Puffin brooches! As you may have noticed, I love puffins! I always like to have some puffins with me, and I’ve collected some lovely brooches from other artists. Making my Easter puffin made me realise I could make my own brooches – it was the first time I’d made a flat puffin, as previously I had only made 3d sculpted puffins. I used the puffin eye and beak canes I’ve made to use with my puffin sculptures, which is why...

I’ve always been fascinated by Automata. I used to call into Cabaret Mechanical Theatre when it was in Covent Garden in the 80’s and 90’s when ever I was in London. In more recent years, I found the MAD (Mechanical Art and Design) museum in Stratford on Avon. I’ve thought about trying to make my own over the years, but it always seemed to be rather difficult – I finally took the plunge in 2024! (for those of you...

I am not sure why I haven’t shared this on my blog before as these experiments date back some years!As you may know, I used to work as a scientific researcher and had access to lots of cool tools and data loggers. I wanted to know what was happening to the temperature in my oven. I had been using those metal oven thermometers but I recognised that it was slow to respond as the temperature is indicated by the metal spring in the back that...

I love puffins! I also love creating geometric canes with polymer clay and I have discovered I enjoy sculpting so it will come as no surprise that patterned puffins have emerged!The first one I finished earlier this year had two different cane patterns covering its body, one darker and one lighter for its white tummy. There are also some different ‘tail feather’ patterns on the underside of the tail. The beak is a cane too. The eye...

I have been experimenting with different sculpture styles. Here is a little Delft pottery-inspired rabbit. It’s just over 6 cm tall so only small. The beauty of canes is that you can resize them so I took some of my Delft-style blue and white canes and made them smaller to fit the size of the sculpture.

I hadn’t done much in the way of sculpture with polymer clay, except some small creatures made with my scraps (including the sleeping cats I have a tutorial for here) but during the Covid pandemic, I had a couple of opportunities to try out some sculpture workshops with some amazing artists and discovered I really enjoyed it!In December 2020 the British Polymer Clay Guild hosted a zoom workshop with Karen Walker making winter hares. It...