Nautica Scope I

This kaleidoscope is based on one of the kits from PolymerClayProjects. The kit comes with black plastic endpiece but I decided to make the whole body from clay. I filled the oil cell with glycerin, flameworked glass stringers, dichroic glass and glass gems. The dichroic glass makes a really wonderful image - the colors change as it catches the light and as the pieces pass by each other. It's really hard to capture, especially since the mirrors are narrow and you can't see the whole image, but you can get an idea of what it looks like in the images below.

The body of the scope was alot of fun to make even though it took me forever. The mermaid, dolphins, and large seahorses are from molds of my own sculptures. I molded real shells and starfish and also used some reverse molds of rubber stamps for the scallops and tiny seahorses. The coral, seaweed, etc were all sculpted freehand on the scope itself.