Pantone Color Everywhere
August 31, 2013
Inspirational Art, Technique tutorials, Tips and Tricks
So apparently, this has been quite the week for Pantone in the craft blogs.
Besides the posts here, Art Bead Scene chatted about the new Fall colors, showing off some lovely bracelets in the palette colors and throwing in a nice little tutorial for a hidden clasp beaded bracelet.
Then over at the 2 Good Claymates’ blog, Carolyn and Dave spent the last week breaking down the Pantone colors and giving away polymer clay color recipes for the majority of the Fall 2013 palette. Here is a collection of their trademark flowers, using their recipe for the rich orange that Pantone calls “Koi“.
The Goods also have recipes for Samba, Mykonos Blue, Deep Lichen Green, Linden Green, Turbulence and Carafe as well. (click on the color name to get to their post on each of the colors.) If you like the Good’s recipes, you might want to get Carolyn’s Color System tutorial for some more color exploration.
Thank you to Francie Owens, who sent me the Art Bead Scene link, and to Jamie Hibbs, who clued me into what the Goods were up to this week. Thanks for keeping me in the loop, ladies!
Outside Inspiration: Bead Embroidery in this Fall’s Colors
August 30, 2013
Inspirational Art
I am off a tad from Pantone’s palette on the colors of this piece, but of all the pieces I looked at, I kept coming back to this. Maybe it’s because I could see this being done in polymer (by a very patient and dedicated artist). The bib style necklace, not to mention the overall texture and stones, could be translated into an incredibly beautiful polymer piece.
Bead embroidery is a type of bead art that uses a needle and thread to stitch beads to an underlying surface, usually fabric or leather. It requires a tremendous amount of planning, precision, and, of course, time.
Guzel Bakeeva is a rather prolific Russian bead artist with some of the most amazing compositions in this type of work that I’ve seen. Mind you, I’m sure I need to investigate even further into this kind of work (what a horrible task to look forward to!), but her work is quite varied and always mouth-droppingly gorgeous. I can’t even say that this is one of her most stunning pieces. Yes, she has much more to rival this piece, but it stuck with me and the colors could work with this Fall’s palette.
Put some time aside today to look at her website. Just remember to occasionally pick your jaw up off the ground. As my dad used to say, “You don’t want to catch flies!”
Graduating Gray
August 29, 2013
Inspirational Art
Grays are not the most popular color choices for jewelry and home decor, and certainly not in polymer. Gray is completely neutral and is actually a shade, not a color. However, people do have gray outfits to coordinate and, honestly, if you’re going for more subdued accent pieces with a black outfit, gray is an excellent choice.
Using a variety of grays in graduating shades, all either cool or warm, is one of the best ways to create strong visual impact. Strong lines and graphical elements also work wonderfully with grays. Here is an assembly by Poland’s Jagna that demonstrates the drama of graduated grays and how well it can highlight a single color, even another rather neutral one. In this piece, Jagna goes from pale silver gray to dark slate, but with a trail of gold peeking out from her mokume pattern. Between the graduated grays, the graphic lines, and the contemporary shape contrast, this whole piece is the kind of adornment that could make a little black outfit really shine.
Here is another piece by Jagna that is just gray. It’s still very dramatic and high impact for a uncomplicated necklace design.
The one thing about working with gray (or any monochromatic palette) is that you are forced to rely heavily on your other design elements, rather than depending on color to carry a piece. In fact, one of the tricks we used in art school to analyze composition, contrast,and overall design was to take a black and white photo of the piece in question. If it didn’t work in gray scale, it was usually pretty weak even in color. Try taking a black and white photo of your work next time you get the feeling it’s not quite right, and see if that doesn’t help you find where the issue is.
Floral in Fall
August 28, 2013
Inspirational Art
Working up a Fall product line doesn’t mean leaving your floral tendencies behind; the fashion designers certainly aren’t this coming year. From all I’ve read about upcoming trends, pattern in general will be a big focus and flowers, especially wispy wildflowers, daisies, and even dandelions, look to be the “in”thing. So how would you change things up from your Spring or Summer collection of blossoms?
