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:
Polymer Resistance
October 15, 2014
Inspirational Art
If you’re a fellow art and/or craft junkie who has tried every other medium that has come your way, there’s a very good chance you have worked with resists. They are most commonly found in watercolor and in textile dying, but any art form that includes paints, dyes, stains or any other liquid that might be used to change the color or appearance of a surface, there are almost always resist techniques.
Polymer is no different, although such techniques are a little less common. I have seen stencils, colored pencil and crayons as resists on polymer a number of times, and once, I recall seeing the use of brushed on masking fluid that is commonly used as a resist on watercolors. Rebecca Watkins discovered a slightly newer version of these options–a masking fluid pen. And she does it in layers!
The control the pen affords makes for some beautiful possibilities as you can see here. Instead of just one layer of resist designs as is commonly seen, Rebecca lays down several layers of alcohol ink, changing the resist design in between to create this complex effect. She shares her news beads, where to get yourself one of these pens, and her technique on her blog. How very clever and generous of her!
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.
Digging out Inclusions
October 14, 2014
Inspirational Art
In my house, anything can be art materials. And I mean anything. We keep trying to come up with more ways to use the hair we brush off our furry kids, but dog and cat hair is troublesome and far too plentiful as inclusions. But seriously, if we have a lot of anything we’d otherwise throw away, my roommate or I have tried making something with it. Dryer lint is rather plentiful here (and full of pet hair too) and has long had its place in my studio. Yes, it sounds odd, but it’s really a fantastic material. I’ve been using dryer lint for years as an addition for strength and bulk in paper, resin and concrete castings. I don’t know why I didn’t think about mixing it with polymer, but someone else did!
Vanessa Brady was looking for something to help create a faux stone look when she came upon the dryer lint idea. And it does work beautifully. You can see here how it gives the faux rock a subtle rough look. I would love to see this faux rock technique in bolder colors and translucents. I may be giving this a try myself in the next couple days just to see. It look quick and easy enough for a whole slew of experimentation. The complete tutorial is on Vanessa’s blog along with other polymer and non-polymer crafty tidbits.
Additional note: On its own, lint is a rather flammable substance so use it with care. Keep it away from open flames and heating elements. Mix it well in the polymer clay before curing.
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.
Little Flower Details
October 13, 2014
Inspirational Art
I just got back from nearly 3 weeks in California taking care of family matters and have 4 days before I am off again to the Racine Art Museum polymer symposium, so I will be looking towards the fine examples and ingenuous ideas of others this week to keep you inspired in case my words fail me. I have noticed a number of very clever tutorials and tips roaming about the online waves. Most are, after you see them, very obvious little tricks and ideas, but it’s so often only obvious after you see it!
Take this flower petal texturing method. I have seen many examples of lines in canes to create the visual look, but the actual tactile look of lines running across petals is far less common. Here is a very simple way to get those tactile lines into the petals: just scratch a series of lines into a soft but sturdy material and press your petals into the texture. I think texture was created on foam of some sort, but you could, of course, use polymer and bake it. It adds a wonderfully realistic quality to the petals. Here is the full visual tutorial.
Are there other items you tend to texture with hand tools that you could create a basic texture form to press or stamp with instead? It’d be worth a try if you think of something.
All I know about the creator of this tutorial is that he or she is going by Lufy, or did, on Livemaster.ru, but the Livemaster link for Lufy is not working, and this tutorial is spread all over on various sites without credit. Maybe we can correct that? Does anyone know who the craft artist is? Let me know if you d,o and I’ll dig up more about this clever clayer.
Note added on Oct 14th: Thanks Natalja for solving the mystery! It is not Lufy, but -Luly and the artist’s name is Julia Kotselova. Here is the link to her Livemaster 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.
Exercises in Gray
October 11, 2014
Inspirational Art
After all this talk of gray, I thought it was about time to challenge you with some further ideas about color values so you can see for yourself what understanding value can do for your work.
First of all, take any photo of one of your pieces and put it into a photo manipulation software program, changing the color mode to “Grayscale”. You can usually do this with your camera as well by changing the mode to “Black & White” or “B&W” as you take the photo. Then look at what you have. If you were after a lot of contrast in your piece, you should definitely see a range of darks and lights that easily define the forms, lines, textures and color changes you have in the piece. If you were after a quieter contrast, you should see little variation in the darkness or lightness of the grays.
Here is a beautiful mokume gane pendant by Harriet Smith. The original shot on the left is vibrant and bright, but does have a calm feel too it. And you can see just why that is when you turn it gray. Even with the fiery colors and the many overlapping lines, the energy of the pendant is kept in check by the minimal variation in value. Of course, this piece is quite different without it’s brilliant colors, but the exercise shows why the energy is not quite so high.
