The Party is in Full Swing. Come join us!
May 31, 2023
Polymer community news, The Polymer Arts magazine news
What party is this? The latest project from little ol’ me, Sage. The Sage Arts podcast is more than up and running… I have 25 episodes up as of this posting, ready on your favorite podcast player (New to Podcasts? Click here to find out how easy it is to enjoy them!) and a new one coming out every week.
What’s This Podcast All About?
This podcast is all about feeding and exciting your muse. By enlightening or reminding you about important and maybe unconsidered aspects of creating and living as an artist, I hope to help you find more joy and satisfaction in what you do, sharing ways to create with authenticity and fearlessness, while supporting your uniquely defined version of success.
Now what the heck does that all mean? Well, let’s look at what this is and what this is not…
It IS…
… a way to consistently feed your muse
… all about you. Myself, my guests, and my guest co-hosts speak to the issues, curiousity, and hurdles that you as a creative deal with on a regular basis.
… focused on creating a more fulfilling, joyful, and meaningful artistic journey.
… a conversation that goes both ways with lots of opportunities for you to be heard.
It is NOT…
… all about polymer clay or any one medium, as it’s important stuff for all artistic folks.
… focused on “how-to” or the latest tools and materials.
… just interviewing successful artists and talking at you. Rather it is like a coffee house chat or other friendly gather and I include you, the listener, in every way I can.
I created this podcast to supercharge your creativity, motivation, and artistic style through novelty, story, conversation, and community. Everyone has how-tos and ways to increase your sales – valiant and necessary stuff, of course! But what does your muse need? What does your work and your love of your art need to thrive? That’s where I want to help.
I aim to give artists ways to further hone their unique voice, increase their joy and productivity, and create a version of artistic success that is meaningful, satisfying, and anything but ordinary.
Come Join the Conversation
If you have something to share, would like to be a guest (for a chatty interview), or be a guest co-host (you and I banter on a particular subject) drop me an email me via my contact page on the show website: https://thesagearts.com/contact/ or send a voice mail (use the red button on that same site, bottom right corner of any page.)
And join me on social media!
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thesageartspodcast/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TheSageArtsPodcast
And don’t forget to click “FOLLOW” or that little arrow on your favorite Podcast player so you get notices of new episodes. New Episodes come out weekly on Friday evenings, barring natural disasters or other bits of interference, of course. I hope you’ll join me there, on The Sage Arts podcast!
There are new artists and creatives joining every day with tons of great things to say…
“Just what I needed!”
“I just binged-listened … and I can’t wait for more!”
“There is so much validity in your presentation…”
“Looking forward to all the thinking and creating that they prompt.”
Taste test on my RSS website: https://rss.com/podcasts/thesagearts/
Or on the podcast home website: https://thesagearts.com/
Or start with this episode:
Ode to the Swirl Lentil
December 19, 2012
Inspirational Art
Who doesn’t like a nice swirl lentil? They make beautiful, intriguing beads that can really draw attention. You can make them from any type of clay, old canes, or scrap pieces. And anyone can make them. Well, anyone can make them but doing them well and with originality is the tricky part.
Greece’s Klio Tsaliki has way too much fun with her lentils. She does a lovely job of combining colors together in such a way that the one word that cannot fail to come to mind is ‘delicious’. These swirls lentils below remind me of fruity and juicy candies. The colors and the wave of lines spreading our from the center just draw you in.
One other thing I really, really like about making swirl lentils is the zen like state they put you in when you get to making a large batch. If you need a break from the stress and rush of the holidays, I can’t imagine a more relaxing yet productive time than sitting down at the studio table and swirling away.
If you’re looking for more swirl lentil inspiration, check out more of Klio’s work on her Flickr site or Etsy page.
Scribbles and Dots
December 18, 2012
Inspirational Art
A simple idea to share today–the use of liquid polymer as a textural medium applied with a free-form drawing approach. A nice, thick liquid polymer such as Fimo Deco Gel or Sculpey’s Bake and Bond will stay raised so that you can draw lines, squiggles, dots or whatever you desire onto the surface of your clay or the surface of anything you can then bake.
I remember seeing these pieces by Libby Mills some years ago but never got around to playing with the idea … but for some reason I’m thoroughly enamored of the idea this week and have been scribbling away.
You can see that Libby often colors her liquid polymer or burnishes it later on. Alcohol inks, oil paints and mica powders can be used to color your scribble medium.