Color will be primary in changing up for a Fall look. Although the Pantone palette for Fall has some rather bright colors, they are not pure colors or pastel. The Samba red and the Koi orange are both deeper and a step or two off their color origin, and the lighter colors are neutral more than anything; the Linden Green comes awfully close to being a kahki, and the Deep Lichen Green is more a cool gray than a green. So, can your flowers still be beautifully ornamental if toned down from their summer brilliance or if created in neutral colors? Of course!
Eva Thissen does neutral floral with a very delicate and controlled application of lines, small shapes, and contrast in color. In this case, we have a rich red heavily contrasting a neutral green (pretty much that Samba red and Linden green in the Pantone palette) with subdued blue, cream, pink, and brown flowers accenting the scene. Feminine, fetching, and definitely floral, there is the reserve and the richness associated with Fall, although I would be putting this in my jewelry rotation year round.
Part of Eva’s distinction as a polymer artist is in her color choices. Although she is far from the only one to work heavily in the polymer embroidery technique, I find I easily recognize her work due to her color choices, not to mention the precision of application with those tiny bits of polymer and her penchant for story-like scenes. Enjoy perusing her Flickr pages and her enchanting pieces for a bit today.
A Bright, Mature Fall
August 27, 2013
Inspirational Art
Have you found some color combinations in the Pantone Fall palette posted yesterday? I did quite a bit of searching looking for pieces that fit this palette. Searching by color palette is no easy task, let me tell you! But I did find these lovely beads by Claire Wallis that use two of the brighter colors in the Pantone palette.
Although we don’t think of Fall as a bright season, people don’t stop wearing rich, saturated colors simply because the air is cooler outside. We don’t match our outfits to the changing color of the trees outside (although I have seen people change their home decor to match it). If we are to follow the Pantone Fall palette, there is going to be some brightness in our creations this coming season. Great news for polymer!
The Pantone Acai is a more blue-leaning purple. Purple is associate with royalty and extravagance due to its rarity in centuries past as it was simply a difficult and expensive dye to produce. Because this purple has more blue in it, the calm associated with blue makes this feel more reserved than extravagant. The magenta, which appears a bit richer than the actual Vivacious Pantone color, is also leaning a bit more towards a sense of maturity with its deeper tone, rather than going towards the bright and girlish pink end of the magenta spectrum. And what is Fall but the richer and more mature end of our cycle of seasons?
I will continue my search for more polymer work associated with Pantone’s color palette for this week’s posts, and we’ll certainly talk more about color choices, color mood, and creating palettes; but if any of you find a well-done piece you think I need to share, please give me a head’s up: sbray(a)thepolymerarts.com.
In the meantime, take a closer look at Claire’s work on Flickr. Her pieces are excellently finished and her variety of forms she creates is quite interesting and are also very well done.
Pantone’s Fall Colors
August 26, 2013
Tips and Tricks
I’m sorry I don’t have an actual polymer piece here today, but I’ve had this on my block to blog about since it came out. Pantone distills the color trends and comes up with color palettes for the coming season for designers and artists to use as a guide when developing their product line. With Fall just around the corner, I thought we ought to take a look at what fashion and home decor will be trending color-wise. And beside, they are really beautiful colors this year!
This palette is Pantone’s, but I pulled this particular image from “Brandi Girl Blog” because it’s a great image to print out and keep in your studio if you want to follow the color trends, but also because she’s provided a whole slew of color combinations that you could use to help map out your pieces.
The colors this year are saturated and rather bright, but I think it’s fantastic–perfect for polymer! I have my eye on this particular blue-green-purple combination. Yum.
Do check out Brandi’s page of color combinations, and if you want to keep a close eye on color trends, sign up for Pantone’s newsletter on their website.
Connecting the Dots
August 25, 2013
Ponderings
I thought it would be hard finding a relevant dot related quote for our Sunday contemplation, but surprisingly, it wasn’t that difficult. I am not Steve Jobs’ biggest fan, but this is very apropos for artists as well as entrepreneurs and anyone trying to create anything new in their lives.
My take on this: don’t try to predetermine how things will be. Set yourself up to be in the best position to grab opportunity and push your goals forward. Trust that things will work out and don’t worry about what has not yet happened. Oh, I am so lecturing myself here! It is pointless to worry. It’s much better to just do what seems to be the best you can do with what you have now.
