The Allure of the Box & Important News

December 1, 2019

Do you, like many people, find boxes really intriguing? Why do we like boxes? I mean, sure, they are convenient for storing things, hiding things, shipping stuff, and wrapping up gifts. But some of us (myself very much included) can become rather infatuated with them. I know I have a hard time passing a box and not opening it up. Boxes have this mysterious unknown interior that could be holding just about anything that will fit. The possibilities poke at our curiosity.

The things with in a box become automatically precious or necessary. Why put something in a box if it is not valuable or you do not think it will become useful in the future? So, boxes hold valuables of a sort, normally. So why wouldn’t you want to peek in and see what kind of fabulous things are inside?

I bring up boxes because I have a bit of news that has to do with boxes. Say uncle scrolling down to the end of the post to see what my news is, here it is. Then we’ll look at a few polymer boxes to further contemplate

 

The Good, the Bad, and the Exciting

Note: If you are an existing subscriber to The Polymer Studio, you should already have received an email with this information. (If you believe you are an existing subscriber and did not get a subscription status email, check your junk mail folder. You can also check your subscription status on your account page here.)

So, after 4 months of working on my health and arm injury, I have gotten to the point where I have been able to determine, more or less, what I can and can’t do going forward, and since it is apparent that I will continue to be restricted for the foreseeable future, I have made plans accordingly:

The Good:
As of January, I will be resuming work on publications for 2020 and am working on new projects now.

The Bad:
I am shutting down The Polymer Studio magazine for good. I have, however, set-up exciting options for fulfilling subscriptions for existing subscribers, primarily the new Box project you’ll read about below. (More details for subscribers are in the email sent out earlier today.)

The Exciting:
I have 3 exciting projects that Tenth Muse Arts will be offering this coming year–

  • I will be scheduling 2 book publications for 2020, including the second Polymer Arts Projects book (the theme will be Shimmer and Shine) and a book on expanding your creativity yet to be titled.
  • I will be expanding our shop to include hard to get and self-published polymer and mixed media related books to connect the community with more great artists and authors.
  • And… instead of a regularly published magazine we will be offering a monthly Virtual Art Box for polymer and mixed media creatives.

I know, I know … there are a lot of questions those announcements bring up like what is a Virtual Art Box and why am I not publishing the magazine any longer? And I have answers so, read on!

 

What is the Virtual Tenth Muse Art Box?

The Virtual Art Box is a digital package of invaluable articles, lessons, specials, and printable tools all geared to advance your creative self and give you more “a-ha” moments. Like a magazine, we will be providing serendipitous educational and inspirational content but with additional tools and perks that just couldn’t be produced in the pages of a publication.

Each Virtual Art Box will include:

  • Design immersion lessons (weekly)
  • Creativity Cultivation seminars & worksheets (every month)
  • Customizable challenges (every month)
  • Art Nudges (weekly)

… as well a variety of these possible items:

  • Project and technique tutorials
  • Demonstrations
  • Interviews
  • Printable gadgets and aids
  • Retail partner discounts and specials
  • Sneak peaks and Box subscriber only discounts for Tenth Muse Arts publications
  • And whatever other great goodies we think up or you suggest along the way.

The Virtual Art Box will be multimedia to include video and downloadable PDFs and will be sent out monthly. They will be available as a automatically billed monthly and quarterly subscriptions that can be canceled at any time. The first box will be sent off February of 2020. Subscriptions aren’t available quite yet, but we’ll let you know when we have all that technical stuff done so you can! (Existing subscribers will be automatically signed up for the Virtual Art Box or they will have the option to request store credit – details for subscribers will be sent out this coming week.)

 

Why No Magazine?

As many of you know, I halted magazine production in August because of health issues. Although I am not through the full six months recommended for recovery time, it has already become apparent that there is some permanent damage in my arm and there is still a long road ahead for the other health issues I am dealing with. So, something had to be changed.

Being the primary editor and layout designer for the magazine, and facing the reality that I can no longer carry my usual workload, my only option for keeping the magazine going would be to hire more third-party contractors which would result in one or, most likely, all of three things – significantly raising the price of the magazine, jeopardizing the quality of the production and content, and/or not paying the contributing writers and artists. I am not happy with the idea of any of these outcomes and instead I have chosen to discontinue the magazine and work in formats that put less repetitive strain on my arm and should be better able to financially support additional contracted staff as needed.

I am more than a little sad about closing down the magazine. I’ve been publishing periodicals for the polymer community for over eight years and have worked in magazines since high school. However, I’m hoping, with these new ventures, I can continue to inspire, educate, and increase your joy and fulfillment in your creative endeavors through these other exciting avenues.

How Does This Affect This Blog?

So, as you might have noticed, one of the items in the Virtual Art Box is a weekly design lesson. Well, that’s basically what I’ve been doing on the blog this year but, without a magazine to promote on a regular basis, it’s been hard to justify the time that goes into these article length posts beyond the fact that I love doing them. But the mantra for this next year is to work smart.

So, what will happen is that the full-length posts plus other notes and nudges based on the content of the virtual box will be sent to the Virtual Art Box subscribers each weekend. Here, on this publicly accessible blog, I will do an abbreviated version of the subscriber’s weekly design immersion content so I can keep nudging folks to look closer at the design of their creations.

Starting this month, I will be creating those abbreviated posts so I can focus on wrapping up the details of this new project, hire a new assistant, and get a production schedule up for next year for the books. All that with the holidays in the midst of it. Sounds like I’m getting crazy again but I promise to do as the doctor orders. I am really looking forward to being productive again!

 

Now What about Those Boxes?

With polymer, you can make boxes in two ways – you can cover an existing box form or you can create your own box. Let’s put it at a few examples of both.

Covering a RD existing box is, obviously, the easiest way to create a polymer box. It may seem like a shortcut but if you spend a lot of time creating beautiful veneers or sculptural elements for the outside the box, there’s no need to spend a lot of time creating the box from polymer. Remember, it’s better to use the material that makes the most sense for what you are creating rather than limit yourself to one material.

Aniko Kolesnikova, famous for her journal covers, also covers boxes. Using her bas-relief style sculptural approach, she created this commissioned box based on the card game, Magic: The Gathering. The box top worked as a canvas but the dimensional aspect allowed her to flow each of the elements over its edge, taking up the dynamic energy and knowledge. Click on the image to get her blog post about how she made this including sketches and close-ups.

 

Fiona Abel-Smith looks to have created her actual box forms out of polymer and then covers it with a technique she learned, and eventually perfected, from Sue Heaser. The process is based on the classic mosaic-like technique of pietra dura. Laying a clay colored base for the shapes in the images, Fiona then adds bits, cut from extruded snakes of clay, to the image for texture. The intense technique creates beautiful, lively illustrations. Fiona’s also created a post about her boxes, showing her variations and their many sides along with photos of her process. Click the image to see the post.

If you are making your own polymer boxes, you have the option of leaving the square behind in making her boxes in any shape whatsoever. The opening image and the image below are boxes by Helen Wyland-Malchow. The opening image, Box 22, was her winning entry into Polymer Journeys 2019. This one, Landscape Box, below has always been one of my personal favorites though. That is really pushing the idea of a box in such a wonderful and dynamic way. Squares are bit static, which allows the imagery on the box to stand out but curves are fabulously high-energy and fun.

So, how about you? Have you created covered boxes or constructed your own from polymer? That could be a fun challenge this month if you haven’t worked with boxes yet. They make fantastic gifts for pretty much anyone. Who couldn’t use a box? If you’d like to create your own polymer boxes, there is a great tutorial (if I do say so myself) by me on constructing a 100% polymer box in the Winter 2015 issue of The Polymer Arts (also available in digital for immediate download here.)

 

Putting the Lid on It

Well, that’s enough blathering at you for this weekend. I haven’t had time to take pictures of the kitchen backsplash I was working on, which is basically done except for the grout, but I’ll share that with you next weekend, hopefully in its final form.

And last but not least, I want to thank each and every one of you who have been cheering me on the last 8 years, for sending your appreciative and supportive messages, particularly in these the last 4 months. I look forward to you coming along with me on these new and continued artistic ventures as we explore this fantastic medium, growing our creative selves and our community.

 

Simply Stunning

Tanya Mayorova

Given the choice, would you create a necklace that was easy and quick to make and was still stunning, or would you explore an unknown technique with an unknown outcome that might take hours or days? For some of you, the answer may be complicated because you like to explore and you don’t even question how long it will take or whether you will be successful because you just want to see what material can do. I get that. That’s pretty much how I approach what I do. Not that I wouldn’t mind some of my explorations being quick and easy and more often successful than not. Being challenged and failing, though, are absolutely necessary parts of creating art but that doesn’t mean that everything we make should be frustrating and difficult.

I think, by default, we all gravitate toward the easy option when given a clear-cut choice. Easy means less frustration, less room for error, and less time involved but it can also be considered a bad choice. And I’m not just talking about the creative process. For instance, you might grab a paper plate instead of one that you have to wash, or you toss your groceries in a plastic bag provided by the store rather than bringing in your own reusable one. Those examples highlight the reason for our environmental issues right now, our desire for ease and convenience being at the root of our environmental tragedies. So, yes, taking the easy route can sometimes have a negative effect that that’s not always true. There is nothing wrong with choosing the easiest route to drive home or having yoga pants and a T-shirt as your default attire when not at work. And some very easy things are actually better. Fruit and a boiled egg for breakfast is a lot easier than making pancakes and bacon and is better for you too. And when creating your polymer components, simple techniques and forms are often not only an efficient way to create and express yourself but they allow you to concentrate on composition, contrast, form, and other design elements rather than getting you wrapped up in technique.

With social media and our online access to so much artwork, I think our minds are saturated with certain ideas about what we should be creating and, because of that, we may have a hard time finding our own voice or we may have an unconscious sense of how pieces should look or be put together rather than finding a look of our own. Or we are romanced by gorgeous, complex pieces so we try to make our work more complex as well without knowing if simple elements may be very thing we need to do or say what we want.

Part of the problem comes from the idea that simple and easy means boring. But it certainly doesn’t have to be. To illustrate this, I’d like to look at beads today. In polymer jewelry, the bead is the most basic element you work with. The idea of a bead encompasses all types of forms though, from the simple round bead to complex sculpted and layered mixed-media elements. But let’s explore the more classic idea of a bead, as a single element that is repeated in some fashion in a piece of adornment and let’s see how you might create easy beads that are anything but basic and boring.

A little note … Some of you long time polymer enthusiasts out there may recognize a few of these pieces as several were widely circulated back when but, even if you’ve seen these before, look at them with new eyes and see if some familiar techniques but unused techniques aren’t worth a revisit now. You’ll approach them differently than you did 5 or 10 years ago, and you never know what serendipitous discovery might be unearthed.

 

Beads Beyond the Basic

Round beads are, of course, the most common bead form and are a classic that are always great for showing off canes, color, and surface design. Still, round beads can get pretty complicated, one, because it can be difficult to make them perfectly round, and secondly, because to keep them from being boring often leads us to add complexity in the color scheme or how the surface is treated. But what if you took your round bead and just worked on the form? Go ahead … grab some clay, make a rough round bead, and then start messing with the form. Pinch it, press it, pull it, or roll it into a variation on a round bead or cure and carve it.

Genevieve Williamson started out with a round bead to create these side textured chunky disks. Just look at the variation here plus I bet you can think up a few other ways to quickly and easily change them up with different clays, inclusions, or texturing of the sides.

Tube beads can be a tad tricky, primarily when it comes to creating the hole for stringing them. An extruder with a core adapter makes the job much easier but you can also create easy, attractive, and unique tube beads from any surface treated clay sheet simply by wrapping a strip around a tube of your choosing. Here’s a whole selection by Tonya Mayorova who went really wide with her bead openings. As you can see, all kind of surface treatments adapt well to these wide tube beads, from mosaics like you see on the bottom of the stack, to carved, impressed, mokume gane, and seed bead wrapped. The beads here are all similar in width but she uses the same approach with skinnier varieties such as in the necklace that opens this post.

