Started with Snails
August 20, 2014
Inspirational Art
Kristie Foss is definitely an explorer type of artist. Her blog is full of her exploits in polymer and the many different variations she gets from playing with a technique, surface treatment or form.
In this one post, you can see the progression of playing with shapes starting with the same clay treatment. She began with nautilus snail shapes then worked it into a leaf type of pendant and then finally into these intriguing horn shapes. Its rather neat to be able to see the progression of ideas. Makes me want to jump into the studio and see what comes of the scraps on my table!
But alas, that is not for me today. And tomorrow I am in LA for a week just checking in on family and having some time away from it all with a favorite person of mine. I’m going to get started finding items for next week’s blog as of today and my tired brain could so use some help. If any of you have any favorite pieces–of yours or of others–you think we need to share with everyone, send me a link to this fabulous work at sbray@thepolymerarts.com or message us on Facebook at The Polymer Arts. You’ll get a warm thank you mention in the post and a link to your site as well as a lot of gratitude from little ol’ me!
In the meantime, treat yourself to some downtime of your own with a cup of coffee or glass of wine and join Kristie on her blog for a bit of polymer adventuring.
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Real Faux Fun
August 19, 2014
Inspirational Art
Things have gone a little bonkers over here so apologies for the late posting and any errors here. Due to a family emergency and people being out of town, I do not have my back-up people to help keep my dyslexic errors in check. Hope you can put up with it for a day! But then these fantastic faux wavelite stones by Ilenia Moreni don’t need a lot of explanation. I had not even heard of wavelite until I saw these and now I’m fascinated by the rock. But honestly–and I hope Mother Nature doesn’t hear this–I think I like Ilenia’s version even better. The visual texture with those strong radial lines so strongly draw the eye. And what’s even more exciting … she has an inexpensive Faux Wavelite tutorial so you can make these yourself! How fun.
Ilenia does a lot of faux work and is quite adept at it. She has even made up a few of her own versions of nature’s creations which is why I was on her Flickr page last week and found these. She’s contributing to the article on pushing faux effects from being realistic to being something that looks like it could exist in nature but has never been seen before. Look for the “Pushing Faux” article in the Fall issue of The Polymer Arts coming out Aug 30th for ideas on how to push your natural faux effects to create beautiful new effects all your own.
You may recall Ilenia was featured in the gallery section of our Summer 2014 issue but she’s been working away and has a ton more fun stuff to drool over. Find more of her work on her Flickr pages and her website.
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.
Colorful Fun
August 18, 2014
Inspirational Art
This is that one week every quarter where my brain just goes to mush. We are taking care of the last details as we get ready to release the fall issue of The Polymer Arts (if you haven’t renewed or pre-ordered your print copy, you will need to do so before the end of today in order to get on the mailing list for the first shipment out. Go here to order), so I have been working non-stop for a couple weeks now and a lack of sleep is catching up with me! I also have a little traveling to do in a few days, so it’s going to be a wacky week. We’ll see how that translates here, but I thought, since “play” (our fall issue theme) is on my mind, I would add some fun stuff to the queue. These things have not quite fit into our other themes, so we will use this week to just have fun. I will post some pretties that offer you new ideas for you to play with in your studios.
Perhaps, you’ve seen some of these great earrings and flowers Marie Segal has been posting the last week or so on Facebook. There are just gorgeous colors in her combinations of opaque and translucent canes and, in this case, it looks like a bit of Sutton slice, too. The colors are so juicy, and the disparate visual and tactile textures come together due to how sparely they are all used.
Marie, of course, is one of our pioneers. We owe a lot to her early exploration of the medium and her books. Most recently, she put out a great compendium of techniques called The Polymer Clay Artist’s Guide: A Directory of Mixes, Colors, Textures, Faux Finishes, and Surface Effects. This is a great “jumpstart” book; something you can flip through when looking for new ideas that will change up what you’re presently working on or to get you going on your own clay play day.
You can also add a bit more fun to your Monday with a trip through time and Marie’s work on her website here.
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.
Bubbles, Dots and Cupped Flowers
August 16, 2014
Inspirational Art
After a week of studying dense and mostly random repetition of elements, I thought some of you might be looking for some ideas to play with using this design concept, so today I brought you a few ideas.
