Autumn Trees

This summer has been crazy, with CoVid and all, and I haven't had much chance to get any creative soaping done.  However, I finally made it work this month....YAY!

Once again, I'm entering Amy Warden's Soap Challenge Club.  August 2020's tutorial is entitled "Layers with Drop Swirls".  In my soap designs, you will find both of these elements, but I'm not sure if I've ever combined them.  This month inspired me to try some new to me techniques to create an autumn tree.

I do have to apologize, as time was short this month, and I barely got these done.  This post will not have the usual amount of photos of my process.  I'm going to try this one more time though, and I'll see if I can get photos done during that batch.

So, my idea for this month is to create a tree with a layered landscape background.  The tree leaves will be made with the drop swirls.  All of my colors are made using natural colorants and infusions.  Here are some inspirational photos...

For my first attempt, I used charcoal (black), Moroccan red clay (red/orange), cocoa (brown), annatto seed (yellow) and alkanet root (purple).  I only have one picture of the process...and these are the sculpting tools I was trying to use.  Second time trying to sculpt soap, and I just can't get it right.  I do think this was a bit of a  complicated design for a beginner though.

I tried to using "Sculpting Layers" to create the tree.  It was an epic fail...but kind of looks like a Joshua Tree?  Here is the final result...the leaves are all just kind of floating on top, and the colors did not contrast as much as I was hoping they would...not really what I was going for.

So, for my second attempt, I decided to make a tree shaped embed instead.  And, I decided to reserve the yellow and orange for the leaves only.  I really like the result!  No pictures of the process this time...did it late last night.

I do think I will give this one more go...so check this blog out in a day or two to see if there is an update.