 

Tanya doesn’t have a tutorial posted for this, but I can help you with that:

  1. Pick a favorite surface treatment to create a sheet of clay with and then wrap the sheet around anything that can go in the oven. I keep a few pieces of aluminum and copper tubing for just such projects. Make sure the pieces are straight and have unobstructed lengths so beads can slide off after curing.
  2. Wrap the clay around the tube until the clay sheet overlaps then cut down through the length of the overlapping clay and then remove the excess clay.
  3. Carefully blend the seam where the ends meet.
  4. If the clay sheet has a smooth and even surface, you can lay it on the worksurface and, using a tissue blade, let it roll crosswise under the blade ‘s edge to cut each individual bead cut. Then just cure the stack as is.
  5. Alternately, you can cure just after you blend the seam then cut the beads off it with a craft knife or slide it off the rod and use a jeweler’s saw to cut your beads.
  6. You can string your tubes on multiple strands of stringing materials such as cording or leather thongs, a selection of various colored embroidery thread, colored Tigers tail, ribbon, etc.

Tanya has even more variations of this idea ready for your perusal on her Flickr photostream here. She also recently agreed to create a feature tutorial for Issue #3 of The Polymer Studio so be sure to subscribe or keep up your subscription to the magazine to get that beautiful project.

 

The beads below also require just a sheet of treated clay. These are similar to a popular paper bead technique you may have seen as well. They start with a sheet cut into narrow, long triangles that are then rolled up, starting with the wide end so that each overlap leaves part of the surface of the lower layer visible. It works with any sheet of polymer, treated or untreated, textured or not.

I love how Margit Bohmer keeps the triangles, created from a mokume gane sheet, really narrow so that the beads are nearly as big in diameter as they are wide. There is still plenty of surface showing but they blend into each other because the narrow bead doesn’t angle away as much at the point where they touch. As you likely already know, the longer the bead, the more space you’ll see between the bottom edges of the bead ends. These rolled up beads are also angled on their ends which can make them sit askew but the shallower the angle (like on these narrower beads) the more neatly they line up.

Margit has created the longer beads as well so you can compare them here or just look through her Flickr photostream to see what you like better. And if you want a full polymer tutorial on these types of beads, check out Emma Ralph’s classic tutorial here.

 

Another, maybe even easier, way to use sheeted clay for beads is to just roll up flat sections of clay without overlapping, in a loose, freeform way. This works really nicely with an organic treatment or texture. Just look at how lovely these wrapped textured beads are. They are simply flat sections of polymer impressed on a handmade texture plate and curled up on an angle.

These are created by Rebekah Payne who generously posted a tutorial here on how to make them.

 

A similar concept can be employed with snakes of clay. Just roll out or extrude lengths of solid, marbled, mica shift (see this post from earlier this month) or striped polymer and then wrap the strands up on a skewer, long thin knitting needle, or other thin rod and cure. You’ll end up with coiled beads like these created by Emma Todd, below..

 

You can also roll the beads, after wrapping them up, back and forth under an acrylic block or other small tile to level the strands, creating a smooth bead surface. Don’t use the rod to roll the bead as it will act like a rolling pin on the inside of it and widen the stringing hole. Unless you want that. You can also take them off the rod and gently press their length between thumb and forefinger to compress the coils a bit more and make flat ended cylindrical beads.

 

The interior of clay beads have a lot of hidden potential too, and they can so easily and quickly be revealed by just cutting them open. Here is my all-time favorite example of creating stunning beads by cutting the form. These fabulous beads are by Desiree McCrorey. Click the image to see her tutorial for this. Be sure to check out the beads she makes from the cut scraps at the end too!

Not only can you create simple yet complex looking beads by cutting stacks, you can use this technique with old canes as well. See Desiree’s tutorial for the same beads using canes here. And look around the site for other great tutorials. These are all older tutorials, but timeless techniques.

 

Beads Away!

The examples above are all easy to make, don’t take much time, and allow for your own take on composition, contrast, texturing, etc. So, I would like to suggest that you pick a couple you like and see if you can sneak in sometime today or this coming week to try them out to see which, if any, simple but expressive beads suit you.

There are also some publications you might want to check out if you are on a bead making bender or feel you will be after all this.

  • My favorite polymer bead book is Carol Blackburn’s Making Polymer Clay Beads. There are beads for all levels of clayers and lots of jumping off points for those who like to explore.
  • Although these get a bit more complex, the beads in Grant Diffendaffer’s book, Polymer Clay Beads are just stunning and there are so many tips in this book.
  • If you really just want to try some new surface treatments or get other ideas for changing up your own bead ideas, Marie Segal’s, The Polymer Clay Artist’s Guide, is such a thorough exploration of techniques. It’s my go to book for creative brainstorming on polymer treatments.
  • Of course, there are tons of ideas in The Polymer Studio and, especially for the more exploratory folks, in the back issues of The Polymer Arts. Grab a few of these in print or digital and let serendipity lead you into new creative territory. By the way, about 65% of The Polymer Arts issues are still available in print but quite a few are about to sell out completely so if you like your material in print, snatch them up while I still have them.
  • For further inspiration in the form of eye-candy, pick up your copy of Polymer Journeys 2016 and/or 2019. Both are just brimming with ideas of all kinds. If you need a copy, get them on the website here.

 

Holes

Our foreman, standing guard at the pit to our main drain line in our front yard … there’s another guy down there!

For those of you mildly entertained by the situation here at Tenth Muse central, all I have to report is, well, holes. I counted 8 points of egress big enough for the entry of adventurous birds or, in 2 cases, an adventurous racoon, thanks to the workers punching through our walls for new plumbing and a new electrical panel. Its kind of unnerving to stand in the middle of one’s house and see so many wide-open entries into the space.

There are also some deep holes! The nearly 3 foot deep hole in the master bath is big enough for a couple suitcases of cash (like I have enough cash even in single dollar bills to fill a couple suitcases, not after all this work!) but the 7 foot deep one in the front yard is ready for hiding bodies. Or maybe just my entire stash of failed art projects. That craziness has us now investigating xeriscaping and ground cover plants because between the trench and the well at the end of it (and all the dug up soil covering the area around it), that grass ain’t coming back. It didn’t grow well there anyways. So now we are plant shopping. I never much liked shopping before (unless if was for art materials!) but, man, am I getting burned out on that particular activity. The shopping part, not the plants. I’ve been enjoying my plants, with all the spring flowers in bloom. The garden has been my escape from all the chaos and noise!

However, in all this, I have managed to clear up the studio table and started working on new stuff! It’s amazing what can happen when you don’t have distracting chores like housecleaning (although I miss having a house to clean!) Keep an eye on my personal Instagram page for new pieces and, hopefully, new poetry to accompany it. Find me @thesagearts

 

Now off to enjoy a rare cool and rainy Sunday. I hope you have a beautiful Sunday to relax in and a great week ahead!

A Dramatic Shift

April 28, 2019

Pier Voulkos boxes

Of all the fabulous polymer clay techniques, which would you say is the most dramatic? There are certainly a lot of them that can be bright and colorful, shiny and sparkling, dramatic and graphic, but could you pick out just one that you think has the most impact when first seen?

I have to say, the one technique that really pops for me is mica shift. It can be colorful, shimmery, and quite dramatic, and has the added effect of looking three-dimensional when it is not. And who doesn’t love a visual illusion?

Mica shift has waned in popularity of late. I’m not sure why because it is just such a gorgeous technique. But when I started researching the idea of making mica shift the theme this week, I found myself on really old posts and pages, looking at work that was created 10, 20 or 30 years ago. That made me all the more determined to bring this technique’s wonderful effects back into the limelight here.

For those unfamiliar with the technique or how it works, here is a little history and explanation for you.

The effect itself is a result of manipulating the mica in metallic clays into orderly layers that you can then manipulate in a controlled manner. This can be done because mica, a shiny, silvery, layered mineral, forms tiny flakes when ground up. The flat side of these flakes are reflective, but the sides are not (like a mirror.) So, if mica is flat side up, it reflects light, but a stack of mica seen from the side is just dark.

You control the mica in your clay by conditioning it in a pasta machine, folding the sheeted clay in half and running it through over and over. The pasta machine rollers, squeezing the clay down, also nudges the flakes to lay flat. Eventually, all the flat faces of all those tiny flakes are facing up in the sheet, causing it to be reflective and shiny.

So then imagine what happens to all those perfectly flat flakes if you press something into them? The flakes get tilted, showing their dark sides (gosh, sounds like some people I’ve known!) That’s where the control comes in. You decide where to distort that perfectly flat sea of face up flakes with a texture sheet, a blade, or hand tools, and where there is distortion, there will be dark outlines of tilted mica. Those outlines are there under the surface too, as the flakes, like tiny dominoes, knock each other over under the invading lines of a texture sheet or a hand tool.

You can also just play with the difference between the shiny surface and the dark sides by stacking mica sheets and cutting it up, rolling sheets into a cane, or twisting or folding a narrow stack, just to name a few approaches. In these cases, the sides of the original layers stay dark and the surface stays shiny, so you have dramatic contrast.

Mica shift in polymer has been called by other names over the years. One of the original innovators of this technique, Pier Voulkos, (those are her boxes opening this post) called it her “invisible caning”. Later, Karen Lewis referred to Pier’s technique as chatoyant, a French term meaning to shine like a cat’s eye, which is used in gemology to describe the bright reflected bands of light caused by aligned inclusions in a stone. That’s certainly fitting for polymer mica shift too.

Let’s take a look at some truly dramatic and lovely examples of this technique.

Shifty Ideas

Around the same time period that Pier was experimenting with her invisible canes, Mike Buesseler was playing with mica clay sheets and “ingots”, stacking then cutting, twisting, texturing and curling up sections of these sheets and ingots to create beads and surface design.

Here is a beautiful necklace using a very simple technique of twisting a square strand of stacked mica sheets.

I would explain more about Mike but, instead, I’m going to let him explain for himself in what is, to this day, the best video class that I have ever viewed. No joke. I’d rather you stop reading this post and watch that video, if it’s all you have time for today. The video is well over an hour-long and it is twenty years old but, no matter how long you’ve been working with polymer or how much you think you know about mica shift, it is well worth your while. It also has an interesting little story about how it came to be a free master class for all. Check it out on YouTube here.

 

Grant Diffendaffer has long been my polymer clay hero. His mica shift and designs are breathtaking. Although he worked with techniques derived from all the early developed mica shift techniques, his most impressive are his impression pieces. This type of mica shift, sometimes called “ghost shift”, is created by impressing a texture into a sheet of well-conditioned mica clay and then the raised layer of clay is shaved off with a very sharp tissue blade making a smooth surface but leaving the illusion of dimension. Grant created his own texture sheets and then applied them to mica clay Skinner blends. His choice of blended colors surrounded by textured black makes for some very dramatic pieces.

 

Some of the most dramatic and graphic mica shift you’ll see to this day comes from the studio of Dan Cormier. A lot of his effects come from cutting and puncturing straight down through the clay. When using a blade, the clay shifts only in the cuts where the blade separates the clay causing just a hairline distortion and thus, very thin dark lines. Puncturing shifts more clay as the tool pushes clay aside to get through. The advantage of these distortions, however, is that the design is present and consistent all the way through the stack.

 

Here’s another take on mica shift from my own table. These gauge earrings might seem a bit more shimmery than a lot of mica shift as I add plain mica powder (bought from handmade cosmetic suppliers) and translucent clay to my metallic polymer clay to bring up the shimmer a notch. These are created from Skinner blend sheets that were stacked, twisted, and rolled smooth before curling them up. They also receive a lot of denim buffing. My mica shift effect is actually the same basic technique that Mike used for the necklace you see above but I twisted it tighter and rolled it smooth with an acrylic plate.