Ponsawan Sila has an easy mokume gane tutorial using bubble-like elements to create a dense surface texture. She flattens hers, but I was thinking, just keep the raised spots, and maybe create a denser bubble pattern then indent the middle of each bubble for additional dimension. I think that would look interesting.
http://polymerclaybeads.blogspot.fr/2007/02/blog-post.html
If you want just some simple, fun repetition that could get you in the zen mode dot after dot, try this tutorial from Marina, known as Paper World Mary on Blogspot.
http://bond-mary.blogspot.com/2010/04/blog-post.html
If you were admiring some of the cupped shapes and flowers we saw, how about this cupped flower tutorial by Olga Fufygin.
(Click on the image for a larger view. There seems to be a problem with the image coming up on the blog page it’s from.)
Here’s to hoping you get some time for clay play! Have a great weekend.
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: Crochet & Pearls
August 15, 2014
Inspirational Art
Today’s outside inspiration, a bit of crochet jewelry by Russian crafter by Zaji Galochka, has a little of all the things we’ve talked about this week. There is repetition and the crowding of the duplicated elements. Then there is an example of both an orderliness with an organic movement and a lack of precision. Plus, it’s just a lovely piece! The shine of the hard, round pearls plays a lovely contrast to the soft, rippling texture and looseness of the crocheted leaf shapes. Additionally, there’s a great dichotomy in the color scheme between the two sides.
I just wish the center bead was something else, maybe a large, dark-colored pearl or a rough, textured bead with a soft color that would straddle the contrast between the pearl and crochet elements. I wonder if the artist chose this bead in order to create a more dynamic focal point. Anything at that center, bottom point of a piece where the shapes and colors meet will be a focal point, even if it’s an open and empty crocheted circle. I don’t usually discuss ways to improve pieces, but this is so lovely in every other regard, I just would love to have seen it take one more step towards the elemental unity. Of course, some of you may disagree, finding it perfectly done as is. That is the wonderful thing about art; it reads differently for different people.
I found this piece on Deviant Art, which has some of the most fantastic artists, but is sometimes a little difficult to dig through. All the information and items I could find for Zaji are on her page here. If you like this piece try searching Pinterest or Google images for more crocheted art jewelry. There is some amazing work out there, much of which I could see inspiring many a polymer artist with their handy extuder by their side.
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.
Crowded Elegance
August 14, 2014
Inspirational Art
I knew it was not likely that I would get through a week about repetition and crowded aesthetics without bringing in Cynthia Toops. I tried, but of all the artists I can think of, no one really beats her degree of repetitious elements that is a portrayal of beauty rather than something that tips into chaos or excess.
This tube necklace really drives home the idea that no matter how machined and perfect the elements, the crowded disorder of their assemblage is going to read as organic. Every element here was created with a precision tool or skill set, from the extruded tubes to the carefully chosen gradation of colors, and then to the elegant high-sided bezels the polymer tubes are packed into. It is easy to sense the care in the craftsmanship, but the precision may be hidden. You see this and still think of bunches of flowers, a meadow dense with wildflowers or the flowering of yarrow plants and the like, don’t you? It’s that very slight variation in color and height of each standing tube that sways our thoughts to the natural settings. A simple idea, but the results are complex, rich and rather intense in a quiet, elegant way.
From their amassed tubes to dense string of pods, and on to micro mosaics, Cynthia and her collaborator, Dan Adams, really crowd it in and continue to awe and delight us along the way. If you’ve never visited their website, take a a little trip through some of these beautifully packed spaces.
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Nature Undermines Manmade
August 13, 2014
Inspirational Art
I was hoping to find a piece as crowded with random repeated elements as we’ve had the last two days, but without the obvious organic element to see how that affects the design. However, that has been rather hard to find. Once the repetition is applied in random order, any man-made, machined or polished characteristics of the elements start to lose their innate sense of precision and inanimate nature. It would seem that the randomness itself speaks to us of nature. Then I found this piece by Katy Schmitt that is shiny, polished and bright, but the crowded design actually has some order to it. Yet, it still has a subtle, but definite organic nature to it. Why is that?
