Decoratively Speaking
September 30, 2014
Inspirational Art
Because mirror images are so common in nature, I do suppose we find their centered-ness less adventuresome, edgy or contemporary. But, when it comes to nostalgic decor, centered and familiar is where it is at!
Many holiday ornaments like this carefully crafted piece by Kay Miller, will play off some of nature’s most common mirrored designs. In this case, both floral and snowflake designs are harkened to. Floral influence is seen in the motifs chosen and the petal-like structure of the form, but the way they are built up, in visual steps from the center outward, changing as they progress while using the same kind of shapes, is particular to the snowflake and other crystal patterns.
I couldn’t find an active page for Kay, but she does have an Etsy shop; it’s just a little empty at the moment. However, you can find a lot of her ornaments on Google images using her name and ‘ornaments’ as key words (or use the link you see here, of course.)
As a little fun side item, try to find the one single element that is not mirrored in this ornament. I don’t know if she did this on purpose, and if I had the time, I’d start combing through her designs to see if she does this with all of them. This one single discrepancy, which becomes very obvious once you find it, reminds me of a story I heard in an art history class many moons ago about a tradition in a particular tribe of American Indians. Their artisans were so adept that they could make every object with absolute perfection, but instead they would purposely make one tiny thing incorrectly, weaving one twist backwards, miss one painted dot in a series or leave one carved feather untextured. Why? Because they were not gods and believed they should not create as if they were perfect like the gods. I always thought that if I become that perfect in anything I do, I would do the same. I’m just not that perfect yet to even worry about attaining a god-like status in my work. But, it’s fun to think someone else might be doing something like that out there.
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Mirror, mirror …
September 29, 2014
Inspirational Art
The ‘mirror image’ is a very common element in nature; from leaves to flowers to fruit to every creature I can think of, there are often two halves mirroring each other to make the whole. I’ve seen a number of interesting uses of this in polymer pieces lately and thought this might be an easy theme to gather up work for this week. Not so much, however. Because using this kind of element necessitates a centered composition where the mirror images appear–their meeting point in the middle creating a center line–and with a community much enamored of asymmetry, it is far rarer than I would have thought. But, I aim to find a variety of examples where the mirroring adds energy or depth to a piece rather than feeling stale because the element (or elements) are arranged on some center line.
The obvious first place to look is in caning. The kaleidoscope cane alone holds up a great argument for mirroring. Create an pie slice shaped cane, cut up the length and lay matching sides together to fill in the pie round (or some approach akin to that.) And you end up with usually very energized visuals. Lines, curves, angles and other directional elements will be moving from the center in opposite directions creating that energy.
When I hear kaleidoscope canes, I always think of Carol Simmons and her intense precision in this art form. These pendants are examples for her upcoming workshops being held in Racine, Wisconsin after the RAM Symposium later in October. (It’s a waiting list only class; find out more on her website.) The center lines from the process of mirroring images have become a range of star burst like patterns, pushing direction from the center of the pendants to the outside that adds dynamic energy and a mesmerizing amount of detail on such a small space.
If you haven’t attempted a kaleidoscope cane before, but are interested, there are dozens of basic free tutorials as well as more intricate ones sold on Etsy and through other shops. Just Google the term “kaleidoscope cane tutorial” for many instant options.
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Fiery Ripples
September 27, 2014
Inspirational Art
A piece with shibori style ripples, fire, and crackling? How could I resist? The creator of this richly textured bracelet seems to go by nothing more than morskiekamni over on LiveJournal. This particular clayer dabbles in a little of this and a bit of that with a fair amount of miniatures and a lot of floral in there.
So, this bracelet comes as a bit of a surprise in the line-up of work. But, a lovely surprise. The cracks ripple across the base layer of orange, as well as along the edges of the flames. The whole surface looks to be in flux, and I find it hard not to get lost in intricacies; it’s an awful lot like staring into and losing yourself in those campfire flames or the fiery embers of a fireplace.
Yes, I usually give you a little something to work on come Saturday, but I couldn’t help but share this lovely piece first. If you are looking to try something new, how about creating using a ripple blade? The ripple blade looks to have fallen out of fashion in polymer within recent years, but I seem to be seeing it in use a little more just recently. Here is an older page full of still fantastic ideas for rippling up some really beautiful polymer! Enjoy!