 

Just so you know, 3 of the artist’s mentioned here no longer work in polymer clay which is why you aren’t getting the abundance of information and links I can usually offer. Pier, Mike and Grant are all multi-disciplinary creatives who moved on to another creative form—Pier returned to dancing, Mike to music and Grant has stayed in crafts but has been exploring a variety of materials and forms. Regardless, we can sure be grateful for their time with us!

 

Curious Shift

If this little discussion of mica shift has you anxious to get to the studio table and try it out, I heartily encourage you to do so. In fact, I would like to challenge you all to create a little (or a lot) of mica shift this week. I’m going to do the same, creating some new designs with ideas I came up with after researching this post. I’ll share what I’ve done next week and post them to my personal Instagram page.

Do you think you can you get in one mica shift project before the end of the week? Try it and then please send me a photo or link you would be willing to share online, and I’ll see what I can share at the end of next week’s post. You could also just post to Instagram and tag with #polymerartschallenge or message me on Facebook at The Polymer Studio page or write back if you’re getting this by email.

If you have some great mica shift pieces to add to the discussion, leave a comment at the end of the post for us to check out.

And with that, I have to run. Its been a crazy week. There were some problems with production  and getting Issue #2 of The Polymer Studio wrapped up (the release for the new issue will be in a couple of days, April 30th, so keep an eye out for it in your inbox, if you have a digital edition coming, and your mailbox in the weeks to come. Or subscribe or order the issue on our website!) and then we’ve been having problems with the city getting our plans through so we can move forward with the renovations here at the house (many people are still rebuilding from the huge fires we had in November, so they are busy beavers at the planning offices) but, finally, the demolition begins tomorrow and there is still a last few things to prepare. Good news though … we put the refrigerator on the porch instead of in my studio! Yay! We moved the liquor cabinet in here instead. MUCH better idea. I think. Or will it be weird that I can pour a glass of port without leaving my chair here? Well, we shall see.

Until next Sunday my dear readers … have a wonderful week!

 

 

Splitting the Difference

April 21, 2019

Happy Easter or Chag Sameach or simply happy Sunday to you! I wasn’t sure I was going to get this one out between holidays and family and wrapping up the latest issue of The Polymer Studio (there has been a slight delay with the printer so we still have time to get you on the list for the first shipment from the printer if you subscribe or pre-order before Monday night  … go here to get yours) and picking out shower and floor tile (yes, there is a tad more drama at Tenth Muse headquarters, a.k.a. home, which I will expound upon at the end for those of you find it humorous to see what craziness I’m steeped in.)

So, have you ever been in the middle of a busy, stressful, crazy, chaotic day and then all of a sudden you just are coming up with new art projects from out of nowhere? Well, yesterday I was in this ginormous tile shop, putting white tiles against dark tiles and smooth stone surfaces next to busy mosaics trying to see what works and, of course, being so design focused, when it didn’t work I would ask myself why, and when it did, I asked myself why as well. (My mind is like a three-year-old… Why this? Why that? Why…?) This led to considering how I pair up surfaces in my own artwork. The fact is, I don’t do a ton of it, but I do really like it.

I think this also came to mind because I had the pleasure of online chatting with Kimberly Arden, a potential contributor for a future issue, and she showed me some of her pendants and earrings which are often a split canvas – one side is busy with canes or extruder veneers and one side is a lightly textured black with a flower or other form laid on it in using just a few canes, like the one you see opening this post. So, I’m there comparing tiles and thinking about her pendants which got me thinking about how often we pair up surfaces in art and next thing you know, I’m writing you this post with all this in mind. That’s how these themes happen!

So, let’s just ponder the idea of having two different surfaces next to each other on the same canvas or form. How is this done to in a way that still creates a cohesive piece and what are the different ways this can be applied?

 

Splitting the Canvas

Two or more different surfaces on the same canvas or form is a great method for creating contrast but like any other element, two surfaces that are not alike do have to have some kind of connection to make them work together in a piece. Yes, that connection is there physically when the surfaces are within the same framework in or attached to a singular object, but that is not usually enough. The best way to ensure a connection is to have at least one design element that is the same or very similar.

For instance, both sides could be the same color but very different textures. Olga Bulat does this in this necklace. Making it monochromatic keeps us focused on that texture and that difference which creates the energy in the piece.

 

Now, Olga could have had two different colors in the above piece but the colors themselves would have had to have some commonality. For example, both sides could be pastel, or both might be similarly bright. They could even be next to each other or completely opposite each other on the color wheel (because complete opposites also connect in our mind as being related but in an opposing fashion, if that makes sense. Think how much green and red there is at Christmas time. It works, color wise, right?)

Below is an example of using different colors but with the same texture so that there is commonality in the texture, but at the same time, the colors are also completely opposite (a dark, rich, warm brown versus a light, colorless, cool gray). These opposites are paired in our mind the way good and evil, young and old, and night and day are paired conceptually.

This is the genius of Meisha Barbee who also puts the canvas split on the horizontal (notice how many of the examples I show you today are split vertically – vertical has a lot of energy but it doesn’t mean that vertical is right for every piece.) Just changing the color however does not give the work a ton of energy so she adds a band of multicolored spots. I added a few more examples below the first pendant so you can see the various ways she pairs up the competing sides of the canvas. She uses large bands to separate when the surface pattern is subtle but goes for a simple slim line on the one with a bottom half already busy and full of extruded canes slices.

 

And speaking of changing up directions, you can also change up the point at which they meet. It doesn’t have to be a straight line or a simple curve Here is a simple design, actually done in terra-cotta, offered by a website called Tradenimbo. The zigzag line splits up the two sides with enough energy to carry the simple graphic look. Note how the pendant is the stronger design between it and the earrings, with the dots being a place of focus and rest for the eye as it jumps back and forth between the two sides.

 

Juxtaposing two different surface designs doesn’t mean it needs to be on the same canvas facing the viewer in the same direction. It could be on something three-dimensional so that the viewer has to walk around to compare. Or take it a step further and have a different surface on the front and back or get really ingenious and make it a curved surface so you can see both sides at the same time as Arden Bardol does with these whimsical earrings of hers.

 

You can also contrast different surfaces by creating one surface on the outside and another on the inside. Martina Buriánová did that here with two surfaces contrasted in pattern and treatment, yet with similar or highly contrasting colors which make a strong connection between them.

 

 

Splitting up is Not Hard to Do

If you find these contrasting surfaces interesting, click on any of the above artist names to see additional pieces for further inspiration. Then get to work trying your own!

Here is a simple series of steps you can try right now … A Cane Split Canvas:

  1. Choose a cane (or a few canes that go together) and pick a base clay in a complementary color.
  2. Roll a thick sheet of the solid color and apply canes to just one section, trimming or lining them up to create a boundary between a cane side and a solid clay color side.
  3. Burnish the canes into the clay sheet so the surface is smooth.
  4. Then, texturize a similar sized section next to the canes. You can use something as simple as sandpaper or add lots of tiny dots with a hand tool or stripes or lines or whatever you like, but I think you will find it more successful if the texture is very different from the canes. So, for instance, if you applied a series of flower canes with dots in the center, don’t texturize with dots but rather create something quite unlike anything in the flowers, such as a lot of orderly vertical lines or go for the randomness of a filter sponge texture. The cool thing about applying texture here is that if you don’t like it you can burnish it away and try something else.
  5. Once you have a texture that you like, use a cookie cutter, first as a frame to find the section to cut that includes the two sides– it doesn’t have to be half canes and half texture. In fact, 1/3 to 2/3 will probably look nicer in many cases. Move your cookie cutter around to see what you like.
  6. Once you find the section you like, cover it with plastic wrap and cut with your cutter.
  7. Your new split canvas form can be used as the beginning of a more complex piece or punch a hole at the top and you have a pendant or the first of a pair of earrings.

Now, if you want to splice together two different sheets of clay onto the same piece, you might want to check out this tutorial by Samantha Burroughs.

You may also want to take a look at the first issue of The Polymer Studio for the great tutorial by Julie Picarello who has a beautifully simple way to splice together a mokume gane slice and simple textured clay.

Got any great split canvases of your own? Share it with us by leaving a comment or a link at the end of the post!

 

Now for the Great Tile Adventure

Story time! For those entertained by the little dramas of my little life.

So, as you might have read in previous posts, we have been forced to do a kitchen renovation earlier than planned, in part because of a drain that collapsed under the slab on the kitchen side. The bad news came when the plumbers came out to plan the job and determined that the drain in the master bath was about to go as well so in addition to the kitchen, we have to tear out the shower in the bathroom. Oh, joy!

Actually, we were kind of happy about this because we really dislike that shower. It’s like a tiny tile covered phone booth, which is great for singing in but, not big enough for even a tiny mobile recording studio to make that worthwhile, it’s otherwise rather claustrophobic feeling. This is not to say that the news and the added cost to the budget didn’t give me a few more gray hairs, but I won’t be sad to see that go.

So, after spending two hours in a tile shop yesterday, mostly searching for just the right basic white but still subtly veined tile (veins in a cool, not a warm gray on a cool but not bright white – we are both artists so the color conversations have been quite intense) to go with our more dramatic accent choices and coming home and putting every tile sample we bought up against the wall, and not finding any to be quite right, I went into my studio for something and there in my stack of tiles on my studio table was the exact pattern of tile we were looking for. And I’ve been curing clay on it for the last six years! Now we just have to see if we can find eight full boxes of it somewhere!

Here I am giving my better half the not so great news that our ideal tile came from my studio stash and I don’t remember where I got it. But at least we know what we like!

I’m also, by the way, designing and making our kitchen backsplash which will, of course, have polymer in it somehow. So that should be exciting. Especially the part where I have to figure out how to carve out the time to do actually make that happen. But I will!

So, with my head full of tile images, I say goodbye to you for now. Have a wonderful rest of your holiday weekend and a great coming week.

A Big, Bold Challenge

April 14, 2019

Kathleen Nowak Tucci, Secret Garden Necklace

Have you considered challenging yourself creatively with something you’ve never done before, or at least not for a long time? I have a lot of creative friends who are doing just that right now and, as I work towards having free time again after an exceedingly busy couple of years, I am too considering what to start in on. My mind, probably like yours, never stops churning up ideas so the designs in my head and in my sketchbook have progressed into a variety of new possibilities. The question is, what do I challenge myself with first when I can get back to creating my own artwork on a regular basis?

Whether or not you are at a similar crossroads or want to change up what you’ve been creating, I encourage you to consider the question of how you could challenge yourself as we go through some work that is very much unlike what I have done in the past. I am hoping that, going through some of my own possibilities, this might start those wheels turning for you. What, if any, pieces here feel like they are in the same vein as your present work and which of these approaches have you’ve never imagined yourself doing but might consider?

Not Sage

I, like the vast majority of polymer artists, work primarily from organic inspiration. (See my post from last month about man-made inspiration for contrast.) A lot of my work is also rooted in story, particularly speculative stories dealing with the human struggle in both usual and unusual circumstances. It’s emotional, and personal and not at all neat and tidy. So, this means that certain styles of work almost never cross my mind as options. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try it.

Highly graphic work is one of the things that I’ve never done. I have no aversion to it and, in fact, really enjoy beautifully crafted and highly graphic artwork. I have even drawn particular elements as inspiration for aspects of my work, both in polymer and in graphic design, from the likes of Mondrian, Mucha, and even graphic novels. But I have never designed any highly graphic art work.

If I did aim for a more graphical approach, it might be something like Jana Lehmann’s colorful and fun pieces, with clean lines but still plenty of blended color and subtle color variation to make the colors glow and give it the calm energy I gravitate towards. I could see trying to create cleaner lines and using purer color and standard shapes although I think the organic would find its way in at some point.

 

Aren’t those flowerpot pins just adorable? That brings up another thing I don’t do much of. I don’t do cute. Which is strange because I love cute! Although I am kind of picky and maybe a bit odd about the cute that I enjoy. So, if I were to try to create something cute, it would probably be cute with a dark edge to it. Maybe something like these Bitty Bitey Ones by Darcy of North Carolina. Just look at these faces! The big black bead eyes help but it takes some serious sculptural instincts to get such great expressions. The cuteness factor is through the roof! Could I work on my skills long enough to create something even half as cute? Would I want to? Won’t know unless I try, right?