Well, there are a couple glaring things here. One, the overlapping application is reminiscent of natural things like scales and pine cones. And the colors and circling design of the canes are basically peacock feather eyes. Nature, of course, has it’s own orderly design that we also gravitate to. Repeated, crowded and yet, orderly; however, not perfect as in machined, but perfectly natural.
Orderly and natural combined elements dominant Katy’s work. Enjoy more of her work on her Flickr photostream and her own website.
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Masses of Flowers
August 12, 2014
Inspirational Art
In all of the comments and emails that I received regarding yesterday’s post, it seems as if we find nature’s masses of similar items most alluring.
Flowers are, of course, an obvious example. Nature packs them in bunches on bushes, in small explosions of colors in meadows and amassed across the canopy of trees in the spring.
So, I went looking for a polymer example, and there are plenty of them, but I particularly like this bracelet due to the likeness of the flowers in shape and size, with just a little change in color. I think this is more nature’s type of design versus the lovely, but very varied designs of the more ornate floral pieces we have seen so much of the last few years.
This was created by a Russian artist who lists her name as Valeria-Maslova in her Livemaster shop. She has a lot of lovely items in her shop, which include more masses of flowers, circles and colonies of shapes that will intrigue you. I am off to keep working on polishing up the next issue, and as you all suggest, I will head off in search of more of these designs to share with you.
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The Attraction of Many
August 11, 2014
Inspirational Art
There has been an aesthetic concept I have been thinking about ever since I posted Dorothy Siemen’s wall piece, Colony two weeks ago. Why is it that we find beauty, comfort or some kind of attraction to items that have repeated and crowded patterns? They make wonderful, energy-filled compositions, and they are filled with texture and richness by the way they thoroughly fill the space. Let’s contemplate this thoroughness as we enjoy some gorgeous art this week.
This piece, by Greece’s Helen P. of Eleins Kingdom on Etsy, is pretty typical of the look I am talking about. Such an approach can carry a piece with little or no color. It does not need any particular order or structure, and there is no pattern or set of lines to follow. Just the same kind of shapes repeated over and over. Why do we like this?
My initial theory is that it harkens back to very common natural formations like lichen, fungus, barnacles, etc. We recognize something organic and inherently beautiful in the abundance and growth of such formations. Or do we?
Let’s start this week by you telling me what you think. Do you find you have an especially strong attraction to this kind of artwork and/or this kind of thing in the natural world and maybe that is why we are attracted to it? Or do you have another theory? Put your thoughts in the comments at the end of the blog post (if you are getting this by email, click on the header of this post to get to the post page), and I’ll aim to use those thoughts to steer the discussion this week.
See more of this crowded, repeated type of work in Helen’s Etsy shop. This type of approach is her primary thing, so you’ll have a chance to ponder it in quite a few more iterations.
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Today is the day … The Fall 2014 issue of The Polymer Arts is out! The theme for this issue is “Time to Play” so we have tons of ideas for increasing your play time, drawing out your ability to let go and play, thoughts on the art of whimsy and humor, ideas for pushing faux effects, creating canes by numbers, creatively naming your work, and tons of other good stuff.
Print issues were sent to the post office for sorting and mailing on Thursday, and this morning, the digital issue was released. This collage gives you a peek at some of the articles you’ll find inside and a Flipbook sampler with many of the articles’ first pages is available on the website if you want a more thorough peek before buying.
Print Subscribers & purchases: Expect your copies to arrive anytime between today and mid-September; arrival times depend on where you live, but the closer to the northwestern US you are, where the issues are printed and mailed from, the sooner you’ll probably see them. International shipments take a minimum of a week and up to 3 weeks, again depending upon your location and mailing services.
Digital Subscribers & purchases: The issue was released digitally at 10am GMT (that’s 5am EST), so you should have a copy in your inbox if you purchased or renewed before Aug 28th. If you have this issue coming, but don’t see it in you inbox, check you spam or junk email folder. Keep in mind, issues are mailed to the email address that you gave us when you made your purchase, or if paying by Paypal, to your Paypal email of record (that’s the one you sign into Paypal with), which may not be this email address since the blog and subscription mailing lists are maintained separately.
If you have any questions about your subscription or order, write us at connect@thepolymerarts.com and we’ll be happy to help you out.