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Outside Inspiration: Rippling Glitz
September 26, 2014
Inspirational Art
What else would we do for an outside inspiration that started out looking at shibori, than shibori itself? The artist behind these earrings and ring, Serena Di Mercione, has a number of pieces we actually found on a few polymer clay focused Pinterest boards even though this is silk with beads and pearls and metal findings. I’m not really surprised. It would not be hard to imagine these as polymer instead of silk ribbons. But how would you do that?
I was thinking maybe thinly folded pearl clay colored with diluted alcohol inks applied to just the edges of the folds with a cosmetic sponge. Or Skinner blends applied in thin strips to a pearl clay back and then rolled thin so you can fold it, letting the folds land on the strips of colored blended clay. I’m not really sure how with would work, but I’d be willing to give it a try . I just might do that this weekend as I pull out my clay and tools to show the wonders of this medium to a few curious young minds. We must instill a love of polymer into the next generation, right?
To really brighten your Friday, take a stroll through more of Serena’s delicious shibori and soutache jewelry creations on her Facebook page. You will either get your creative juices flowing or start craving rainbow sherbet!
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.
Ripples Gone Wild
September 25, 2014
Inspirational Art
If yesterday’s version of ripples was controlled and reserved, today’s rippling beads border on being a full-fledged party.
Although Daniela Wernli, also known as Dr. Fimo, only uses one color plus white in these beads, the energy here is very high, but you know the color isn’t a primary factor for that. The beads actually push the whole idea of what a ripple is and can be. You see ripples in the twisted clay curls with their repetition and progression wrapped into tight swirls that ramps up the sense of movement, making for a very energized piece.
In case you were wondering, Daniela was named Dr. Fimo by her family because she is often seen wandering about with her polymer work gloves on. See more of her work, especially some very interesting dots and rolled clay pieces, on her Flickr page.
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Controlled Ripples
September 24, 2014
Inspirational Art
We’ve looked at a few rather free-form versions of rippling, but ripples can also be well controlled and stylized while maintaining that similarly energized feel of movement.
The pins that emerged in The Broken Internet Project had a lot of controlled, but high-energy lines in the designs, most likely due to their inspiration being a pin by the meticulous Dan Cormier, a pin that had a zigzag line (a cousin to the ripple, you could say) through the center of it. I loved Cornelia Brockstedt’s interpretation with both a controlled rippling Skinner blend and a silhouette of a ripple inserted next to it. Calm, but energized. It’s almost the definition of that.
If you never had the chance to see the whole Broken Internet Project results, be sure to jump over to The Cutting Edge’s Facebook page to see them all together. And, for more by the fabulous Cornelia Brockstedt, take a look at her website or her Flickr pages for her latest pieces.
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.
Exploring Ripples
September 23, 2014
Inspirational Art
Although shibori is a fantastic source of inspiration in polymer, adding the liveliness of rippling lines and textures can be achieved in a myriad of ways. Just consider what rippling is and how it works in a design.
Ripples are lines and like any lines, they create movement. However, unlike the forcefulness of straight lines or the gentle leading of curved lines, ripples usually portray a calm but steady energy making them an eye catching element in any design.
Here are multiple examples of this all in one necklace as created by Vickie Sixsmith. We can see the energy in the rippled edges of clay discs, not unlike those on Kim’s bracelet we talked about yesterday, along with the subtle movement in the snakes of wound clay as well as in the soft visual sway of the feather canes covering the focal and side beads. The energy is slightly different in each approach, showing the varying levels of energy and d movement that can be achieved with rippling lines.
Besides explorations in ripples, Vickie and her mother Jean Twigg, who together are Fusion Jewellery Designs, explore a variety of form and texture but movement and energy is a primary focus. You can see more of their collective work on their Facebook page and Vickie’s postings on her Flickr photostream.
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.
Ripples in the Works
September 22, 2014
Inspirational Art
This week we’re going to look at rippling and related visuals. Inspired by Shibori and Shibori like items on Pinterest, my editorial assistant Paula Gilbert, sent me a number of links to Shirbori like pieces. Shibori, according to the entry on Wikipedia, is a Japanese tie-dying technique. There are an infinite number of ways one can bind, stitch, fold, twist, or compress cloth for Shibori, and each way results in very different patterns.”
In polymer, folding or fitting together sections of blended clay can readily emulate the look of shibori. This beautiful bracelet was created by Kim Cavender, and looks to be inspired by a common folded and stitched technique used with silks in Shibori. Her notes on Flickr do point to dyed silk ribbons as the inspiration.
