Outside Inspiration: Pure Shape and Balance
February 28, 2014
Inspirational Art
Polymer clay as a medium gives you so many choices as to color, texture, size … it really is one of the most limitless mediums. But unlimited options are not always a good thing. Limitations can force you to work more creatively. For instance, we have here British Artist, Henry Lanham, a jewelry artist who works with wood. If he wants to show off the beauty of the wood, there is a very limited palette. If you have few color options, as we saw last week, you have to lean on other design elements. Here, Henry resorts to shape and symmetry with absolutely stunning results.
Henry is a design sculptor who creates jewelry and body landscapes made from hand carved and fabricated wood pieces. Not only are the pieces visually stimulating to look at, but they also make an interesting and pleasant cacophony of sounds when in movement. To see his art as a performance, take a look at his YouTube video, “Landscapes of Time.”
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Abundant Symmetry
February 27, 2014
Inspirational Art
This “Necklace for a Wild Mood” by Corliss and John Rose (also known as the 2Roses) is about abundance and consistent, balanced symmetry. At first glance there is a harmonious sense of beautiful proportion and balance. The slightest variation in the marbling of the clay, shape or length of the beads helps to avoid a static feeling. There is a fine balance in which the corresponding beads are not necessarily exact but very similar. The colors in this informal symmetry give the piece undertones of luscious extravagance.
Corliss and John Rose are a fascinating couple, each a master craftsperson in his/her own right. In edition to art jewelry, they produce work in commercial and industrial design, tool and die making, painting, photography, lithography, sculpture, holography, furniture, fabrics, engineered plastics, leatherwork, ceramics, lapidary, and gem cutting. I’m exhausted just thinking of all that work. Check out their website and Flickr pages to find our more about this intriguing partnership and be inspired by their art.
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Building Off the Center Line
February 26, 2014
Inspirational Art
The work of Laurie Mika is rather mesmerizing. You can sit and stare and find new things for many long minutes as well as every time you return to a piece. And most everything she creates is built off a centered composition with balanced shapes if not textures and motifs on either side. This is in large part due to the shrine format that is the basis for much of her work.
Laurie is a mixed-media artist with a passion for combining and overlapping a variety of mediums to create her easily recognized style. If you would like to learn this technique, she teaches at ArtFest, Art Unraveled, Art and Soul, Raevn’s Nest and Hacienda Mosaico in Mexico. You can also check out her book, “Mixed-Media Mosaics: Techniques and Projects Using Polymer Clay Tiles, Beads, and Other Embellishments,” or her YouTube video. Or just wander through the couple dozen pages of her art on her website.
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Arrows and Plumb Lines
February 25, 2014
Inspirational Art
This came up on Pinterest and was too excellent an example to pass up. Whoever originally posted this as their inspiration did not tell us who created it. After a little research, we found this piece was created by Melanie Muir. She explains that she made this piece as a challenge to herself as well as to submit to a show. This is a striking example of symmetry that is precisely and dramatically applied.
The high gloss solids atop the bold print base of the arrows along with the layout of the total design of the necklace show off the strengths of symmetrical design. Each bead on the left is matched to each bead on the right. To be further inspired by Melanie’s work, take a look at her website and Flickr pages.
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Excitement in Symmetry
February 24, 2014
Inspirational Art
I have always been a bit of a rebel. In writing classes I was told “write what you know” then would proceed to write about a place that didn’t even exist. In my first art classes I was told “paint what you see” and I proceeded to paint only things that were in my mind. By the time I got into art school doing the opposite was almost a knee-jerk reaction so when I was advised to not create art that was symmetrical because it would be stagnant … guess what? I went on to irritate professors and classmates alike with my straight up the center compositions. Why? It really wasn’t a purely rebellious move. I believed in the beauty of symmetry. Not only that, I believed it could be dynamic and challenging and highly expressive.
I actually believe in the usefulness of all kinds of compositions but I would like to spend a week putting symmetry back on the pedestal where it belongs. We have an automatic draw to symmetry not because its easy but because its familiar. Our bodies are symmetrical, much of nature is symmetrical … well, almost anything that is alive is symmetrical. Symmetry represents balance and growth. Why would one want to avoid it in making art?
This symmetrical necklace is a creation by Lauren Abrams, a layered pendant that she describes in her blog as “over the top, but who cares?” She creates a lot of pieces that are symmetrical with a ethnic, tribal, bohemian feel to them. As she explains, “I love polymer clay because of the immediacy of it as a medium. It is endlessly challenging yet among the simplest of mediums to use. There are new techniques being developed daily and the excitement of trying new ones keeps it fresh and enticing. It’s great to be learning from other polymer clay artists (who are among the most generous of artists when it comes to sharing information) and a day does not go by when I don’t see something done in polymer clay that intrigues me….”