An Abundance of Dimensional, Tentacled Dots
August 24, 2013
Inspirational Art
I wanted to do a post focused on dimensional dots and their variety; but in my search, I found this bit of beautiful insanity and just had to share it. It’s one kind of dimensional dot, but there are so many!
I have a bit of a soft spot for polymer artists who work what we call the “con” circuit–known to muggles as those weird Sci-Fi/Fantasy conventions. That is the arena in which my polymer art sales actually got started. These shows can be wonderfully weird, it’s true, but they also gather some of the most vibrant and active artistic imaginations on the planet. Even after my art went in another direction, I still participated in a few of these shows each year just to be surrounded by the tremendous talent and intellect as well as discuss the state of art in general; as with polymer, the Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror art genres are other areas that struggle to be appreciated as true, fine art. Not that the genre arts aren’t appreciated–DragonCon, which occurs every Labor Day weekend in Atlanta, had about 65,000 attendees last year, and Comic Con had to cap their show at 130,000 last year. And these people buy a lot of art! I would sell out or come awfully close at the shows I attended. It’s a fantastic market if you create genre art. But that is a conversation for another day or another magazine article.
Back to this crazy use of dimensional dots … this set of tentacled wonders by Kaity O’Shea was sold at the most recent Comic Con. Talk about a lot of dimensional dotting! I’m amazed at the patience it must have taken to create this, not to mention I’ve been wondering how she held up the forms so nicely while baking!
I’m pretty sure she created the tentacles in three sections, with the center swirl latching onto the twining tentacle masses on either side. Can you imagine trying to give someone a hug with this on? You do have to admire the engineering here, even if tentacles are not your thing.
You can see more of Kaity’s cephalopod inspired dimensional dotting on her Deviant Art page and in her Etsy shop.
Outside Inspiration: Cosmic Dots
August 23, 2013
Inspirational Art
In searching for dot-focused art for today’s Outside Inspiration, I found that, outside of textiles and glass blowing, polymer seems to be one of the most dot-obsessed crafts. This strikes me as maybe a little odd, because it seems just as easy to create dots in the form of holes and inlay in so many other crafts. Maybe we just like to talk about our dots, and so search engines are able to gather more of them. But in any case, I did actually come across a silversmith with a great appreciation and fondness for dots — cutting holes and inlaying, as well as the applied dimensional dots we are so fond of.
Abi Cochran of SilverSpirals works with her dots in an organic and gorgeously colored manner at that. She crafted the piece here in silver (I think silver clay, as she mentions it’s what she primarily works with), used gold for the dimensional dots, then added resin in a glass enameled fashion to compliment the focal opal in this cosmic-style pendant.
In other pieces of Abi’s, semi-precious stones become the dots that accent her work, or she uses granulation to add small grains of metal for her surface design (see the first issue of The Polymer Arts, Fall 2011 for a faux granulation technique, along with other faux metal approaches). You could spend a lovely break from work or during your downtime this evening looking through her site or checking out the close-ups of her work on her Facebook page. Just a suggestion!
Debra DeWolff is all about the dot. Whether it’s in her felted beads or her bead inlaid polymer bangles like you see here, small spots of color or shine dominate her work. This bracelet uses both a congregation of dots in the form of beads to create the color in her flowers as well as having the very enduring polka dot gracing the inside of the bangle to peek out as it moves about the wearer’s wrist.
Debra creates a lot of fun and still very polished and cosmopolitan dotted jewelry. Take a moment to look through her blog and gallery if you are finding yourself dot inspired this week!
Let’s move away from images with tons of dots, and look at more sparsely used yet directional dots.
On this vessel by Kate Tracton, there are only a handful of dots, but they are the primary element used throughout the various sections of this piece, and they have a lot of interesting things going on.
The ones on the side are what catch you eye first. They are dominant because of the contrast of the dark dots against the light body of the pot, but also because they are lined up in a very particular way–dots going from smaller to larger up the side of the vessel create a feeling of movement. Our eyes will always want to follow well-defined lines; and with the change in size, our eyes will follow the line in one direction–either downward as we see the hierarchy of size as a kind of arrow, or up because we see the change in size as growth. Some people might find their eye going both up and down the lines. But because the dots are repeated on the lid in several variations, as soon as we break out from the lines of dots, we’ll look at the intricacy of the lid. This kind of composition will usually have us spending some time with a piece like this which, of course, would make it an enjoyable piece to view.