 

There is one thing though – I just couldn’t create such pieces in pink. Now, I have made some pink polymer jewelry in years past, mostly because of requests, and it did sell well but it didn’t do anything for me. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. But the important thing was that I tried and found out I just didn’t want to. That period did get me a touch more comfortable with the color so when it turns up incidentally in a blend or interference powder, I don’t just set it aside. The thing is, it’s not just pink that I steer away from. I don’t, in general, work in bright colors. But I’ve really been thinking that more saturated colors are something I should push myself into trying out.

Maybe I could do something like Jana’s super saturated color schemes above or, go completely over the rails and aim to mix-and-match a little bit of everything in one piece like Susan Dyer so expertly does. Talk about graphic! Her use of solid colors and highly contrasting patterns could be sniped from Bauhaus prints. Her compositions often teeter on the edge of chaos but the confining silver bezels and the consistency of her unmuddled approach to color and pattern creates cohesiveness.

 

One of the reasons Susan’s work appeals to me is because it’s not actually that big – the pendant above is all of 1.75” by 1.5”. I also tend to design jewelry that works as an accent or embellishment for the wearer rather than it outshining a person. But I know a lot of polymer artists prefer large pieces as one can really show off the surface design and techniques that way. And, honestly, I would love to do some really large jewelry but since I generally wouldn’t wear anything really large, it’s hard for me to envision what a wearer of this kind of work would want, and I think that makes me hesitate to the point that I have not tried.

I have been trying to work up the courage to go big by taking a close look at the work of big and bold artists like Kathleen Nowak Tucci. I love her work because it’s not only unabashedly large but it’s also, in part or almost wholly, created from recycled materials, such as the Saul Bellow award winning piece of hers you see at the opening of this post. And talk about going big … her work has also appeared on several big TV shows including the multiple times her work adorned the immensely talented Lily Tomlin on the show Grace and Frankie. You can see both Kathleen’s Leaf Necklace and Pistil Bracelet on Lily here.

 

What’s on Your List?

There are a number of other things I could try to push my work outside my comfort zone but these are presently on the top of my list.  So, now that you’ve seen the top of my list, what do you think you would you be willing to try out that you would not normally do?

Keep in mind, this self-challenge is not designed to change your style but to just put yourself, and hard, to see what you come up with. There is the potential for as yet unimaginable discoveries about yourself and where you want to take your work. It can be a way to inject some fresh new energy into your studio time and, since there is no end goal such as even showing the work to anyone or selling it, these explorations can give you the freedom to just push yourself in unselfconscious directions.

Are you one of the ones that have been doing this already this year? If so, maybe you’d like to share what you’ve tried to do and how you like the experience. You can insert a comment at the end of the post to let me know. Maybe when things slow down over here in the chaos it is my home at the moment, we can devise a midyear challenge for us all to work on. What do you think?

 

A Bit of Business … Last Chance to Subscribe and Get Issue #2 Directly from the Printer

If you haven’t subscribed or renewed your subscription to The Polymer Studio, you will want to do so by end of day Monday as we send off the mailing list to the printer to Tuesday morning. Be one of the first to get the new issue in your hot little hands by subscribing or pre-ordering your single issue now.

Your subscriptions and purchases support what I do here so if you like the blog, help me keep it going while also continuing your artistic education with our highly informative, entertaining, and rather pretty publications.

 

Back to the Chaos

Ok, gang, I have to get back to wrapping up the next magazine issue while navigating my discombobulated house. The chaos is in a holding pattern while we wait for the city to get the plans back to us. There is a ton of construction still going on due to the fires in November so things are a tad busy over there. But at least we figured out how to NOT have the refrigerator in the studio although it is just outside my door, just looming over me. So my present challenge is not to open that thing every time I have to squeeze by it!

As for you, my darling readers, I hope you are enjoying your weekend and have a fabulous week to look forward to.

The Contrast Conundrum

What would you say is the area of your craft that you most need to work on? Is it a skill that you want to acquire or improve? Is it simply getting yourself to do more work more often? (I know that’s one of mine!) Or is it some particular approach to the work that regularly seems to baffle you?

For me, I have always struggled with contrast. It’s not that I don’t like contrast, I just tend to like it done subtly. But if I am too subtle, the work lacks energy. On the other hand, if I consciously push it too far, it doesn’t feel like a genuine expression of mine. So, the idea of contrast is often on my mind when I am working.

First, let me correct a misconception that some people have. You do not have to have a high contrast in your work to create a good design. There can be little to no contrast in a piece and it can still have a beautiful design. Contrast is about the degree to which elements such as color, texture, pattern, shape, size, etc. are dissimilar or alike. Like anything else in design, good use of contrast comes down to making an intentional decision about how you will use it in your work.

For instance, high contrast tends to be high-energy and bold while moderate contrast comes across often as refined or restrained, and little to no contrast tends to be quiet and reserved. These descriptors are not always true because the level of contrast plays differently depending on what design element is being contrasted and how it works with (or against) other characteristics in the work.

Okay, enough jabbering on about these abstract concepts. Let’s look at some examples and get those little gears in your head turning as you ponder how you use contrast now, or how you would like to be using it.

Compare and Contrast

One of the most common ways to develop high contrast, especially in polymer, is with color. From canes to mokume to silkscreened veneers, high color contrast is the only way to have the effect of some techniques even show. But at the same time, minimal color contrast with little value change can result in lovely but subtle marbling, it helps support the dreamy feel of blended alcohol ink techniques, or allows us to showcase texture or form while color is relegated to a supporting role.

One of the most foolproof ways to use color for contrast is to go black and white. But if you go that extreme, you will probably need to heavily play up other design elements such as form, pattern, line, or texture. Or, you can put other colors into play.

That’s basically what Lynn Yuhr did with this earring and pendant set. The primary high contrast is a black border surrounding a white background. That’s simple enough, but then she throws a variety of colors in there, both warm and cool ones from across most of the color wheel. Then she goes for contrasting shapes by including both the softness of circles and the sharp angularity of triangles. Not only that, (this is really a piece all about high contrast!) she includes both solid shapes and thin lines. Some shapes are floating and unattached while others are overlapping, and some lines are solid while others are dashed. Often, this much variation can become chaotic and ungrounded but everything here has clean, defined and very graphic edges and she only chooses 2-3 variations of each design element. But the most grounding aspects are the black frame holding it all in and the swath of white being the common “floor” that this is all scattered on. It is energetic and yet contained, fun but still sophisticated. You can see, in the opening image, that she uses a similar approach but goes for full washes of color as the background, for slightly less dramatic contrast.

 

Have you ever been told to not wear plaid with polka dots at the same time? Well, you can if you play it right, pushing the contrast by adding even more pattern to your outfit so that is an obvious intentional choice. You’ll often find this approach in the work of Louise Fisher Cozzi. This necklace below has many different patterns. Some are very regular, while others are more organic. Most are rather busy but then there are those strings of solid pieces with nearly no pattern but for a slightly uneven glaze of color. Regardless of all these contrasting patterns, they have a connecting commonality in their circle form as well as being in a limited range of color saturation (pureness of color), giving what would otherwise be a cacophony of visual texture, a necessary cohesiveness. The result is a sophisticated kind of fun, sure to draw a bold, gregarious, and fun-loving buyer to this work.

 

Tactile texture can also be used as a contrasting mechanism in your design. An easy way to achieve contrast with texture is to have a smooth surface and a rough surface. It could be as simple as part of the work being highly polished and part of it sporting a matte finish. You can create textural contrast without going for the smooth versus rough by having two types of rough surfaces. That still contrasts if a bit more subtle.

The gorgeous Jenny Reeves earrings below, a metal, rather than polymer example (although there are plenty of folks who do similar texturing in polymer) has plenty of contrast although it does not jump out at you. The matte silver on the sides of each circle contrasts with the rough reticulated metal but not jarringly so. The matte finished silver moves to rough silver moves to rough gold so that there is only one level of change between each of those three treated sections of the circles. This somewhat gradual change diminishes the impact of the contrast resulting in a softer feel. Imagine how this would have looked if it went from matte silver to rough gold without the transitional section? It would have a very different feel.

As I mentioned, going for low contrast has its place and advantages. Dorota Kaszczyszyn doesn’t generally go for high contrast, but that is probably because she focuses primarily on her imagery and creating the forms and textures to bring her fantastical adornment to life, as is evident in her Water Dragon necklace here.

It’s not that contrast doesn’t exist in this piece – there is certainly contrast in texture, especially on the wings, going from a dimpled cap to a feathery brush below. However, all the surfaces have some kind of hand tooled texture, minimizing the contrast in that regard. The colors also have a minimal contrast, going from silver to a similarly shimmery brush of color using an interference green/purple powder, a color scheme echoed even in the focal shell on the dragon’s back. This low contrast gives the necklace, and her creature, a quiet grandeur, but it is not bereft of energy, instilled with a light but rippling liveliness through the texture and the flow of the shapes.

 

A Contrasting Evaluation

If, after seeing the ways you can work with contrast, you feel inclined to play with the way you use this design element, you can do so with some simple exercises.

Color is pretty easy to start with. Starting with a color combination you commonly use or tend towards, replace each color with the same hue but choose colors that are much darker, brighter, lighter, or subdued than the other colors. You will want the colors to have at least one characteristic in common (like they could all be very saturated or all be very light or they could all have a bit of black added to them) to keep the combination cohesive. You could also simply take out a bunch of blocks of clay and create several color pallets by shuffling them around – one high contrast, one meeting contrast in one low contrast. See which one you like the best.

If you want to better understand your options in color, grab Maggie Maggio and Lindly Haunani’s Color Inspiration book, or for a more condensed overview, grab your copy or get the Summer 2017 issue of The Polymer Arts which is all about Color! (We still have that 33% off 3 or more magazines sale going on and you don’t need a promo code for it now.)

You also can do a self-evaluation by grabbing a few of your favorite pieces, as well as a few pieces that weren’t successful, and looking at the difference in contrasts in the following areas:

  • Color
  • Texture
  • Shape/form
  • Size of forms or motifs
  • Pattern

See if you can identify where contrast worked well in the successful pieces and maybe where it could have been improved in the less successful ones by simply imagining increasing or decreasing contrast in each of the design elements listed above.

If you’re one of those who likes to make lists, copy these five design items out onto a piece of paper (or into an Excel sheet if you like those) and for each piece you have, identify whether the contrast is low, medium, or high for each design element. Then if you look at your evaluation list, you may find that you always have low contrasting color or high contrast in pattern, or vice versa or that, in general, you don’t work in high contrast or you never try low contrast. Whatever you’re not seeing a lot of, try to consciously create designs that push you out of your comfort zone.

Now, as I mentioned at the beginning, I don’t like to push high contrast in my work so it may seem funny for me to ask you to do something that goes against your norm, but I was only able to determine my preference because I did exercises like this. Push yourself like this can really help you discover a lot about yourself as an artist.

But if you’re more of the low-key, intuitive type, just keep contrast in mind next time you’re at the studio table. Like any design consideration, your work can be improved simply by being aware of whether you are making conscious decisions about design. If you are now more aware of contrast, you may find you’re able to more easily identify why a piece may not be working by checking the contrast and asking yourself whether low or high contrast or something in the middle would best serve what you’re trying to express or the type piece you are trying to create.

From Behind the Scenes

On that note, I am going to go work on the contrast that exists in my life between having a normal living situation and figuring out how to work and live in the beginnings of a halfway gutted house. But I always like a challenge!

I almost have my makeshift outdoor kitchen ready! Grill cleaned and ready for action. Check. Camp stove hooked up to grill size propane tank. Check. Camp table/sink with an actual running faucet via my garden hose set up. Check. Yep … no crazy construction is going to keep me from my creative cooking!