In the meantime, get some playtime in this weekend, be it in the studio or outside, and enjoy child like joy and discovery.
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.
Early in the week it occurred to me that I hadn’t encouraged anyone to send me items that were NOT polymer, so I’d have something for our outside inspiration Friday post. However, the lovely Donna Greenberg came to my rescue and introduced me to a rather amazing enamel artist by the name of Liz Schock. This is not your typical enamel work, at all. There are a lot of wild texture and lines, as well as a carnival mix of colors in much of Lisa’s work.
I am bringing you one of her calmer pieces, actually, I just kept going back to it. This Seaweed Necklace has the intense intricacy of her other work, but for all the wild lines and uneven edges, there is a serenity in it. The color green, and this particular shade of it, has much to do with that. In addition, there is minimal contrast even with the one blue bead. It is still a bit of a mystery since it has so much rich texture, yet is such a calming piece. It is reminiscent of seaweed peacefully floating underwater.
I am especially fond of pieces that I can’t figure out, whose elements are not themselves able to reveal their effect. It is a synergy of the elements that brings about the mood or ‘read’ of a piece like this. It is also something that can’t be taught, not in the sense of defining concepts and outlining approaches. This takes intuition, being in touch with your own sense and reaction to your work, being open as you create to the emerging art and if the piece says ‘step back’, then you want to keep from over-complicating it. I don’t know that this is true for Liz with this piece, but I can imagine, with all the color and contrast in the rest of her work, that it might have been just such an experience that had her pull back from some of her more raucous tendencies.
I would really encourage you to see what I mean. She has a website that was working the other day, but seems to be offline at the time I am writing this. Try going to her website and/or her Facebook page to see what she does with her enamel work and art jewelry and let the idea of how the work presents itself. You may love some of it, you may really dislike a few pieces, but the fact is that with work like this, you will have a reaction of some sort. Isn’t that what we all want our work to do in the end?
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I can’t give credit to the person who sent me this artist as I only have the email address it was sent from and a query back hasn’t received a response yet, but this was too good to pass by. (If you sent me this, write me back with your name!)
Astrid Brefort was the artist referred to and these fun, graphic pendants were what was sent in consideration of this week’s reader’s choice posts. It looks like texture, both tactile and visual in this piece, are what have been drawing readers lately. And layers! Here form created with layers again plays a role in enlivening the piece. Layers create depth and complexity while the halting swirl of the lines and the bright color contrast of the two colors bring visual energy against the white background. It’s simple elements brought together to create a vibrant and fun piece.
Astrid is one of those highly exploratory artists I occasionally talk about. If you take a look at her blog, she has been trying a little bit of a lot of things lately with great results. Go have fun poking around all the fun stuff on her blog and in her shop.
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Today’s reader’s choice comes to you thanks to the talented Randee Ketzel who kindly sends me cool stuff on regular basis. This piece by Olga Ledneva caught her attention due to the layering and the perfectly applied application and juxtaposition of elements.
Yesterday, we got started talking about how the impact of texture can be enhanced by form, but it can be taken one or two steps further by adding lines and contrast to the mix. These forms are created by lines, both curved and straight, which, along with color value, provides dynamic contrast in what is a fairly well controlled composition.
The meticulous finish and balance of elements is key in the work Olga does. See more of her pieces on her Flickr page.
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Today’s artistic inspiration was sent to me by reader Fran Harkes who only sent this to me yesterday, but it tied in so well to our first piece this week that I thought I just needed to share it right away.
These fantastic little pendants were created by Britain’s Nicola Morse. The reason I wanted to tie them in to yesterday’s post is that in both cases we are looking at some pretty, but simple, textures made so much more exciting and intriguing because of the forms they are shaped into.
It’s definitely easy to see how it worked in yesterday’s pieces because they were monochromatic beads, so texture and from was what it was all about. But, these pendants have the added bonus of some really intense colors. If you imagine the pieces from yesterday and today as flat, you can see how much of their appeal they would lose flattened. Shape helps make them.
As it turns out, the beads from yesterday have an available tutorial. You can go here to learn to make those organic stamped beads. (Thank you to both Randee Ketzel and Sue Hammer for sending the tutorial link.) So, does anyone know if there is a tutorial related to today’s pieces? These hollow shapes would be so much fun to work with.