I know when I hear “dots” I usually think of something fun, and maybe even silly; but dots can also be quite refined and stunning. This pendant by Etsy’s Noneoftheabove is definitely both. Using polymer dots to develop a gradation of color and accented with just a couple rings of crystals, this pendant is quite bright and shimmering. The combination of elements gives the impression at first that the polymer dots could be crystals themselves. Can you figure out why?
Our perception of shine comes from a contrast of bright against dark. If you look at the crystals themselves, you’ll see that the most “sparkly” ones have a facet reflecting bright white or blue, and a dark contrasting facet or ring of dark color at their base. When you to illustrate a glint in the eye in a painting, you add a white spot on the dark pupil or iris. When you photograph a glass object, you need the reflection of something dark to show its form against all the white light that it will reflect. The same basic principle is shown here; the light, yellow-colored clay with spots of black peeking through, the light pink against the dark red gem, and the actual crystals together make it so that, at a glance, we perceive shine across the whole collection of dots. Kinda neat, huh?
Our mysterious Canandian Noneoftheabove artist makes a whole variety of these pendants with insane precision. Peruse her Etsy page for more shiny collections of dots and just lots of “oh” and “ah” moments.
Read More
This week I was thinking of doing something simple and essential while I wrap up the release of the Fall issue, and I thought dots fit the ticket nicely. Dots are such a basic element, and so common in surface design; but when used well, they make pieces anything but common. So let’s examine dots!
Dots–those small, circular, solid-colored surface accents or indentations–are used as focal points, for random surface decoration, to develop perceived line and movement, and, especially with a three-dimensional material like ours, to create intricate and rich textures. Here is a sampling of the way dots are used by just one jewelry artist in this display of necklaces by Israel’s Elinor Yamin, who quite favors polka dots, beads as dots, directional lines of dots, and dots as focal points for her primarily floral work.
So as we head into our dotty week, think on how you use dots, and we’ll stretch the idea of just how dots can be used to make rich, sophisticated polymer art.
Read MoreI pulled this image today because, well, I need to remember this!!
It’s also a very good rule to follow when you find yourself struggling with your art, your business, or, well, anything. Keeping yourself immersed in whatever is challenging you makes it very hard to see the solution. If you are anything like me, you probably forget to just stop and do nothing instead of trying to madly forge ahead. Hopefully, you have good friends who know the value of lazy moment. Thank goodness I do have those friends and they persist in reminding me.
Read MoreIn the back of every issue of The Polymer Arts is a wonderful one-page article in which someone tells the story of their life as an artist, or of another artist (or artists). I hold a particularly special fondness for this section because it’s the one area in which artists get personal with us as readers. It’s not a setup to teach or preach or help expand your business or make you a better artist; it’s just stories. We can certainly learn from them (what can’t we learn from?), but they are still just artists sharing their story, or the story of other artists.
In this Fall issue, Ronna Sarvas Weltman talks about Gwen Gibson, a polymer pioneer who has moved largely from polymer to work on mixed media in collage and acrylics. Ronna writes about Gwen’s view on the creative process and the patience we must have with ourselves and our medium. It’s a beautiful little article that I would encourage you all to read at least a couple times to really let the ideas sink in.
The article in hand, Ronna and I only had to gather a few images of Gwen’s work before it would be ready to send to layout; but getting artwork of Gwen’s that was of a size we could print turned out to rather difficult. When she was creating beautiful earrings like these from 15 years ago, she had photos taken; but as the years went on and her direction in art changed, the original images got shuffled away. I guess things like that are bound to happen when you buy a 300 year old house in a tiny medieval French village desperately in need of repair and turn it into a creative retreat; I can see where you might have other priorities.
La Cascade is now a beautiful center for art workshops and time out of your normal world to learn a little bit more about yourself as an artist. The story of the La Cascade renovation adventure and charming descriptions and photos of the place can be found on the website along with information about the workshops, should you be interested in attending any one of them.