Now I just need to make covers/cozies for my instant pot and my non-polymer countertop oven so they can sit outside more or less protected from the elements. Then … I need to clear space in the studio for the refrigerator. I have always said that one’s studio or office should be as far away from the refrigerator as possible to discourage unintentional grazing so I’m seriously breaking my own rules here! Didn’t I just say I like a challenge? Maybe I should have clarified how much of a challenge I like. *sigh*

I’ll be juggling all this while I am in the midst of polishing up the next issue of The Polymer Studio but have thus far been able to stay more or less on schedule. Just don’t miss out on this next issue!

Issue number two of The Polymer Studio has a wonderful collection of projects for you as well as a tour of Christine Dumont’s studio (so exciting!), an interview with the uniquely creative Cynthia Tinapple, stencil explorations with Debbie Crothers and much more! We would love for you to join us in The Polymer Studio… Just subscribe to get your plethora of polymer fun and inspiration. Your subscription also supports this blog and all the polymer obsessed artists that have helped to create the beautiful content of our publications.

Thank you for your continued support! Enjoy the rest of your Sunday and have a creative and inspiring week!

 

 

 

Mixing and Mingling, New Cover, & 33% off Back issues

We have a bit of business to do first today but it’s exciting business! I wanted to share with you the next cover of The Polymer Studio, coming late April.

We are thrilled to include projects from Cynthia Tinapple, our featured and interviewed artist for this issue, as well as Christi Friesen, Kathy Koontz, Elena Mori, the Mitchell sisters, Deb Hart, and Wendy Moore. Also, tips, tricks, and other bits of wisdom from Debbie Crothers, Ginger Davis Allman, and little old me. And you won’t want to miss the tour of Christine Dumont’s studio, complete with a conversation about her space and process, which I think you’ll find very intriguing.

All this and more, just a month away! Support our projects, this blog, and the betterment of your own polymer journey, of course, or just because you’d like to look at all the pretty things tucked into those pages, by subscribing to The Polymer Studio here.

(Be sure to scroll down to the last section for the 33% off sale stuff.)

A Fine Mix-up

So, did you get a chance to look through the winning entries for the IPCA awards? Here’s the link again if you didn’t see them. The winning entries are just beautiful and maybe even a bit surprising. If you saw it, did you notice any trends or changes in trends and what was presented? I thought it was interesting that there were a lot of mixed-media pieces where polymer clay might have been the focus, but other materials played large roles in important design aspects and visual impact of the work.

One of the reasons I find this so interesting is that the idea of expanding into other materials seems to be a regular conversation myself and many other people are having. I couldn’t say exactly what that means but I do believe that polymer, with its unparalleled flexibility for combining with other materials, has kind of come of age where our exploration of what it can do is being placed on the back burner in order to focus on artistic expression. I look at these mixed-media pieces in the awards and other pieces I find during my research and general perusing online, and it seems that we are seeing more instances where polymer centric artists decide what they want to make and then determine the best materials for the work rather than push to see if polymer can be used for most, if not all, of the components of a piece. Or perhaps I am just hoping this is the case because I would love to see more folks focused on personal expression will rather than letting our obsessive, but understandable, infatuation with the material determine our creative parameters.

Of course, for most of us who work in polymer now, this colorful, durable, and chameleon material will remain our primary love and, regardless of other options, we will often still try to do as much as we can with polymer, if just to see if we can push it a little bit farther. But, opening oneself up to the possibilities of combining it with other materials in major ways will allow us, and even the viewer, to focus more on the design and expression and less on the material itself, which will let the artist’s expression, vision, creativity, and aesthetic really shine. I find this very exciting!

So, this week, let’s look at some of the mixed-media pieces where other materials play a primary role alongside polymer. This could be very helpful for you if you have felt like you’re in a rut or are too often hitting technical or design walls in your work. Trying out a different material may just be the thing to inject you with new enthusiasm and, possibly, send you down a new path with your artwork.

Mixed Directions

Let’s first look at some of the winners of the IPCA awards and in many ways that other materials have been mixed in.

This first piece is both a mixed-media and a mixed artist piece. Ellen Prophater or worked with Sherry Mozer, a glass artist, led to the use of the black glass piece with its shades of green within reflected in the mokume polymer it sits upon. It is set in a silver bezel and accented with Swarovski crystals. Both the mokume and the glass show off a subtle transparency, drawing the connection between the two along with the green cast colors. It’s a nice reminder that collaboration can also push us in new directions making new discoveries in our work and even ourselves and our friendships.

 

Donna Greenberg just killed it as the professional mixed-media category. This wall piece is called Wedgewood Wave but the word that keeps coming to mind for me is swoon. Not just because I feel like swooning, it’s just so gorgeous, but that’s also the word that comes to mind from that fabulous flow of energy through those waves, back into the pool of blue. Those waves are paper, but the application of color and shape are similar to the polymer pieces so the different materials feel cohesive. This is definitely one of those cases where another medium was the better choice. Trying to create those waves in polymer would’ve been just silly, even though it could be done. The paper gives a lighter feel to the overall piece as well as a light and easy flow to the visual movement. She also used Ultralight polymer alongside the Arches cold press paper, acrylic gouache paints, watercolor pencils, and Apoxie paste, each material fulfilling its purpose in a way that another material would not have been as successful with.

 

With the issue of the environment heavy in many of our minds, we are seeing a lot of exploration into found or recycled or upcycled items. Sarah Machtey offered up this steam punk pouch necklace with removable magnifying glass for the mixed media category of the awards with a bit of all of that. The front and back of this small pouch is from a soda can turned inside out – you can still see the printing of the soda can on the inside – but she embossed the can with decorative lines and used mica powder infused liquid polymer in the recesses to make them stand out. The band across the top is upcycled copper from a renovation project while the side leaves and earrings are polymer clay. Not sure if the magnifying glass was bought or found but it certainly could have been reused from something else.

The pouch is 7” (18 cm) in height from the top edge to the bottom of the magnifying glass, so it’s no small bit of tin on there. Of course, she could have used polymer to create the metal sections but it would’ve been a bulkier piece. The tin keeps the weight down as well as adding some structural strength that would only have been accomplished with a much thicker wall of polymer.

 

Keep in mind, when we are talking mixed-media it doesn’t necessarily have to be another art material. For instance, I combined poetry with photos of polymer in a challenge last year that I was posting on my personal Instagram page. Other people mix it up by installing the work in unusual places so that the what is placed on becomes part of the artwork such as fairy doors installed on walls or in tree trunks or tiles installed into a kitchen backsplash. Rachel Gourley takes it just a touch further, installing her little collections so that they recede into the landscape. She scatters her polymer elements out and about in natural settings, looking much like organic growths but unexpected in their color, shape, and placement.

 

Putting Together Your Own Mixer

This week, I didn’t pull any tutorials for you to try because it would have to be a mad, a long list of other materials to give you any real idea of your options. Instead, I might suggest that you keep your eye open for what other polymer artists are doing with other materials. Perhaps one of the above ideas piqued your interest already. If so, research that other material and find ways to acquire or hone your skill in that medium. Just put “polymer clay and [fill in the blank with the material you’re curious about]” into the search bar on Pinterest, Instagram, Flickr, or Google images and see what pops up. Add the word “tutorial” to see what offerings there are online. I’m sure there will be plenty of inspiration.

You can also grab your Spring 2015 – Diversity issue of The Polymer Arts or the Convergence themed issue from Spring of 2016, both of which have a ton of ideas around using other materials with polymer. You can see the table of contents for all back issues of The Polymer Arts on this page to check out what these issues have to offer. Then, if you don’t have the issues, you can order them on the website.

In fact, let’s have a sale!

Why don’t you grab a few back issues and take a full 33% off 3 or more! Good on digital or print, I’ll keep this up until next Sunday so grab them this week. Use promo code TPA33 at checkout.

And … I’m Off!

I would normally have some community news and deals for you to look into at this point, but I did not get to that. This week has been a struggle. I am being kept busy by a house that has decided to just fall apart all of a sudden. My creative energies have been used up relocating kitchen activities to the garage, the porch, and even my studio because of plumbing issues while getting tons of exercise running large circles around the house because the garage door won’t open, washing my clothes in the bathroom sink because the laundry machine won’t drain, and constantly shuffling ice packs from freezer to fridge because the fridge is on and off and its replacement is weeks away from getting here. All this happening two weeks before we start some (apparently!) much-needed kitchen remodeling. I’m not making this up.  But talk about mixing it up!

So, I’m going to get back to my at-home glamping while trying to get the next issue wrapped up for you. But tune in next week for more polymer pretties and inspiration, and, hopefully, less house drama from Sage’s corner! In the meantime, if you work with another medium, please share it below. Or tell us the most unusual medium you’ve combined with polymer! I’d love to get a feel for what you all are working on besides polymer. Leave links to the work as well if available! (If you get this by email, click on the post title to get to the post page and scroll down to comments.) I’m excited to see what you all have to share!

Mosaic Flow

Are you familiar with something known as the flow state? This is that space you get in where you are lost in your own little world because you are so wrapped up in what you are doing. It happens quite commonly when people are working on creative projects and it’s a really good thing for you, both because it dissipates stress and because it increases your level of “feel-good” chemicals like serotonin and dopamine. It’s also defined as an “optimal state of consciousness where we feel our best and perform our best.” Now, who wouldn’t want that?

I bring this up because I want to talk about mosaics. I think a lot of people look at all those tiny pieces and think, “That looks like a ton of work!” And, yeah, there might be a lot of steps to putting a mosaic together, but the technique is also one that really gets you deep into a flow state. It can be kind of like doodling but with little pieces.

It would not be a hard thing to start on. Most of us have access to tons of tiny pieces, either through leftover canes, unused polymer sheets, or failed projects we haven’t had the heart to toss out. Just slice up those canes, cut up those sheets, and/or start chopping up those cured elements and you have all you need to start creating mosaics. Of course, you can make pieces specifically for mosaics from fresh clay, too!

Mosaics have been on my mind these last couple weeks because, while working on the latest book, Polymer Journeys 2019, it became quite apparent that one of the bigger trends making a splash right now is polymer mosaics and so I thought we ought to take a closer look at this not so new but definitely interesting and flexible technique. (By the way, today is the last day to get the Pre-order Sale pricing on Polymer Journeys 2019! Go to the website to get it at 30% off the cover!)

Mind you, being the insanely creative and exploratory artisans and crafters that they are, polymer enthusiasts aren’t just slapping together any old standard expectation of a mosaic. They are mixing mediums, trying out every shape in the book, using three-dimensional forms, and generally just pushing the boundaries of what the mosaic technique is. Gotta love polymer crafters!

So, let’s take a look at what some people are doing as of late and we’ll end with suggestions for getting into the mosaic flow yourself.

Different Kinds of Bits & Pieces

One of the folks who, at least initially, takes a classic approach to the art form of mosaics but certainly adds her own flavor to it, is Christi Friesen. She cuts out squares of polymer, lays a base to adhere them to and then arranges the pieces in pleasing and energetic patterns. But of course, Christi can’t leave well enough alone — she has to add bling and embellishments of all kinds! She’s been mixing in glass, wire, charms, beads, and probably a bunch of other things I will never be able to identify, to create her whimsical tiles, vessels and jewelry. Can’t you just sense the depth of the flow state she must have been in creating this beautiful maelstrom?

You could say that Claire Fairweather is classically inspired too, but her work has a twist to it. That twist is a commitment to circles used to create these wonderful images of graduated color and varied texture. Using round elements instead of squares and straight-sided shapes that join neatly together, leaves more open space but it’s one that has a fairly regular rhythm that flows in and out of the carefully placed circles. This gives the imagery more orderliness and a softer look as you can see in the many sides of her mosaic globe below. (Be sure to jump over to her blog to get the rundown on what each side is showing.)