My experiments with other liquid polymers lead me to discover you can actually scribble with them if you take a couple extra steps. I found that adding an abundance of powdered colorant such as pastels, iron oxides or mica powders can get thinner, self-leveling liquid polymers to stand up quite a bit … but only for a little while. They will eventually spread. However, if you use a baked piece of polymer and warm the clay first, the lpc will set on the clay at you scribble. I use my trusty hot plate/mug warmer to heat up the cured clay then, leaving the piece on the warmer, I can draw away. It even works on perpendicular surfaces. You can also warm the cured clay in the oven and then draw on it but you’ll need to work quickly before it cools down too much.
So what do you think? Time to put your scribbling skills to work?
An Abundance of Color
December 17, 2012
Inspirational Art
My weekend was largely spent judging entries for the IPCA’s Progress & Possibilities competition. (If you are a member, you are eligible to cast votes for the Member’s Choice portion of the competition. Check your email for you invitation to vote or go to the IPCA website to request a voting token be sent to you.) The use of color this year was either very bold or completely subdued. Going subdued can be relatively easy compared to going bold and having to judge when enough is enough.
I thought this when perusing pendants created by Cathy of Dumauvobleu. Her work is a bombardment of color as well as visual texture. But, for the most part, she does keep it from getting out of control. This pendant below is, I think, pushing that boundary but it just sits on the edge of tipping over. The well dispersed use of blues manages to hold it together and the sun like image created by the cane slice and radiating lines on the bottom right create a focal point that where your eye can rest, even if it can’t do so for very long with all that is going on.
After that, the success of a piece like this comes down to skill and finish. The inlay is well done without any noticeable spaces and the edges are blended with the use of pin prick points so even if the color and texture strikes you as a bit overboard, you can still call it a well done piece.
Make note as you look around at the work of various artists, how some can pull off a great looking piece even when the attention to finishing is obviously not a priority. Then there are pieces that may not be particularly original or dramatic but you are entranced by how well finished they are. Of course, when both design choices and finish are well done, it is a work to just drool over.
Rejoicing in the Clutter
December 16, 2012
Ponderings
Because I can’t get my studio under control for the life of me this season (okay … let’s confess … it’s hardly ever under control) this has been my mantra this weekend. And shall be for a while longer.
Of course, this only works as a legitimate mantra if you actually complete some work! Which, luckily, I have. Whew!
Cute Scene: Jewish Storyteller
December 15, 2012
Inspirational Art
With all the red and green and focus on the Christmas holiday, I wanted to take at least one moment to stop and bow to other observances that also occur this holiday season, not the least of which is Hanukkah.
Growing up, I was lucky enough to have friends of many different faiths and a church youth group that took time out to introduce and let us experience the traditions of other faiths. Of the Jewish traditions I was exposed to, the storytelling was my favorite. Being a writer and creator of written stories, even in my very young days, I took to the richly detailed, and often very dramatic, tales my Jewish friends and church group leaders read to us to heart. So, although I didn’t have the rabbi reading to me, as depicted by Gwen Pina here in the adorable scene below, the idea of the Jewish Storyteller does still warm my heart. Plus, it gives us all a chance to smile at the sight of Gwen’s charming work.
Gwen, one of the most prolific clayers in our community, creates a whole range of work influenced by a variety of cultures, most prominently the native history of the southwest. For more smiles, you can peruse her work on her website here.
Outside Inspiration: Teeny Inchie Books
December 14, 2012
Inspirational Art
Have you been looking around for some last minute gift ideas to make? I saw this little book and just couldn’t help but think that the older kids on my list (some of the much older kids … like my mom) would get a kick out of a tiny book … but in polymer.
Kira Nichols, of the humorously named blog Oops, I Craft my Pants, created these little books with paper and pen, gluing her paper crafted inchies back to back so the books can be flipped and displayed with different images showing.
We could do the exact same thing with polymer! Creating thin little polymer inchies with holes punched in the top, you could treat both sides of the polymer for the two-sided reversible option, or you could make them book covers with little blank sheets, or you could have more inchie polymer images inside. Take the reversible flipbook idea beyond inchies and books and think of the pendants you could make with polymer art that could be changed up with just a flip over of one layer. Get my drift?
In any case, there are ideas here that need to be explored. So … go play. I will be.
Inspiration Coming Down the Line
December 13, 2012
Inspirational Art
We work in a very considerate community. There is much credit given to the artists who inspire us, and on Flickr and various blogs, clayers eagerly list the artists whose techniques they are practicing or who they drew their approach from.
This pendant, by Zuzana (Verundela on Flickr) of the Czech Republic, looks to be a combination of influences as well as materials. I would not call the liberal use of mica powders, embedding watch gears and wire into clay, and topping off a piece with resin unusual, but these approaches all came from somewhere else. Or at least they do not often come to us in a moment of pure, uninfluenced flash of genius. Even when we are not aware of it, other artists bring their influence to us by creative osmosis.