If you want to see the wide variety of Shibori techniques out there, just punch the term into Google images, Pinterest or Flickr and you will find yourself just drowning in all the luscious textures and colors shibori artists’ offer. And for more Kim Cavender, take a look at her Flickr pages and her blog.
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: Tile Elements
September 19, 2014
Inspirational Art
I just love what Ginger found for us today as an outside inspiration. A scene created with tiles, a kind of bas relief where the elements create the imagery and depth from how they are layered and arranged. This is not so very different from some of the polymer scenes we’ve seen this week. The primary difference is that the imagery is created with large swaths of color and texture to create a piecework landscape scene but one that is cohesive and pulls you in.
The wall hanging was created by Chris Sumka, a tile artist. This is the piece’s description:
“The old Palmer place”, 2014, 21″X42″, 237 hours, composed entirely of 12″X12″ r/c porcelain, ceramic and slate floor tile, mounted on r/c 3/4 inch plywood, green, eco friendly art. Large amounts of white grout were left behind to add to the snow effect.”
Now he actually cuts each of these shapes to fit the image from some pretty hard material. If you’ve ever worked with tile, then you know how hard this is and just how tricky it can be to make the right cut and not actually break the tile. I’ve done more than my share of tiling. I’m impressed. We can–and a number of people do–create polymer imagery in a similar fashion. With some pretty darn simple cutting work compared to this!
You can see further detail of this piece on Chris’ Facebook page here and more of his fascinating work including photos of pieces in progress on his Facebook timeline as well.
Our guest blogger partner, Ginger Davis Allman lives in Springfield, Missouri with her husband Gary, her three kids and her many craft obsessions. Subscribe to her blog and look around her website for her well-researched and in-depth posts and articles on polymer related subjects. Support her great information and research as well as treating yourself by purchasing a tutorial or two from this talented lady.
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.
Ginger really wanted to share a micro mosaic piece with you this week and I’ve gone back and forth on options for us. The thing is, micro mosaics in polymer were really established, and I think are still best done, by Cynthia Toops. But I’ll be breaking a rule of mine to not feature an artist that was on the blog within the last 6 months–I like to spread the love around so to speak and Cynthia was featured last month. Well, here’s to breaking rules now and then!
The image of this bracelet is actually from Chuck Domitrovich’s Flickr pages. Chuck, an accomplished metal smith, partnered with Cynthia to create this bracelet some years back. This gorgeous bangle has two scenes actually–one side with an underwater scenario on the right and a land scene on the left. They work together because of the similar color palette and the styling of the imagery. I didn’t think it was too hard to imagine how these were created but the timing issue was not something I would have expected. Here is Cynthia’s process in Chuck’s words:
“Each mosaic is made by rolling tiny Fimo/polymer threads out of each color, and then baking those threads to harden them. Then the threads are cut into small pieces and these are used as the basis for the mosaic, with each tiny cut piece of thread pushed into soft polymer lining the bezel. She only has a limited amount of time to set all the threads before the polymer clay dries out and the threads begin to curl. In some of the larger mosaics she has done, Cynthia has had to rework entire sections that have dried too fast. Each mosaic takes many, many hours, and it is not unusual for her to spend a week of working almost constantly to finish one. Once all the threads are in place the entire piece is baked once again, hardening and setting them.”
There is more detail in this bracelet at the hinges and a closer look really is needed to appreciate all that went into this. You can see great detail shots by clicking the image here or this link and then clicking the right side arrows on Chuck’s Flickr page to see them all. And you can find more of Cynthia and Chuck’s micro mosaic collaborations in this Flickr photo album.
Our guest blogger partner, Ginger Davis Allman lives in Springfield, Missouri with her husband Gary, her three kids and her many craft obsessions. Subscribe to her blog and look around her website for her well-researched and in-depth posts and articles on polymer related subjects. Support her great information and research as well as treating yourself by purchasing a tutorial or two from this talented lady.
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.
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We have another scene picked by Ginger Davis Allman today, this one by miniature sculptor Angee Chase. This is actually an older piece but it was kind of hard to pass by for someone with a love of painting and light like myself.
If you’ve ever taken a painting class you probably heard a lot about capturing the quality of light? Light is what visually defines everything we see but it has variable qualities, especially sunlight throughout the day. I found dawn and dusk to be two of the hardest but most interesting types of light to capture as you are working with growing or diminishing light coming from a low angle. The deepening shadows and richness of a darkening scene at sunset are well captured in Angee’s Sunset Farm Painting. This includes determining the right shades of color, choosing the right value for the background behind the foreground objects and varying the value of the layers of scenery. I’m not sure if the orb in the sky was intended as a sun or a moon but the lighting on the mountains are perfectly portrayed as a full moon rising on the tail end of sunset. And that is quite an inspiring scene if you’ve ever been able to see that over wide open country. This piece is only 3 .75″ x 4.25″ (95mm x 107mm) by the way. Great detail for something so small.