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Graduated Colored Cups
February 23, 2014
Technique tutorials
Here we see another limited palette using gradients of the same color for the theme. Even though flowers lend themselves to this technique, you certainly don’t have to make a hyacinth flower with it. Of course, we can’t think about gradient colors without thinking of Skinner blends. The gradient used here is made by adding varying amounts of white to the base color, but you could also go in the other direction, and add blacks, which would darken the gradient. You could also try analogous blends, using a limited color palette of colors that are near each other on the color wheel.
The artist who made these grape hyacinth pins is Kellie Mowat. She has tutorials that make use of repetition and a limited color palette, as well as tutorials for lots of other mediums. She also has some tutorials posted on YouTube for all of you visual learners out there.
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Fading Out
February 22, 2014
Uncategorized
Here color is minimized but what little color is brought in, is subdued and blends into the composition rather than accenting the dominant copper browns. In Tammi Sloan‘s work here, the palette of browns provides a warm, earthy feel that draws you into the narrative sketched on the front. Using this limited color palette gives the piece a maturity that bright colors would not provide. Through this pairing of copper and polymer clay, she has created an effective juxtaposition between hard and soft materials. She created this piece by rolling a sheet of polymer clay and impressing it into the fired metal clay, so that it would come up through the holes.
Tammi, who is from Whidbey Island, Washington, has a passion for creating. She moves where inspiration takes her. As she explains it, “It is a moving meditation that brings me to a place of deep peace. When I create, I rarely have a picture in my mind of what it is I am going to create. There is a general idea,
but the finished piece is a melding of that idea, the feelings, and thoughts that are flowing through me at the time.” Take a moment and visit her space and become inspired.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
Outside Inspiration: A Tale in Silver
February 21, 2014
Inspirational Art
This antiqued silver pendant by artist Samantha Braund uses intricate textures, form, and unique shapes to tell a story with this Spider Conch shell design. Working primarily with silver limits the number of colors used in her, but embellishing with a lot of texture and shapes to invites us in to hear her story or to invent a story of our own.
Because of the way hte varied planes and edges are composed in this piece, emphasis is placed on the center where the shell opens up to us. The form could also be seen as a metaphor for the heart. The colors of the gems used here remind us of the turbulent emotions that flow through our own hearts as we travel along each day meshed in the highs and lows of life.
Samantha is a multi-medium artist with strong roots in graphic design, photography, and precious metal clay jewelry design. This necklace is part of her Spider Conch “Joy to Pebbles” series made with metal clay. For some more examples of her work, and to see her electroformed copper on polymer clay pieces, take a look at her Amadora Designs’ Flickr pages.
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Giving Way to Intricate Lines
February 20, 2014
Inspirational Art
With just black and silver and a subdued navy blue, these lentil beads would not easily be carried by the palette alone. However, the textured lines and floral transfers along with the break in the larger lentils create an intricate serenity. The positive and negative space of the large beads and the oval links in the oversized chain add a feeling of Art Deco style, while the size and design elements bring it back into modern art imagery.
This is the work of French artist, Olga Nicolas, who enjoys creating in limited color palettes, embellishing with intricate textures using transfers and foils. There is a richness in the colors chosen and the baroque textural designs on some of the beads give this modern piece some old world charm.
You can see more of Olga’s designs using limited palettes on her Flickr pages. Olga teaches workshops in France and has some online tutorials on YouTube.
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During our search for random design last week, we came across a lot of very colorful pieces, many using the entire rainbow and getting away with it beautifully. It’s not that easy to make a piece with every hue in it. That wide variation in color calls for cohesion in other elements, be they characteristics of color itself, or in the form and other elements of design.
In Margit Bohmer’s necklace here, she comes very close to chaos with so much color, a large variety of shapes and many different motifs. So does it work? I’d say. Quite delightfully.
The answer is in the color of course. Margit uses fairly saturated colors but they are all shaded or tinted a bit which subdues their impact. Many are also semi-transparent which further tones down the potential brilliance. It’s this slight but consistent understatement that allows these hues to harmoniously co-exist in one piece.
Looking at Margit’s work on her Flickr pages and in her Etsy shop, you’ll find one bold artist unafraid of lots and lots of color!
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I know this artist, Anna Kokareva (aka Annie Bimur), intended this to be a mini-tutorial for open beads but this would, rather obviously, be a great way to make interesting frames for polymer cabochons, image transfers and resin (backing the open frame with polymer before pouring the resin). I know I am harkening back to last week’s theme but put the last two weeks together and you get wonderfully random colored frames!