Here, however, we get a glimpse of the influential creative trail. Zuzana gives credit for this piece to Sabine Spiesser of Australia for the rather celestial looking faux enamel and wire work. But if you wander off into Sabine’s Flickr pages (papagodesigns), you’ll find she credits her faux cloisonne work to Eugena Topina of Maryland here in the US. Eugena’s wire bordered faux cloisonne enamel was one of the first tutorials I ever attempted to follow back in the days when I was expanding myself beyond the basics. The technique has been around for a while, but credit is still being considerately passed on. I also really like how global this influence can be … bouncing across the globe from the US to Australia to Eastern Europe. That is the wonderful thing about being an international community and a community very big on sharing and helping each other grow.
More Crackle with Inka Gold
December 12, 2012
Tips and Tricks
I have had a lot of comments about the products we reviewed in the latest issue of The Polymer Arts magazine. Inka Gold by Viva Decor has been of particular interest. Since we didn’t have room in the issue to actually demonstrate some of the techniques, I thought I’d pause here and send you in the right direction should you want to explore the Inka Gold options.
Inka Gold works very much like Gilder’s paste, although it’s water based so there are some different considerations. We have Trish Hodgens of Poly Clay Play to thank for the overview in the magazine. You can get her tips and tricks for highlighting textures on her website here to start you off.
The best tutorial on the crackling possibilities is probably on EJR Beads‘ tutorial pages. Here Emma shows you how to create a nice dense crackle, such as you see in the earrings below.
There is also this video by Barbara at Joggles.com with great tips for applying Inka Gold to a variety of surfaces. She never actually brings up polymer, but the pieces she works on would behave just like baked polymer pieces, so the tips, such as watering down for transparency, burnishing details, and stamping, would all apply. Wendy Orlowski, of The Art of My Clay and CaBezels, also has some nice stamping ideas for Inka Gold on her blog here.
If you don’t have your stash of Inka Gold, go visit Trish at Poly Clay Play to get some play time supplies.
Portraiture in Canes
December 11, 2012
Inspirational Art
Julie Eakes is unique among polymer artists. She works with canes but with an end result far beyond what most of us even dream to attempt. She works at developing realistic images in mosaic like canes.
This piece below is even unusual for Julie. This is an image, completely created with patterned canes, all in black and white and using the eye’s natural tendency to mix tones and merge tiny details into larger imagery; very much the same as is done in pointillism. Our distance from details causes this to happen. You may have noticed this when looking at thumbnails of a piece online only to click on the image and find it is hardly like what you imagined it would be. And that is something to consider. When working on a piece, it might serve you well to step back and observe your work at the distance that it will most often be viewed to get a clear idea of the impression it gives.
The portrait here is of the artist Chuck Close, who is a very apropos subject being he creates portraiture in the very same mosaic like manner. Chuck, however, paints on a grid format, sometimes monochromatic as well as in color, each block of the grid usually being a series of rings, not unlike extruded canes. It’s no wonder Julie was inspired to create his portrait.
Julie created Chuck’s image using a photo that had been printed on the front of New York’s Village Voice, the image actually being a 3D model of Chuck Close that her brother made of the artist. You can see the close up of the canes as well as a video documenting Julie’s creation of the piece on her blog here.
Bright Fabric Finish
December 10, 2012
Inspirational Art
After a dreary, cold weekend here in Colorado, I thought a bright bit of color would be just the thing. These beautifully finished necklaces are by Noelia Contreras of Barcelona, Spain. The simple combination of tinted against saturated colors with contrasting ‘buttons’ make the pieces lively, but I think it’s the precise execution of the shapes, lines, and the surface finish that makes them so appealing.
It can be a bit tricky to make a flat surface look uniformly finished. The use of applied texture can accomplish this with relative ease. There is a little trick to that as well, however … the texture should not draw away from the other elements if it’s not to be a focal point of the piece. Subtlety is key here. Noelia favors what looks to be small weave fabric as her texture–a perfect solution that adds subdued textural interest while giving the work a clean looking and even finish.
With the myriad of fabrics available, there is also a myriad of possible texture to be derived from them. Lint-less fabric such as silk, acetate, nylon and many polyesters can create wonderful textures. Imprint lint laden fabrics into a sheet of polymer, baking then removing lint with a good washing, to create a lint-free texture plate.
Noelia has many other quite colorful and inspiring pieces on her blog and Flickr page, including some artful miniatures which, even with the obvious skill she applies to her jewelry, seems to be her first love when it comes to polymer creations.