Angee is still doing scenes these days but the ones I found on her Etsy shop are 1″ (25mm) square. Now we’re talking tiny! Her newer shop is called WonderWorks and has a presence on Facebook as well. Her Flickr photostream displays her older pieces if you want ideas that are more like what you see here.
Ginger Davis Allman lives in Springfield, Missouri with her husband Gary, her three kids and her many craft obsessions. Subscribe to her blog and look around her website for her well-researched and in-depth posts and articles on polymer related subjects. Support her great information and research as well as treating yourself by getting yourself a tutorial or two from this talented lady.
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.
Ginger’s pick for today is a bit of lovely wall art by New York’s Joan Israel. Like yesterday’s post, this polymer clay landscape scene consists of individual elements that are arranged to tell a story although I think this one is more about the artist than the town.
Although scenes and stories in polymer are most often literal imagery, the dimensionality and playfulness of the material lends itself more readily to symbolism and metaphor rather than realistic illustration. In this piece, the size of the various components relay a hierarchical importance between the images. The river, the sun, and the bird are the largest, most active and contrasting of the elements here. Light, freedom and a gentle meandering from these along with the bright and rich colors gives the viewer a sense that this is a very happy place, one the artist must be very fond of. The position of the menorah top and center helps in identifying the place if you didn’t see the title of the piece to start with. The title is “Israel” by the way, one of Joan’s favorite places, she confesses in her Flicker comments. Her love of the place does shine right through.
Bright colors and stylized imagery is Joan’s trademark from her jewelry to her covered decor to wall pieces like this. For a bright and sunny break in your day, take a look at Joan’s work on her Flickr photostream.
Ginger Davis Allman lives in Springfield, Missouri with her husband Gary, her three kids and her many craft obsessions. Subscribe to her blog and look around her website for her well-researched and in-depth posts and articles on polymer related subjects. Support her great information and research as well as treating yourself by getting yourself a tutorial or two from this talented lady.
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.
So here is something new for you my dear readers … a week of posts chosen by a guest artst! A little while back I reached out to a number of artists who regularly send me content ideas and asked if they would like to take over the art choices for a week. The idea was to get some fresh views of polymer art that I might not pick out because, even though I try to pull in all varieties and tastes, I just won’t see things the same as other people and vice versa. I am hoping enjoy this little change up and that we’ll get to periodically have a fun and different week like this. Let me know what you think of having a guest blogger as we go through this week or tell me if you’re interested in helping one week yourself by dropping me a note!
Our first guest blog partner is Ginger Davis Allman, blogger extraordinaire at The Blue Bottle Tree and creator and author of numerous techniques and tutorials. She’s looking at polymer ‘scenes’ this week. She wrote up this first post for us:
Normally known for her whimsical and cartoon-like character sculptures, Doreen Kassel also makes jewelry with the same recognizable fun and engaging style. This cuff bracelet features a sculpted street scene reminiscent of a quaint rural French village. Can you imagine walking down this street, meeting interesting characters along the way as you gather your shopping at the market?
The individual elements of the scene, each sculpted in polymer clay and painted in bright colors, come together to create a cohesive story. Each element is separate, but still connected by its placement, its color, and its style. Much in the way the the real buildings of a French village would be.
Doreen will be teaching how to make cuffs like this at a workshop in Stamford, CT this coming October.
Ginger Davis Allman lives in Springfield, Missouri with her husband Gary, her three kids and her many craft obsessions. Subscribe to her blog and look around her website for her well-researched and in-depth posts and articles on polymer related subjects. Support her great information and research as well as treating yourself by getting yourself a tutorial or two from this talented lady.
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.
So after a week of extruder contemplation, have you gone into the studio to try out some new ideas yourself? Well, if not, but you’re anxious to try something out, here are a few ideas for you.
A shaped cane with no background fill? Is that possible? According to Lilu of Russia, you can do this with an extruder. How is that possible? Even our brave artist here can’t say how this works, but can show us successful results. The caveat is that you lose about half your clay to scraps as the ends come out mangled. But, with so many scrap cane techniques to put those towards, that might not be the worse thing to happen.