You can examine any of your pieces in this manner and will likely find yourself surprised quite often at the actual value range your pieces have. Being aware of value will help you make better decisions about your color choices going forward. And if you want to learn more about value with some polymer centric exercises, take a look at this great little article written by Maggie Maggio, co-author of Polymer Clay Color Inspirations, which also has a lot of value-related information and exercises to keep your color knowledge growing.
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: Values in Silver
October 10, 2014
Inspirational Art
We are really rather lucky to be working in polymer, especially those of us who are so in love with color. There are many other craft mediums that offer primarily monochrome palettes and others have a limited range, especially compared to what we have available. But, this just means that they focus on other elements, which is what this week of gray contemplation is really all about.
In metal work for instance, you have the colors of metal as the main or starting color. Silver work is nothing but grays unless you patina the silver or add other materials to it. So, silversmiths use value, form and texture as the primary methods of expressing their ideas, accenting with other materials when desired.
This composition you see here is actually a set of rings created by an artist that goes by nothing more than Spiralstone. There are minimal layers here, but the form and the texture allow for light to play across the surface and reflect back varying degrees of gray. The colorful cabochon stones look especially brilliant in the landscape of each ring due to the lack of competition with other colors.
I also thought these rings would be great inspiration for polymer rings. The shapes and layering would be a great approach for polymer in grays or in color.
If you like these rings, you should really look at her other work made from 100% recycled metals. Check out the other amazing rings sets and various other jewelry on her Flickr photostream and through the links on 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.
Gray in Six Degrees
October 9, 2014
Inspirational Art
I am traveling today, so I apologize for the brevity here. I was sent this lovely wallpiece by Fran Abrams after she saw what the theme was this week. The piece is called “Six Degrees of Separation”. It’s wall art that is 18″ x 18″ and created using only black clay and white clay mixed in varying proportions.
I simply like that Fran went for a pure study of value here. It created an unusual challenge for the artist and a canvas. The form and contrast are all there working to draw you in. Although it is simple, it keeps drawing the eye back to take one more look or compare a couple more grays between squares. Just imagine being the one creating it. Or maybe, create a study of grays for yourself.
Visit with Fran and her other ‘studies’ on 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.
Distracted Grays
October 8, 2014
Inspirational Art
Take a look at this pair of earrings by the very talented Sonya Girodon. What are some of your first impressions? What strikes you as most attention grabbing, or what are your eyes drawn to? As you look over the pair, does it even occur to you that there is no color here? Not to say that you don’t know that its all grays with black and white, but rather that the lack of color is completely irrelevant, to the point that it is not at all part of your first impression or the things that came to mind as you looked it over.
You know you have a successful piece when you’re limiting your options and that limitation is hardly noticed, if at all. The thing with these earrings is that the texture and forms, along with strong accent points, grabs your attention so fully you don’t miss seeing color. In fact, I think color would ruin the austerity and drama of the set. Its gray palette allows the other elements to stand front and center without the distraction of color.
This is not the first or last piece Sonya has that deals with a lack of color. Her focus on form and texture allows for a lot of wonderful exploration in this area. You can see her journey with this idea and others 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 Warmer Side of Gray
October 7, 2014
Inspirational Art
As I briefly mentioned yesterday, the gray you work with may actually be a very faint version of a muted hue of color. You have probably heard the terms warm and cool to describe differences in grays when it comes to things such as matching clothing items for an outfit. What this means is that the gray has a tinge of color to it, either a warm hue (red, yellow or orange) or a cool hue (blue, green or purple) so technically it is no longer gray since gray is not a color. However, in the real world, we’ll call something gray when there is so little color as to be pointless to refer to it by its hue at all. That’s when we get to the warm and cool versions.
Why is this important? Well because warm and cool colors contrast each other so if you have a gray with a touch of blue to it, it will contrast (or clash) with a gray that has a tinge of yellow. If you are creating a piece that has a calm atmosphere, and you’ll be using different grays, you would not want them to contrast or clash. If you want more contrast and energy, you can use both warm and cool grays to emphasize the combination of elements you have to support this livelier look.
You can see the contrast of grays used alongside variations in line and accent elements in this hollow bead necklace by Arden Bardol. This is a little tricky to describe and point out on a computer screen since our screens do not show colors exactly the same way from screen to screen and we are dealing with an extremely subtle difference; in other words, don’t worry if you don’t see exactly what I describe here as it may simply be your computer screen.
What I see is a predominance of warm grays leaning to yellow and several stripes of cool gray on a handful of beads to contrast it along with regular dashes of pure white. Several warm colored accents around the cut-outs and in the spacer beads were added that increase the variation and energy of the necklace. This works well with the widely varied type and direction of lines on the beads but all of it is kept subtle so it has a reserved energy to it. More cool grays would have increased the energy but then more variation in form or accents might have been warranted to match that.