And don’t forget to get your copy of the Fall issue ordered if you haven’t done so already, as they will all be out and on their way this coming week!
Read MoreToday I’d like to introduce you to ceramicist Carolyn Genders. Her work and her books were brought to my attention by Irene Corman (who has authored an article on putting together a great class and workshop in the upcoming Fall issue, due out this coming week) because of this great quote Irene had pulled from Carolyn’s book, Sources of Inspiration:
“It is easy to get carried away by the feel of the clay, the excitement of mastering new skills…when in fact the most vital consideration is the “idea” and making work that has individuality and a personal voice.”
She may be talking about earthen clay, but quite a few of you know exactly what she’s saying, having experienced the addictive nature of polymer and all its endless possibilities. This quote actually ended up in the article about Dan Cormier’s Broken Telephone Project, as the discussion in the article revolves around the importance of developing and creating with your own personal voice. I thought a bow to the source of the quote and the idea behind it was worth a little Friday afternoon contemplation.
Like most of the artists you’ll find in the next issue, Carolyn’s inspiration comes from nature, but particularly the Sussex landscape where she lives. She sketches her impressions of the landscape, then later takes these visual notes and abstracts them as she integrates them into her vessels and sculptures. Her “Stone Sculptural Form” you see here has some obvious influence from the lines and veins of stone; but then there is the abstraction of color which is highly representative of her personal style and manner of artistic expression. The stone of her home landscape may have been the source for design elements, but the artist has inserted herself with a bold, confident hand.
If you enjoy Carolyn’s colorful, abstracted work, you can enjoy more of it on her website here. Irene highly recommends her book Sources of Inspiration. As for me, I’m waiting for my recently ordered copy to arrive so I can form my own opinion–a “job” I very much look forward to.
Read MoreWhen Anke Humpert asked about including an article for the Organic themed Fall issue, our first conversation revolved around an article on hollow beads; and having seen her hollow beads like the ones below, I was really excited to see what she’d have for us. What she ended up doing was quite unlike these beads, but just as beautiful.
As Anke worked out the idea for the article, what she found she was most interested in when it came to the idea of “Organic” was the process itself; so the article became a journey with Anke through the steps of creating from organic sources of inspiration in an organic creative process. The article gives you the rare opportunity to see the entire process of a talented artist struggling with design and construction decisions, as well as unexpected challenges from concept through the creation of a piece. I found it fascinating to compare how she came up with her piece to my own process.
That is one thing that really stands out about this next issue. There are several articles that take you into the studio and minds of quite a number of polymer artists. Besides spending time with Anke, we have the thoughts and notes from all the artists who participated in Dan Cormier’s Broken Telephone Project, complete with a number of photos of their sketchbook pages and worktables. How often do you get to see that kind of thing?
With the next issue scheduled to be on its way by this coming Wednesday, you won’t have to wait much longer. But in the meantime, you really should look at all the wonderful, exploratory work that Anke creates by dropping by her Flickr page.
Read MoreOne of the articles in the upcoming Fall issue of The Polymer Arts is an engaging piece about putting together a polymer-focused gallery show. This past May some folks at the Polymer Clay Guild of Minnesota took on the task of organizing and promoting a national juried exhibition, Polymer Clay–Gallery Style, at the Flow Art Space in St. Paul, Minnesota. Beth Wegener shares their experience as well as tips and ideas for putting together something similar at your own local gallery or art space. What polymer enthusiast wouldn’t jump at the chance to have great polymer art come to their town, where they can examine it up close and in detail? There is just nothing like seeing the work in person, and such shows give polymer more exposure, educating the public about just what polymer can do.
Due to space limitations in the article, we didn’t have much room to show the pieces that were at this particular exhibit, so I thought I’d share one of my favorites (and obviously one of the favorites of those attending the show, since it tied for the Viewer’s Choice Award) with you here today.
Tell me you aren’t drawn in by the this playful and fantastical llama created by Julie Johnson. From the big wide eyes to the trio of–what are they exactly? horns?–and the lusciously colorful, spiky coat, this piece is not only fun, but curiously intriguing.
Photo by Beth Wegener
You can actually still check out the art that was shown at the exhibit here on the Flow Art Space’s website, at least through the end of this week. Don’t you wish you could have been there?
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