, maybe a pair of guides like small square dowels to keep the clay even when you're using the hand roller, tools to tweak with like needle tools, toothpicks, clay shapers, shaped pencil erasers, and round kemper cutters come in handy.
All in all, you shouldn't have more packed than you can carry in an oversized canvas bag with your work surface in your other hand.
Grant is easy going, attentive, alert and amicable. He starts right off and you're immersed within the first five minutes. It's a good, constant pace throughout both days - not grueling, but steady. You have no doubts about what he expects of you, what you can expect of him, about what you're doing or where you're going with it. He teaches to all levels of experience. All you really need to know is how to condition the clay and bake it. He makes sure everyone completely understands what he's teaching and everyone leaves with something they can crow about.
My experience during the two days was mind warping. I got more inspiration out of the weekend than from the entire five days I spent at Sandy Camp the week before. Believe me, that's saying a lot, cuz Sandy Camp was definitely information overload! My muse is literally spinning. I'm usually reasonably chatty and social at polymer clay events, but this one had me so enraptured I don't think I spoke more than two dozen words or so a day. I had to make myself get up and schmooz with the other students. All I wanted to do was sit at my work area and play in the clay, letting time stop and the world disappear. However, the schmoozing was well worth it. Each student took the same instructions and executed them with their own flair. You just can't go wrong in this class. Plus, there are instances when you sit back and what you've done is so f**ing awesome, you just HAVE to share it with someone!! Right then and right there.
If you think I'm being vague about what I learned, you're right. I promised Grant, as did the other students, to not divulge the process. He freely gives permission for us to take our results of the process and do as we wish with them - no restrictions. So please don't ask me how I do a thing I credit to Grant, I won't tell you. But lordy, I will show you, once I can get back into my clay, some awesome designs!!! Great guns! What he taught me isn't limited to just beads!! I am SO rubbing my hands together in anticipation!
If you are interested in perusing, coordinating and/or taking any of Grant's classes, check out his website at http://www.diffendaffer.com/ - trust me, his classes are worth every penny he charges.
This class was held in his home town and when you're driving down Canyon Road, all you'll see of it is the Post Office and the School, so don't blink. The environment of the canyon is extremely diverse and lush. As you come down from the top of the hill you're in pine forest. Then, like stepping through a door, you're suddenly in a tiny pocket of towering redwoods. You go just a mile or so past the school and you step through another door into oak. A couple football fields later you turn a curve and blam! you're in open terrain with scattered trees. No town and very little habitation in sight until you come to a bridge. On the canyon side it looks like you're going to continue on with the same terrain, but halfway across the bridge you're time warped into a full-fledged town! It's almost spooky. It's certainly delightful. The canyon was deep with steep walls so it was quite cool. The sun could penetrate in a little spot here and a little spot there giving the small hide away a fey feel and look. There's a stream that burbles quietly along right under the schoolhouse. I walked all around the grounds of the school and snapped several "rolls" of film (I have a digital and use floppy disks). The pictures below are the best of the lot. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did being in such a regal pocket of nature. I expected an elk to whistle any time! Or one of the fae folke to flit by.
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Copyright 2004
Colleen D. Bergeron.
Last revised: November 27, 2004.