 

Keep in mind that a mosaic piece does not have to be all mosaic. Large swaths can be made up of other types of polymer elements such as textured, silkscreen, impressed, or hand tooled layers or forms. A lot of Susan Crocenzi’s work, especially earlier in this decade, consist of entire halves of her pieces being a kind of polymer landscape, surrounded by glass mosaics or a mix of mosaic mediums. Here is just one example below but you can find more on her website too.

 

For all of you mad caners out there, here is an example of how beautifully energetic a piece can be just by arranging thick cane slices on a simple form. This bib necklace is a yet-to-be-hung creation by Ivy Niles, who makes some of the most impressive canes. You can see how much more impressive they are when working together in this off-center mandala type pattern.

If you really like the idea of doing mosaics don’t relegate your sources of inspiration to the work of polymer artist’s, as unique as they may be. Take a look at what glass and tile mosaic artists are doing these days as well (just type “mosaic art” into your favorite browser or an image-centric site, like Pinterest or Instagram) if for no other reason than there is some amazing and gorgeous work out there to enjoy. Here is a gorgeous piece by Francis Green in what seems to be a rare piece of wall art. This woman will mosaic anything she can get her hands on! She kinda reminds me of some unbridled polymer artist with their canes. Just take a look at her website.

The How-Tos of Mosaics

So, are you itching to try some mosaics now? Here are a few places you could start:

Whew! I got into a flow a bit there myself writing excitedly about all this fun stuff. I hope you’ll give mosaics a try if you have not already, or at least give yourself some time to just get lost in your craft today. It’s good for the brain and the soul and you never know what will come of it later in your creative journey!

 

A Bevy of Bezels

February 10, 2019

First, a quick announcement … the new Polymer Journeys 2019 book is now available for pre-orders!

As usual, we offer a HUGE discount for pre-ordering: $7 off the print edition cover price and $4 off the digital edition. So jump to our website to pre-order this great tome of beautiful polymer art with artist’s insights into their work as well as a historical retrospective that we hope will help continue to elevate how people see polymer in the art world and beyond.

Now onto a Bevy of Bezels …

What is your favorite kind of polymer bezel setting? Would you say you even have one? Let’s be honest, when it comes to bezels do most of us really give them a lot of thought? Some people really do but I think for many of us, when we do create one, it is probably not much more than a functional element we need in order to hold and maybe frame a stone or focal element. So, I thought this week we would take a look at what else you could do and where you can take the functional, and often essential, bezel.

Like any other element on your jewelry that can be seen, a bezel is a part of the piece’s design and so their form and finish should be quite consciously decided, which means, with polymer clay there’s a tremendous range of things that can be done with it. Mind you, there is nothing wrong with the bezel been simple and primarily functional, as long as it makes sense for the design.

That said, let’s get to the interesting point … there is so much you can do with bezels and bezel style settings in polymer clay! I could yammer on and on about all the things you can do but I think it’s better to just show you. Make notes and start considering what you do with the clay that holds in the focal pieces on your creations and how you can expand on it.

A World of Bezels

One of my favorite bezel-ers, Chris Kapono, has the most wide-ranging ways to hold down a stone with polymer. Her tile and home decor pieces are also a great examples of how bezels can be used for pieces other than jewelry. She has many more tricks up her sleeve in this regards as seen on her Flickr photostream and in her Etsy shop.

Susan Waddington has always been one of my favorite polymer bezel makers. Her bezels are almost always black but are formed into pretty much anything but a basic square or circle and they are textured and inset with additional embellishments to work with the focal piece. This one may be a decade old but it is still inspiring as is her entire collection shown on her Flickr page. I don’t think she does much polymer any more so you have to scroll down past her paintings although looking through them is no hardship either.

A bezel can also be made from individual bits, all lined up. As seen in this pendant by Elsie Smith. The setting around this bezel continues the radiating lines that those lined up little squares start around the gem.

A bezel does not have to be symmetrical, continuous, sit with the stone or focal point straightforward or even completely surround what it’s holding. These pendants by Switzerland’s Chandani of ChaNoJa Jewerly on Etsy give you a few examples of non-traditional bezel settings with polymer.

And don’t be afraid to consider creating, or having a metalsmith create, metal bezels to put your polymer clay creations into. Making her own custom precious metal bezel settings is standard for Grace Stokes’ beautiful jewelry as seen here.

The How-Tos of Polymer Bezeling

Now, if you’ve not created polymer bezels before, or you would like a refresher or some jump-start, hands-on ideas, there quite a number of tutorials and such that you can reference.

Here’s a super quick way to make a bezel that works especially well for small round stones and crystals.

  1. Roll up a ball of clay about the width of the stone you want to set
  2. Press the ball flat but not too thin then press the stone or crystal into it.
  3. Gently push the sides of the clay in towards the stone so that the clay sits up around its edges and holds it in. At this point it can be further embellished with powders.
  4. Then just scoop it off your work surface using a blade and place it on your piece, maybe with just a tiny touch of liquid polymer to guarantee its adhesion.
  5. You can embellish it further here too. Just impress dots or lines into it with a needle tool, being careful not to move the clay away from the stone’s edge and lose its grip on it.

That’s it! It’s a super quick and easy bezel. It can be used on other shapes besides round too. You just have to shape the clay to the same size and shape as the stone before you press it into the clay.

By the way, you can see this quick set bezel and how I often use them in Issue #1 of The Polymer Studio in my tutorial, “Shimmering Scenery Pendants”. That same tutorial also shows you how to make an easy polymer clay frame which can readily be used as a bezel setting in addition to the techniques use for frame setting surface treated polymer sheets. Get your issue or a subscription if you don’t have it already. Single issues are only $7.95 in print, $5.95 digital, and that’s for eight detailed tutorials plus other fantastic articles. Can’t even buy one tutorial for that!

For a polymer bezel similar to traditional metalsmithing bezels, take a look at Tina Holden’s tutorial on her blog here. She shares her basic bezel and then some ways to embellish that are very easy to do but give the bezels a very rich look.

For a dainty frame bezel frame with filigree, there is this classic filigree tutorial here. If you stop after the first rim is placed on and cured, you have a bezel frame for cabochons or cut polymer sheets. But the filigree stuff is fun if you have the patience for it. The text’s English may sound a little wonky because it will be translated but it’s worth trying nonetheless.

If you want, or need, to create bezels quickly, you might want to look into purchasing Cabezel molds from Shades of Clay. These molds allow you to create a frame and a perfectly fitting cabochon for it in seconds. Once you have the basic frame molded you can expand on the setting in the area beyond the bezel frame or embellish the bezel itself so although it’s a mold, it has a lot of room for customization. Shades of Clay is a great resource for all kinds of unique polymer related supplies as well. (Keep in mind, this is a Canadian retailer, so the pricing is in Canadian dollars although Wendy does ship via USPS. To estimate what it will be in US dollars, deduct about 25%.)

Got Bezels?

Do you have any great bezels of your own? Or are you aware of any other great tutorials for polymer bezels? Leave links and comments in the comment section below. If you get the this by email click here to leave a comment. Myself and many a reader here would love to see more.

The Allure of the Box & Important News

December 1, 2019
Posted in

Do you, like many people, find boxes really intriguing? Why do we like boxes? I mean, sure, they are convenient for storing things, hiding things, shipping stuff, and wrapping up gifts. But some of us (myself very much included) can become rather infatuated with them. I know I have a hard time passing a box and not opening it up. Boxes have this mysterious unknown interior that could be holding just about anything that will fit. The possibilities poke at our curiosity.

The things with in a box become automatically precious or necessary. Why put something in a box if it is not valuable or you do not think it will become useful in the future? So, boxes hold valuables of a sort, normally. So why wouldn’t you want to peek in and see what kind of fabulous things are inside?

I bring up boxes because I have a bit of news that has to do with boxes. Say uncle scrolling down to the end of the post to see what my news is, here it is. Then we’ll look at a few polymer boxes to further contemplate

 

The Good, the Bad, and the Exciting

Note: If you are an existing subscriber to The Polymer Studio, you should already have received an email with this information. (If you believe you are an existing subscriber and did not get a subscription status email, check your junk mail folder. You can also check your subscription status on your account page here.)

So, after 4 months of working on my health and arm injury, I have gotten to the point where I have been able to determine, more or less, what I can and can’t do going forward, and since it is apparent that I will continue to be restricted for the foreseeable future, I have made plans accordingly:

The Good:
As of January, I will be resuming work on publications for 2020 and am working on new projects now.

The Bad:
I am shutting down The Polymer Studio magazine for good. I have, however, set-up exciting options for fulfilling subscriptions for existing subscribers, primarily the new Box project you’ll read about below. (More details for subscribers are in the email sent out earlier today.)

The Exciting:
I have 3 exciting projects that Tenth Muse Arts will be offering this coming year–

  • I will be scheduling 2 book publications for 2020, including the second Polymer Arts Projects book (the theme will be Shimmer and Shine) and a book on expanding your creativity yet to be titled.
  • I will be expanding our shop to include hard to get and self-published polymer and mixed media related books to connect the community with more great artists and authors.
  • And… instead of a regularly published magazine we will be offering a monthly Virtual Art Box for polymer and mixed media creatives.

I know, I know … there are a lot of questions those announcements bring up like what is a Virtual Art Box and why am I not publishing the magazine any longer? And I have answers so, read on!

 

What is the Virtual Tenth Muse Art Box?

The Virtual Art Box is a digital package of invaluable articles, lessons, specials, and printable tools all geared to advance your creative self and give you more “a-ha” moments. Like a magazine, we will be providing serendipitous educational and inspirational content but with additional tools and perks that just couldn’t be produced in the pages of a publication.

Each Virtual Art Box will include:

  • Design immersion lessons (weekly)
  • Creativity Cultivation seminars & worksheets (every month)
  • Customizable challenges (every month)
  • Art Nudges (weekly)

… as well a variety of these possible items:

  • Project and technique tutorials
  • Demonstrations
  • Interviews
  • Printable gadgets and aids
  • Retail partner discounts and specials
  • Sneak peaks and Box subscriber only discounts for Tenth Muse Arts publications
  • And whatever other great goodies we think up or you suggest along the way.

The Virtual Art Box will be multimedia to include video and downloadable PDFs and will be sent out monthly. They will be available as a automatically billed monthly and quarterly subscriptions that can be canceled at any time. The first box will be sent off February of 2020. Subscriptions aren’t available quite yet, but we’ll let you know when we have all that technical stuff done so you can! (Existing subscribers will be automatically signed up for the Virtual Art Box or they will have the option to request store credit – details for subscribers will be sent out this coming week.)

 

Why No Magazine?

As many of you know, I halted magazine production in August because of health issues. Although I am not through the full six months recommended for recovery time, it has already become apparent that there is some permanent damage in my arm and there is still a long road ahead for the other health issues I am dealing with. So, something had to be changed.

Being the primary editor and layout designer for the magazine, and facing the reality that I can no longer carry my usual workload, my only option for keeping the magazine going would be to hire more third-party contractors which would result in one or, most likely, all of three things – significantly raising the price of the magazine, jeopardizing the quality of the production and content, and/or not paying the contributing writers and artists. I am not happy with the idea of any of these outcomes and instead I have chosen to discontinue the magazine and work in formats that put less repetitive strain on my arm and should be better able to financially support additional contracted staff as needed.

I am more than a little sad about closing down the magazine. I’ve been publishing periodicals for the polymer community for over eight years and have worked in magazines since high school. However, I’m hoping, with these new ventures, I can continue to inspire, educate, and increase your joy and fulfillment in your creative endeavors through these other exciting avenues.

How Does This Affect This Blog?

So, as you might have noticed, one of the items in the Virtual Art Box is a weekly design lesson. Well, that’s basically what I’ve been doing on the blog this year but, without a magazine to promote on a regular basis, it’s been hard to justify the time that goes into these article length posts beyond the fact that I love doing them. But the mantra for this next year is to work smart.