In the meantime, Nicola’s website has some other fun stuff to ponder, especially her approach to a faux ceramic look. Enjoy!
Thank you Fran, for such a great find!
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Last week, I asked readers to send in images of work they felt should be featured and shared on the blog. That’s what we’re doing this week.
The very first person to chime in was Sue Hammer who sent me a link to Rebekah Payne’s website. I’ve actually had a couple of Rebekah’s images in my files, and it was fun to see that Sue had the same type of wildflower impressed ‘inside out’ beads, as Rebekah calls them, suggested for the blog.
These beads get their texture from tiny wildflowers molds. I am not certain how she developed the hollow cup with the texture on the inside, but I sure am curious. An outside mold and an inside mold used at the same time to impress the clay? That’s one idea.
No matter how it’s done, it’s wonderful to see such rustic and organic texture in a complex, but also very organic, looking shape. It feels completely natural that this texture should appear on such a form. This is true of much of the work Rebekah does. You can see this on her blog and in her Etsy shop.
I’m still taking suggestions for this week’s posts and maybe, next week’s as well. If you have a piece you’ve seen that you think we really need to share, it’s reader’s choice! Send links or images directly to me at sbray@thepolymerarts.com.
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.`
Hopefully you’ve been having a fun week, but now for a fun weekend, right? How about something colorful and versatile to try in the studio?
These flower cup beads are created by starting with a rectangular, extruded cane then form a cup over a large ball stylus tool. I just like the stepping away from using circular extruded shapes for extruded canes. There is absolutely no reason not to make extruded canes with any shape you have available for your extruder. This long rectangular shape is particularly fun because of the striations you can make. You will see this in the bead on the first page of the tutorial that I am giving you. And why not reform the cane into long teardrops or flatten them out a little more and roll then into a rainbow jelly roll? Extrude a few and see what you can come up with!
On Poly Cat’s pages , you’ll find the Rectangular Rainbow Extruded Cane being used to create a bead, then there’s the flower cup bead steps you use the cane slices with as well. Pop the URLs for any of these links into Google translate if you want to read them in English, and your browser doesn’t automatically translate them for you. If I understand the translation correctly, the techniques she uses are inspired by others, and she has links and references to those sources so you have even more to check out if you like.
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Okay, so I don’t have another snail for you. I went back and looked at fun stuff that I had collected to share, and this certainly fills the bill. Plus, I just feel like a splash of colorful fun is needed today.
These are glass beads created by Australia’s Regis Teixera. This is all lampwork glass. There is a great mix of colors from bright and saturated to pastel and earth-tones, but I think the unlimited palette works primarily because the mix is only happening on half of each bead. The frosted translucent halves have color peeking in from underneath, but the space is a resting place between the very active and colorful sections of the other beads.
In any case, it’s beautiful fun and definitely a mix of color and visual texture we can consider translating to polymer. Just the frosted translucent versus colored half of the bead has me considering how to do something like that.
More color and fun beads are to be found on Regis’ Magma Beads site to help move your Friday along.
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Read More
I wasn’t planning a snail themed week, but I think I will try to find more for the rest of the week. Maybe. In any case, here’s one more today for you.
If you are lucky enough to be heading to the IPCA retreat in Ohio, find Ron Lehocky and get yourself one of his beautiful heart pins. He’s been adding nautilus images to them along with his usual beautiful abstract compositions. Obviously, this here is not a heart (he does make other things!), but a beautiful piece it is. It’s still a pin but Ron provides a chain and method to convert it into a pendant as well.
I’m not sure what method Ron is using here but this kind of conversion can be done with any pin that has a straight pin as the attachment. You use a short bit of hollow metal tubing or even a bit of a drinking straw, thread a chain through it and then put the straight pin through and close it. Ta da! You have a pendant.
If you do not have a Ron Lehocky heart pin yet, go to the Kid Center website or Ron’s Facebook page to get information on how to buy your own while supporting a great cause. As of this week Ron has created 27, 276 heart pins with every penny paid for them going to the Kid’s Center. Amazing work and amazing generosity.
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.