Are you confused by all this? It can be a bit much to see or grasp especially since we are talking about color on such a subtle scale but when you are working with grays, being aware of the possible variations will assist you in developing a piece that has the kind of feel you are after.
For a fairly simple explanation of grays (as well as beige and greige), check out this great little post by an interior designer. For more of Arden’s work, visit 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.
Studies in Gray
October 6, 2014
Inspirational Art
Gray is not what we may think of as a particularly exciting color palette, but this non-color has quite the design concept to teach us all. I say “non-color”, of course, because gray has no color hue, not as a concept. Many grays we use actually do have a recognizable cool or warm tone due to have a very, very slight hue in the medium we are using, but true grays are simply a position between pure black and pure white. They are, in actuality, measurements of value, which is one aspect of a color.
This is the basis of what grays can teach us in terms of design. If you create in grays, you are creating only with value rather than with color. Variations in value can illustrate emotion and atmosphere based on the level of contrast and the balance of grays to any other color that might be used. If you are working solely or primarily with gray, you are depending on the contrast to help relay the feeling of the piece as a support of the form, image, lines and/or textures you are working with. That makes working in grays a fantastic exercise in the importance of value and contrast. Grays can also make some amazingly striking and emotive work.
These earrings, for example, one pair out of what looks to be a series by Poland’s Tishaia, displays variation in gray in the texture in the leaf vein patterns whose light value contrasts against the black clay which, due to the limitation of the pigment density of the clay is not actually black but a very dark gray. This contrast along with the dominating bold lines, make for a strong, contemporary feel. The lack of other colors make the blue stones really stand out. The mid-range values in the stones also brings a kind of bridge in contrast between the light silver and the black clays in this highly value dependent set.
You can see the interesting forms Tishaia creates in this series on her Deviant Art page and more on her work in her Etsy shop and on her Facebook page.
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.
A Little Sparkle with Wendy Wallin Mallinow
October 4, 2014
Inspirational Art
I have a treat for you today. When I asked around for artists that wanted to guest blog, I got an enthusiastic “Yes!” from the energetic Randee Ketzel. I thought she would find and comment on a selection of work based on a theme as we do here every week, but instead she decided she would like to interview a few artists for us. I was thrilled. This will be the first of those interviews. We’ll get out these special posts by Randee every couple of weeks or so for as long as she’ll send them along!
Wendy is definitely one of a kind. What else can you say about a workshop instructor who shows up in a Mad-scientist lab coat, rainbow leggings and a faux bone/bird skull tiara? Plus, when she pulls out the giant polymer radish who grins impishly at you with REAL human teeth–well, you know this is going to be an interesting class. But, beyond the mischievous showmanship is a serious artist with some serious talent. That talent will be on display at the Carthage College exhibit, “A Re-Visioning: New Works in Polymer”, through the end of October.
Art was in her blood; coming from a family of artists, she has been working in polymer since the late eighties, creating her signature bone and skull jewelry. She had known about the medium, but seeing a full page article on the work of Pier Volkous sent her into the hunt. Her work with ceramics–and frustrations with it–made polymer a natural fit. Earlier in her career, she had been an in-house illustrator and art director for a graphic design firm (she has a dozen books to her credit), and her work is informed by that experience. Wendy has a BA in both Art and Business and feels that it is a mixed blessing. One professor told her that he worried she would not stick to just one path, and fortunately for us, she didn’t. Her wild, thought-provoking combination of many media is precisely what makes her work so unique.
Wendy is a driven artist. She describes her brain as a constantly simmering stew of ideas that must find some sort of expression every day and hopes that people either love her work, or hate it; the only thing she fears is indifference. In preparing for this post I asked Wendy to describe her passions and she responded in a very Wendy-kind of way:
“Hmmmm… running, skiing, snow, anything sparkly, animation, my husband’s music, my sons’ art, wine, good food, the sun, the water, anything transparent, rocks, biology, geekery, bones, chartreuse, neon (the lighting and the colors), anything woodland and candy…”
We all need a little sparkle in our lives. Thank goodness we have Wendy.
You can find more of Wendy’s work in her Etsy shop and on her Tumblr pages. Be sure to scroll down on the Tumblr page to see her incredible paper cut pieces!
Randee Ketzel, a life-long craft artist, previously worked in metals but is now a polymer enthusiast and co-author of “Polymer Clay Gemstones, the Art of Deception” a different kind of polymer book devoted to faux techniques and the reproduction of historical jewelry. Her book can be found on Amazon while her other tutorials can be found in 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.