So, what will happen is that the full-length posts plus other notes and nudges based on the content of the virtual box will be sent to the Virtual Art Box subscribers each weekend. Here, on this publicly accessible blog, I will do an abbreviated version of the subscriber’s weekly design immersion content so I can keep nudging folks to look closer at the design of their creations.

Starting this month, I will be creating those abbreviated posts so I can focus on wrapping up the details of this new project, hire a new assistant, and get a production schedule up for next year for the books. All that with the holidays in the midst of it. Sounds like I’m getting crazy again but I promise to do as the doctor orders. I am really looking forward to being productive again!

 

Now What about Those Boxes?

With polymer, you can make boxes in two ways – you can cover an existing box form or you can create your own box. Let’s put it at a few examples of both.

Covering a RD existing box is, obviously, the easiest way to create a polymer box. It may seem like a shortcut but if you spend a lot of time creating beautiful veneers or sculptural elements for the outside the box, there’s no need to spend a lot of time creating the box from polymer. Remember, it’s better to use the material that makes the most sense for what you are creating rather than limit yourself to one material.

Aniko Kolesnikova, famous for her journal covers, also covers boxes. Using her bas-relief style sculptural approach, she created this commissioned box based on the card game, Magic: The Gathering. The box top worked as a canvas but the dimensional aspect allowed her to flow each of the elements over its edge, taking up the dynamic energy and knowledge. Click on the image to get her blog post about how she made this including sketches and close-ups.

 

Fiona Abel-Smith looks to have created her actual box forms out of polymer and then covers it with a technique she learned, and eventually perfected, from Sue Heaser. The process is based on the classic mosaic-like technique of pietra dura. Laying a clay colored base for the shapes in the images, Fiona then adds bits, cut from extruded snakes of clay, to the image for texture. The intense technique creates beautiful, lively illustrations. Fiona’s also created a post about her boxes, showing her variations and their many sides along with photos of her process. Click the image to see the post.

If you are making your own polymer boxes, you have the option of leaving the square behind in making her boxes in any shape whatsoever. The opening image and the image below are boxes by Helen Wyland-Malchow. The opening image, Box 22, was her winning entry into Polymer Journeys 2019. This one, Landscape Box, below has always been one of my personal favorites though. That is really pushing the idea of a box in such a wonderful and dynamic way. Squares are bit static, which allows the imagery on the box to stand out but curves are fabulously high-energy and fun.

So, how about you? Have you created covered boxes or constructed your own from polymer? That could be a fun challenge this month if you haven’t worked with boxes yet. They make fantastic gifts for pretty much anyone. Who couldn’t use a box? If you’d like to create your own polymer boxes, there is a great tutorial (if I do say so myself) by me on constructing a 100% polymer box in the Winter 2015 issue of The Polymer Arts (also available in digital for immediate download here.)

 

Putting the Lid on It

Well, that’s enough blathering at you for this weekend. I haven’t had time to take pictures of the kitchen backsplash I was working on, which is basically done except for the grout, but I’ll share that with you next weekend, hopefully in its final form.

And last but not least, I want to thank each and every one of you who have been cheering me on the last 8 years, for sending your appreciative and supportive messages, particularly in these the last 4 months. I look forward to you coming along with me on these new and continued artistic ventures as we explore this fantastic medium, growing our creative selves and our community.

 

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Simply Stunning

May 19, 2019
Posted in , ,

Tanya Mayorova

Given the choice, would you create a necklace that was easy and quick to make and was still stunning, or would you explore an unknown technique with an unknown outcome that might take hours or days? For some of you, the answer may be complicated because you like to explore and you don’t even question how long it will take or whether you will be successful because you just want to see what material can do. I get that. That’s pretty much how I approach what I do. Not that I wouldn’t mind some of my explorations being quick and easy and more often successful than not. Being challenged and failing, though, are absolutely necessary parts of creating art but that doesn’t mean that everything we make should be frustrating and difficult.

I think, by default, we all gravitate toward the easy option when given a clear-cut choice. Easy means less frustration, less room for error, and less time involved but it can also be considered a bad choice. And I’m not just talking about the creative process. For instance, you might grab a paper plate instead of one that you have to wash, or you toss your groceries in a plastic bag provided by the store rather than bringing in your own reusable one. Those examples highlight the reason for our environmental issues right now, our desire for ease and convenience being at the root of our environmental tragedies. So, yes, taking the easy route can sometimes have a negative effect that that’s not always true. There is nothing wrong with choosing the easiest route to drive home or having yoga pants and a T-shirt as your default attire when not at work. And some very easy things are actually better. Fruit and a boiled egg for breakfast is a lot easier than making pancakes and bacon and is better for you too. And when creating your polymer components, simple techniques and forms are often not only an efficient way to create and express yourself but they allow you to concentrate on composition, contrast, form, and other design elements rather than getting you wrapped up in technique.

With social media and our online access to so much artwork, I think our minds are saturated with certain ideas about what we should be creating and, because of that, we may have a hard time finding our own voice or we may have an unconscious sense of how pieces should look or be put together rather than finding a look of our own. Or we are romanced by gorgeous, complex pieces so we try to make our work more complex as well without knowing if simple elements may be very thing we need to do or say what we want.

Part of the problem comes from the idea that simple and easy means boring. But it certainly doesn’t have to be. To illustrate this, I’d like to look at beads today. In polymer jewelry, the bead is the most basic element you work with. The idea of a bead encompasses all types of forms though, from the simple round bead to complex sculpted and layered mixed-media elements. But let’s explore the more classic idea of a bead, as a single element that is repeated in some fashion in a piece of adornment and let’s see how you might create easy beads that are anything but basic and boring.

A little note … Some of you long time polymer enthusiasts out there may recognize a few of these pieces as several were widely circulated back when but, even if you’ve seen these before, look at them with new eyes and see if some familiar techniques but unused techniques aren’t worth a revisit now. You’ll approach them differently than you did 5 or 10 years ago, and you never know what serendipitous discovery might be unearthed.

 

Beads Beyond the Basic

Round beads are, of course, the most common bead form and are a classic that are always great for showing off canes, color, and surface design. Still, round beads can get pretty complicated, one, because it can be difficult to make them perfectly round, and secondly, because to keep them from being boring often leads us to add complexity in the color scheme or how the surface is treated. But what if you took your round bead and just worked on the form? Go ahead … grab some clay, make a rough round bead, and then start messing with the form. Pinch it, press it, pull it, or roll it into a variation on a round bead or cure and carve it.

Genevieve Williamson started out with a round bead to create these side textured chunky disks. Just look at the variation here plus I bet you can think up a few other ways to quickly and easily change them up with different clays, inclusions, or texturing of the sides.

Tube beads can be a tad tricky, primarily when it comes to creating the hole for stringing them. An extruder with a core adapter makes the job much easier but you can also create easy, attractive, and unique tube beads from any surface treated clay sheet simply by wrapping a strip around a tube of your choosing. Here’s a whole selection by Tonya Mayorova who went really wide with her bead openings. As you can see, all kind of surface treatments adapt well to these wide tube beads, from mosaics like you see on the bottom of the stack, to carved, impressed, mokume gane, and seed bead wrapped. The beads here are all similar in width but she uses the same approach with skinnier varieties such as in the necklace that opens this post.

 

Tanya doesn’t have a tutorial posted for this, but I can help you with that:

  1. Pick a favorite surface treatment to create a sheet of clay with and then wrap the sheet around anything that can go in the oven. I keep a few pieces of aluminum and copper tubing for just such projects. Make sure the pieces are straight and have unobstructed lengths so beads can slide off after curing.
  2. Wrap the clay around the tube until the clay sheet overlaps then cut down through the length of the overlapping clay and then remove the excess clay.
  3. Carefully blend the seam where the ends meet.
  4. If the clay sheet has a smooth and even surface, you can lay it on the worksurface and, using a tissue blade, let it roll crosswise under the blade ‘s edge to cut each individual bead cut. Then just cure the stack as is.
  5. Alternately, you can cure just after you blend the seam then cut the beads off it with a craft knife or slide it off the rod and use a jeweler’s saw to cut your beads.
  6. You can string your tubes on multiple strands of stringing materials such as cording or leather thongs, a selection of various colored embroidery thread, colored Tigers tail, ribbon, etc.

Tanya has even more variations of this idea ready for your perusal on her Flickr photostream here. She also recently agreed to create a feature tutorial for Issue #3 of The Polymer Studio so be sure to subscribe or keep up your subscription to the magazine to get that beautiful project.

 

The beads below also require just a sheet of treated clay. These are similar to a popular paper bead technique you may have seen as well. They start with a sheet cut into narrow, long triangles that are then rolled up, starting with the wide end so that each overlap leaves part of the surface of the lower layer visible. It works with any sheet of polymer, treated or untreated, textured or not.

I love how Margit Bohmer keeps the triangles, created from a mokume gane sheet, really narrow so that the beads are nearly as big in diameter as they are wide. There is still plenty of surface showing but they blend into each other because the narrow bead doesn’t angle away as much at the point where they touch. As you likely already know, the longer the bead, the more space you’ll see between the bottom edges of the bead ends. These rolled up beads are also angled on their ends which can make them sit askew but the shallower the angle (like on these narrower beads) the more neatly they line up.

Margit has created the longer beads as well so you can compare them here or just look through her Flickr photostream to see what you like better. And if you want a full polymer tutorial on these types of beads, check out Emma Ralph’s classic tutorial here.

 

Another, maybe even easier, way to use sheeted clay for beads is to just roll up flat sections of clay without overlapping, in a loose, freeform way. This works really nicely with an organic treatment or texture. Just look at how lovely these wrapped textured beads are. They are simply flat sections of polymer impressed on a handmade texture plate and curled up on an angle.

These are created by Rebekah Payne who generously posted a tutorial here on how to make them.

 

A similar concept can be employed with snakes of clay. Just roll out or extrude lengths of solid, marbled, mica shift (see this post from earlier this month) or striped polymer and then wrap the strands up on a skewer, long thin knitting needle, or other thin rod and cure. You’ll end up with coiled beads like these created by Emma Todd, below..

 

You can also roll the beads, after wrapping them up, back and forth under an acrylic block or other small tile to level the strands, creating a smooth bead surface. Don’t use the rod to roll the bead as it will act like a rolling pin on the inside of it and widen the stringing hole. Unless you want that. You can also take them off the rod and gently press their length between thumb and forefinger to compress the coils a bit more and make flat ended cylindrical beads.

 

The interior of clay beads have a lot of hidden potential too, and they can so easily and quickly be revealed by just cutting them open. Here is my all-time favorite example of creating stunning beads by cutting the form. These fabulous beads are by Desiree McCrorey. Click the image to see her tutorial for this. Be sure to check out the beads she makes from the cut scraps at the end too!

Not only can you create simple yet complex looking beads by cutting stacks, you can use this technique with old canes as well. See Desiree’s tutorial for the same beads using canes here. And look around the site for other great tutorials. These are all older tutorials, but timeless techniques.

 

Beads Away!

The examples above are all easy to make, don’t take much time, and allow for your own take on composition, contrast, texturing, etc. So, I would like to suggest that you pick a couple you like and see if you can sneak in sometime today or this coming week to try them out to see which, if any, simple but expressive beads suit you.

There are also some publications you might want to check out if you are on a bead making bender or feel you will be after all this.

  • My favorite polymer bead book is Carol Blackburn’s Making Polymer Clay Beads. There are beads for all levels of clayers and lots of jumping off points for those who like to explore.
  • Although these get a bit more complex, the beads in Grant Diffendaffer’s book, Polymer Clay Beads are just stunning and there are so many tips in this book.
  • If you really just want to try some new surface treatments or get other ideas for changing up your own bead ideas, Marie Segal’s, The Polymer Clay Artist’s Guide, is such a thorough exploration of techniques. It’s my go to book for creative brainstorming on polymer treatments.
  • Of course, there are tons of ideas in The Polymer Studio and, especially for the more exploratory folks, in the back issues of The Polymer Arts. Grab a few of these in print or digital and let serendipity lead you into new creative territory. By the way, about 65% of The Polymer Arts issues are still available in print but quite a few are about to sell out completely so if you like your material in print, snatch them up while I still have them.
  • For further inspiration in the form of eye-candy, pick up your copy of Polymer Journeys 2016 and/or 2019. Both are just brimming with ideas of all kinds. If you need a copy, get them on the website here.