This type of frame would be relatively easy to make with an extruder. Select the colors of clays, extrude the strips, press into molds or form by hand, and layer as desired to make your frames. It would be fun to experiment with this process and see what you can come up with.
This same Russian artist has a cute polymer picture frame and a framed lid to a box on her live journal website.
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Minnesota artist Jan Geisen’s necklace is a cohesion of elements achieved through composition. By connecting these seemingly different elements, a relationship is built between them that strengthens the design. This particular design is reminiscent of the Native American jewelry carved from wood bark with the outlines burned into the surface and painted with pigments derived from the earth. Even though it is polymer, it has the look and feel of materials that are much heavier.
Even though Jan likes to work in multi-media, she has been hooked on polymer since discovering it about 20 years ago. She fell in love with its versatility because it was perfect for an “improv” artist like herself. She explains, “I just work with it and it tells me what it wants to do!” Be inspired by Jan’s work on her Flickr page and let your clay tell you what to do.
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Olga Permjakova‘s work is all about randomness, a collection of colors and shapes … This Russian artist gives the bib necklace a contemporary modern edge with her use of geometric shapes and textured colors. Notice how the randomness of all of the shapes build on one another and the individual shapes give the necklace a happy, playful attitude. They are wired together as a piece that makes an exciting necklace or it could even be a piece of wall art. The power of the design allows it to stand alone on its own.
Olga shares, “I like to create extraordinary jewelry and individual things for special women.” She does not like to repeat any of her work; each custom piece is unique and the only one like it in the world. She likes to design and make jewelry using polymer, natural pearls, stones, pressed paper, leather, fur, wool, Swarovski components, wood, fabric, Japanese seed beads, glass, and other mixed media for her creations. Visit her website to see more of her work and to be inspired by this artist!
Thank you for supporting The Polymer Arts projects! Your purchases support the magazine, this blog and our upcoming “Best of” and “Workshop” books. To get even more out of our projects, subscribe, get our newsletter (see form on the left side of our home page), and follow us on Facebook.
We interrupt this week of randomness with the next issue’s dramatic cover! Spring 2014, themed “Wrap it Up” is due to come out around March 1st.
In this issue we’re exploring many of things you do after you’ve created a your art as well as a lot of in-studio exploration:
- Best finishing sealants
- How to make finishing easier
- Packaging your art
- Using software to create great photos of your work
- The fine line between Copying and Being Inspired By
- Wire wrapping with polymer
- Making and using a neck form (to make things like the piece you see on the cover)
- Close up color analysis of millefiori canes
- Unique studio tools (many that you can make yourself)
- Book & product reviews, artist galleries and more!
Now, before I tell you who the artist is on the cover, can you guess? I think this is a bit different for her which is why I was particularly excited to have this piece for the cover.
Have you come up with a name? This is not her usual form. In fact, the only other collar form I’ve seen like this was in my own studio. That comparison led to this artist and I having a fun chat about the construction processes needed for adding fiber and fabric to polymer (something for a future article, I’m sure!) The unusual form and the “wrapping” of polymer around onto itself is not so unusual for her. Do you have it?
The piece is called “Show Some Glamour” by Helen Breil. Helen has never been afraid try new things and push the form of polymer. She shares her thoughts and experiences in a great article on the subject of copying and giving proper credit that is in this issue. We also, incidentally have an article on making a neck form written by Lorrene Baum Davis in order to produce wrap around forms like this. So … lots of inspiration and ideas from Helen and many others this issue!
Pre-orders are now available as well as subscriptions that will get you started with this great issue or you can get the Winter issue right now while waiting for this to come out.
Get your Subscriptions here– http://www.thepolymerarts.com/Subscription_ordering.html
If you need to Renew, go here– http://thepolymerarts.com/Subscription_ordering.html#renewals (And yes, we’ll get you caught up with the Winter issue if your subscription lapsed.)
Back issues can be purchased here:http://www.thepolymerarts.com/Single_issues.html
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
Randomness can be used, not just in the composition of a piece but in the way you work with your clay. Applying or sculpting clay with a random approach can add wonderful, organic and quite expressive elements and textures to a piece.
Klavdija Kurent has allowed threads of clay, wound up without asserting stringent control, and ended up with these intriguing beads and the resulting necklace.
Letting go of your strict control over the clay and allowing the material to create the visual result can be so appealing both in creating this way and in the loose, natural result. Here, the end pattern is random but its the same type of pattern–loose flowing lines and loops–complimented by organic, rock like central beads and a large looping bead as the focal point. I love how the braided strings of clay start out orderly on the left of the focal bead but then break down, giving way suddenly to the chaos. I don’t know if Klavdija intended it, but that bead is a great metaphor for life in general!