For those of you who want something more straightforward and less experimental, try these extruded snake surface designs with graduated colors created by Lucy Struncova. No real mysteries here … just extrude small snakes in graduated colors (if you’ve not done that before, go here for the classic tutorial on creating rainbow snakes with an extruder), lay them side by side, use the edge of a credit card, or long thin needle tool to impress the lines perpendicular to the snakes and cut out shapes as desired. A quick easy way to get a surface design with a range of colors and complex looking texture.
Or, you can do both! Roll your scrap ends from the background-less extruded cane through the pasta machine, punch a stack of discs to put back into the extruder, extrude snakes to your heart’s content and make Lucy’s snake and line textured sheets. Then accent them with cane slices. Don’t you love how versatile polymer can be? Even using the same stack of clay through several techniques.
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.
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Reader Corine Lindhorst was kind enough to write and share the work of this highly talented paper artist whose work you see here. Although it’s not extruded, the use of long strips of paper is not unlike using long snakes of extruded clay to form patterns and images. The images in the case of these paper illustrations by Yulia Brodskaya are incredibly fluid and capture nuances that some pencil and paint artists with their limitless color and texture options can’t always accomplish.
Yulia started working as a graphic designer and illustrator until realizing her passion was in paper. Now, she says she “draws with paper instead of on it.” And very, very successfully I might add. In just the 8 years since she started experimenting in paper illustration, she has amassed a large list of huge clients from Starbucks to Godiva, Target, Sephora and The New York Times Magazine. This is one of her more colorful and fun pieces, but may not be the most amazing of them. Her portraiture has some amazingly emotional eyes and facial expressions, especially considering the limitations of the medium. Or are they limitations?
Okay, you clay extruder illustrators … get to it. There is a market for you and one with deep pockets if you’re up for the challenge!
Take a closer look at Yulila’s work on her website but for a quick and powerful overview, take a look at this post on the “This is Colossal” blog.
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.
Claire Fairweather, herself, sent this along when she saw we were doing an extruded themed week. In her words: “‘Extruded Light’ is a candle bowl, approximately 6-inches in diameter. I made it by winding extruded, translucent Premo polymer clay around a spherical glass bowl. It looks great with a color changing LED candle in it, but is difficult to photograph. The white candle light, in this photograph, shows the extruded strings the best.”
I know how you all love translucent clay applications, so it would have been hard not to share this. The idea is pretty simple, but the wrapped strings add a calm horizontal texture. My editorial assistant, Paula Gilbert, is here with me for the opening of The Great Create at which I am doing demos (tonight in Denver!) and teaching a class on Saturday. Paula saw this bowl and said that looks like a glowing moon. And, so it does. I wish I had time to ask Claire how she got the craters in it or if they were incidental. Happy, unintended element if so.
Claire creates award-winning polymer work and writes her blog from New Zealand.
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.
Today, I pulled up this fun piece for you.
This is not, obviously, all about extrusion, but I couldn’t pass it up. This elephant is only one in a series of decorated elephant forms created by Latvian artist Kni Kni. She did one for each month of the year. This mandala elephant was created for August. She uses extruded ‘yarns’ as she calls them, to wrap around the center form, which was pressed from a handmade stamp. Her ‘yarns’ were also used to decorate the elephant’s features.
In other work, we see quite a bit of the extruded ropes wrapped in swirls and even indented to make the striated lines you see here, but it is usually used on fully covered forms. The open space on the elephant helps keep the finely and skillfully decorated piece from getting overwhelmingly busy.
You can read about how and why Kni created this particular elephant on her blog. These are actually even more amazing when you see the whole series. Go take a look at them all on her Flickr photostream.
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.
The popularity of the extruded cane has led to some wonderful experimentation using the reveal options provided by the nature of the cane. Laying these canes sideways gives you a series of layers to dig down into and expose.
This particular vessel created by Germany’s Vera Kleist Thom has these canes laid out in a weave pattern, but the shaving down of the outer layers gives it a kind of worn stone appearance. So, do we have woven stone? Intriguing. The combination makes for a beautiful, calm visual texture. The colors follow this calm theme by being primarily neutral, but there are a few rich reds and brilliant, ocean blues that accent the weave.
Give yourself a treat and look at the other vessels and jewelry she has created using this technique on her Flickr page. Just beautiful, contemporary pieces.
Carving out and revealing layers is nothing new for Vera, and right now, you can get some of her amazing cut-in bead necklaces and loose beads that we featured here in November of 2013 from her Etsy shop.
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.
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