Klavdija will be teaching her twisted techniques in April at EuroSynergy in Malta. Are you going to EuroSynergy? There are so many amazing artists and creatives that will be there with workshops, presentations and discussions panels. I’ll be there conducting two workshop style seminars to help attendees develop their personal voice and online presences as well as leading what promises to be a lively discussion with the ladies of From Polymer to Art on what we have and what we want to see more of in print. You can find a list of all our presentations on the Eurosynergy website.
And take a look at more of Klavdija’s work on her Flickr pages and her blog.
Thank you for supporting The Polymer Arts projects and our advertising partners you see below! Your purchases support the magazine, this blog and our upcoming “Best of” and “Workshop” books. To get even more out of our projects, subscribe, get our newsletter (see form on the left side of our home page), and follow us on Facebook.
Periodically you will come across a piece of art that looks like it was cobbled together randomly–the various elements are all different and there is no order to the placement or arrangement. When a piece is truly created with pure randomness, we tend to find it unappealing and often baffling. But then there are those pieces that look random and yet we find ourselves drawn to it anyways. There is some beauty or underlying order we sense in it. We find this quite often in natural settings where beauty can be found in what would seem to be a random arrangement of mountain peaks, of fallen and scattered leaves on a forest floor or of erratic tree branches reaching out in every direction. The reason such seemingly random and chance compositions are found to be beautiful rather than just an incomprehensible mess is because all the elements we are looking at have a purpose and follow an order dictated by the physics and life cycles of our world. This tends to be the same reason art work that looks random can still be beautiful and appealing–because the piece was created with purpose and the elements were chosen with an underlying theme that gives the elements cohesion.
If you look closely at a good piece of art that appears to have a random composition or random elements, there is usually a common thread (or two or three) that brings it all together. For example, this bracelet created by Donna Greenberg looks to have just a bunch of scattered, random elements laid around the flat surface but there are a couple of things that make it cohesive. What would you say that is?
There are two things here that I think are primary to making this piece work. One is the limited color palette which sticks with variations on blue and blue-green. Had there been a wider array of color, the piece would have appeared a bit more chaotic. Not that portraying a bit of chaos is always a bad things but what a different feel this would have to it!
The other thing I think brings this together is the flow of lines, all running in more or less the same way, undulating counter clockwise from the inside towards the outside on the bracelet’s surface. This makes it feel that all the random textures, stippling, embedded beads and many colored metallic flakes are moving around the piece in a coordinated dance. It also gives the bracelet a very graceful sense of movement one might not expect with so many random elements.
Donna works more with randomness than with well-ordered patterns but there is always a sense of purpose and connection between the elements in each piece she makes drawn from organic inspirations. Go ahead and have fun honing your eye on what makes randomness work in more of Donna’s work on her Flickr pages.
Thank you for supporting The Polymer Arts projects! Your purchases support the magazine, this blog and our upcoming “Best of” and “Workshop” books. To get even more out of our projects, subscribe, get our newsletter (see form on the left side of our home page), and follow us on Facebook.
In a piece like the one here, would you say order was introduced into the randomness of the elements or randomness was used to give order more liveliness? It really is a guess as to what the artist was up to but it’s fun to ponder and will also make you more aware of your own decision making.
What I think is that in something like this, it is a matter of adding contrast but I can’t say which direction the artist came from on it. Most all the elements here are square or rectangular or are arranged in something like a block, but the ‘blocks’ themselves are not aligned and there is a lot of variation in each block. Although color is not a variation (and I do wish there was more color, maybe even just one accented red block to give the eye a place to rest and move from) the monochromatic theme does also help unite the random elements as does having every block sit straight and square.
The artist here is not necessarily a polymer artist although the work is a collection of polymer elements. Ali Ferguson says she is “an artist exploring hand-stitch.” I do so like that many artists who see themselves as masters of another medium find a place in their studio for polymer. If you like mixed media, do take a look around Ali’s website where driftwood, old charts, buttons, fabrics and all kind of found objects find their way into interesting wall and wearable art.
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So for a little while at least I’m going to try something different on Sundays. I’ve been collecting tutorial and tip links but haven’t been getting them into the week day posts. So I thought I’d work them in on Sundays along with any other odd bits I think will be of interest.
I had something else lined up for today before Randee Ketzel brought this amazing technique from Sona Grigoryan to my attention. Such great beads and such an unique technique. The internal metal framing is genius!
As Randee said, this is very generous of Sona to post her steps for this technique. I have other pieces to put together for some upcoming articles but I may have to take a break from that and try this! Check out Sona’s posts and notes on her Facebook page here.
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