 

Holes

Our foreman, standing guard at the pit to our main drain line in our front yard … there’s another guy down there!

For those of you mildly entertained by the situation here at Tenth Muse central, all I have to report is, well, holes. I counted 8 points of egress big enough for the entry of adventurous birds or, in 2 cases, an adventurous racoon, thanks to the workers punching through our walls for new plumbing and a new electrical panel. Its kind of unnerving to stand in the middle of one’s house and see so many wide-open entries into the space.

There are also some deep holes! The nearly 3 foot deep hole in the master bath is big enough for a couple suitcases of cash (like I have enough cash even in single dollar bills to fill a couple suitcases, not after all this work!) but the 7 foot deep one in the front yard is ready for hiding bodies. Or maybe just my entire stash of failed art projects. That craziness has us now investigating xeriscaping and ground cover plants because between the trench and the well at the end of it (and all the dug up soil covering the area around it), that grass ain’t coming back. It didn’t grow well there anyways. So now we are plant shopping. I never much liked shopping before (unless if was for art materials!) but, man, am I getting burned out on that particular activity. The shopping part, not the plants. I’ve been enjoying my plants, with all the spring flowers in bloom. The garden has been my escape from all the chaos and noise!

However, in all this, I have managed to clear up the studio table and started working on new stuff! It’s amazing what can happen when you don’t have distracting chores like housecleaning (although I miss having a house to clean!) Keep an eye on my personal Instagram page for new pieces and, hopefully, new poetry to accompany it. Find me @thesagearts

 

Now off to enjoy a rare cool and rainy Sunday. I hope you have a beautiful Sunday to relax in and a great week ahead!

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A Dramatic Shift

April 28, 2019
Posted in

Pier Voulkos boxes

Of all the fabulous polymer clay techniques, which would you say is the most dramatic? There are certainly a lot of them that can be bright and colorful, shiny and sparkling, dramatic and graphic, but could you pick out just one that you think has the most impact when first seen?

I have to say, the one technique that really pops for me is mica shift. It can be colorful, shimmery, and quite dramatic, and has the added effect of looking three-dimensional when it is not. And who doesn’t love a visual illusion?

Mica shift has waned in popularity of late. I’m not sure why because it is just such a gorgeous technique. But when I started researching the idea of making mica shift the theme this week, I found myself on really old posts and pages, looking at work that was created 10, 20 or 30 years ago. That made me all the more determined to bring this technique’s wonderful effects back into the limelight here.

For those unfamiliar with the technique or how it works, here is a little history and explanation for you.

The effect itself is a result of manipulating the mica in metallic clays into orderly layers that you can then manipulate in a controlled manner. This can be done because mica, a shiny, silvery, layered mineral, forms tiny flakes when ground up. The flat side of these flakes are reflective, but the sides are not (like a mirror.) So, if mica is flat side up, it reflects light, but a stack of mica seen from the side is just dark.

You control the mica in your clay by conditioning it in a pasta machine, folding the sheeted clay in half and running it through over and over. The pasta machine rollers, squeezing the clay down, also nudges the flakes to lay flat. Eventually, all the flat faces of all those tiny flakes are facing up in the sheet, causing it to be reflective and shiny.

So then imagine what happens to all those perfectly flat flakes if you press something into them? The flakes get tilted, showing their dark sides (gosh, sounds like some people I’ve known!) That’s where the control comes in. You decide where to distort that perfectly flat sea of face up flakes with a texture sheet, a blade, or hand tools, and where there is distortion, there will be dark outlines of tilted mica. Those outlines are there under the surface too, as the flakes, like tiny dominoes, knock each other over under the invading lines of a texture sheet or a hand tool.

You can also just play with the difference between the shiny surface and the dark sides by stacking mica sheets and cutting it up, rolling sheets into a cane, or twisting or folding a narrow stack, just to name a few approaches. In these cases, the sides of the original layers stay dark and the surface stays shiny, so you have dramatic contrast.

Mica shift in polymer has been called by other names over the years. One of the original innovators of this technique, Pier Voulkos, (those are her boxes opening this post) called it her “invisible caning”. Later, Karen Lewis referred to Pier’s technique as chatoyant, a French term meaning to shine like a cat’s eye, which is used in gemology to describe the bright reflected bands of light caused by aligned inclusions in a stone. That’s certainly fitting for polymer mica shift too.

Let’s take a look at some truly dramatic and lovely examples of this technique.

Shifty Ideas

Around the same time period that Pier was experimenting with her invisible canes, Mike Buesseler was playing with mica clay sheets and “ingots”, stacking then cutting, twisting, texturing and curling up sections of these sheets and ingots to create beads and surface design.

Here is a beautiful necklace using a very simple technique of twisting a square strand of stacked mica sheets.

I would explain more about Mike but, instead, I’m going to let him explain for himself in what is, to this day, the best video class that I have ever viewed. No joke. I’d rather you stop reading this post and watch that video, if it’s all you have time for today. The video is well over an hour-long and it is twenty years old but, no matter how long you’ve been working with polymer or how much you think you know about mica shift, it is well worth your while. It also has an interesting little story about how it came to be a free master class for all. Check it out on YouTube here.

 

Grant Diffendaffer has long been my polymer clay hero. His mica shift and designs are breathtaking. Although he worked with techniques derived from all the early developed mica shift techniques, his most impressive are his impression pieces. This type of mica shift, sometimes called “ghost shift”, is created by impressing a texture into a sheet of well-conditioned mica clay and then the raised layer of clay is shaved off with a very sharp tissue blade making a smooth surface but leaving the illusion of dimension. Grant created his own texture sheets and then applied them to mica clay Skinner blends. His choice of blended colors surrounded by textured black makes for some very dramatic pieces.

 

Some of the most dramatic and graphic mica shift you’ll see to this day comes from the studio of Dan Cormier. A lot of his effects come from cutting and puncturing straight down through the clay. When using a blade, the clay shifts only in the cuts where the blade separates the clay causing just a hairline distortion and thus, very thin dark lines. Puncturing shifts more clay as the tool pushes clay aside to get through. The advantage of these distortions, however, is that the design is present and consistent all the way through the stack.

 

Here’s another take on mica shift from my own table. These gauge earrings might seem a bit more shimmery than a lot of mica shift as I add plain mica powder (bought from handmade cosmetic suppliers) and translucent clay to my metallic polymer clay to bring up the shimmer a notch. These are created from Skinner blend sheets that were stacked, twisted, and rolled smooth before curling them up. They also receive a lot of denim buffing. My mica shift effect is actually the same basic technique that Mike used for the necklace you see above but I twisted it tighter and rolled it smooth with an acrylic plate.

 

Just so you know, 3 of the artist’s mentioned here no longer work in polymer clay which is why you aren’t getting the abundance of information and links I can usually offer. Pier, Mike and Grant are all multi-disciplinary creatives who moved on to another creative form—Pier returned to dancing, Mike to music and Grant has stayed in crafts but has been exploring a variety of materials and forms. Regardless, we can sure be grateful for their time with us!

 

Curious Shift

If this little discussion of mica shift has you anxious to get to the studio table and try it out, I heartily encourage you to do so. In fact, I would like to challenge you all to create a little (or a lot) of mica shift this week. I’m going to do the same, creating some new designs with ideas I came up with after researching this post. I’ll share what I’ve done next week and post them to my personal Instagram page.

Do you think you can you get in one mica shift project before the end of the week? Try it and then please send me a photo or link you would be willing to share online, and I’ll see what I can share at the end of next week’s post. You could also just post to Instagram and tag with #polymerartschallenge or message me on Facebook at The Polymer Studio page or write back if you’re getting this by email.

If you have some great mica shift pieces to add to the discussion, leave a comment at the end of the post for us to check out.

And with that, I have to run. Its been a crazy week. There were some problems with production  and getting Issue #2 of The Polymer Studio wrapped up (the release for the new issue will be in a couple of days, April 30th, so keep an eye out for it in your inbox, if you have a digital edition coming, and your mailbox in the weeks to come. Or subscribe or order the issue on our website!) and then we’ve been having problems with the city getting our plans through so we can move forward with the renovations here at the house (many people are still rebuilding from the huge fires we had in November, so they are busy beavers at the planning offices) but, finally, the demolition begins tomorrow and there is still a last few things to prepare. Good news though … we put the refrigerator on the porch instead of in my studio! Yay! We moved the liquor cabinet in here instead. MUCH better idea. I think. Or will it be weird that I can pour a glass of port without leaving my chair here? Well, we shall see.

Until next Sunday my dear readers … have a wonderful week!

 

 

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Splitting the Difference

April 21, 2019
Posted in

Happy Easter or Chag Sameach or simply happy Sunday to you! I wasn’t sure I was going to get this one out between holidays and family and wrapping up the latest issue of The Polymer Studio (there has been a slight delay with the printer so we still have time to get you on the list for the first shipment from the printer if you subscribe or pre-order before Monday night  … go here to get yours) and picking out shower and floor tile (yes, there is a tad more drama at Tenth Muse headquarters, a.k.a. home, which I will expound upon at the end for those of you find it humorous to see what craziness I’m steeped in.)

So, have you ever been in the middle of a busy, stressful, crazy, chaotic day and then all of a sudden you just are coming up with new art projects from out of nowhere? Well, yesterday I was in this ginormous tile shop, putting white tiles against dark tiles and smooth stone surfaces next to busy mosaics trying to see what works and, of course, being so design focused, when it didn’t work I would ask myself why, and when it did, I asked myself why as well. (My mind is like a three-year-old… Why this? Why that? Why…?) This led to considering how I pair up surfaces in my own artwork. The fact is, I don’t do a ton of it, but I do really like it.

I think this also came to mind because I had the pleasure of online chatting with Kimberly Arden, a potential contributor for a future issue, and she showed me some of her pendants and earrings which are often a split canvas – one side is busy with canes or extruder veneers and one side is a lightly textured black with a flower or other form laid on it in using just a few canes, like the one you see opening this post. So, I’m there comparing tiles and thinking about her pendants which got me thinking about how often we pair up surfaces in art and next thing you know, I’m writing you this post with all this in mind. That’s how these themes happen!

So, let’s just ponder the idea of having two different surfaces next to each other on the same canvas or form. How is this done to in a way that still creates a cohesive piece and what are the different ways this can be applied?

 

Splitting the Canvas

Two or more different surfaces on the same canvas or form is a great method for creating contrast but like any other element, two surfaces that are not alike do have to have some kind of connection to make them work together in a piece. Yes, that connection is there physically when the surfaces are within the same framework in or attached to a singular object, but that is not usually enough. The best way to ensure a connection is to have at least one design element that is the same or very similar.

For instance, both sides could be the same color but very different textures. Olga Bulat does this in this necklace. Making it monochromatic keeps us focused on that texture and that difference which creates the energy in the piece.

 

Now, Olga could have had two different colors in the above piece but the colors themselves would have had to have some commonality. For example, both sides could be pastel, or both might be similarly bright. They could even be next to each other or completely opposite each other on the color wheel (because complete opposites also connect in our mind as being related but in an opposing fashion, if that makes sense. Think how much green and red there is at Christmas time. It works, color wise, right?)

Below is an example of using different colors but with the same texture so that there is commonality in the texture, but at the same time, the colors are also completely opposite (a dark, rich, warm brown versus a light, colorless, cool gray). These opposites are paired in our mind the way good and evil, young and old, and night and day are paired conceptually.

This is the genius of Meisha Barbee who also puts the canvas split on the horizontal (notice how many of the examples I show you today are split vertically – vertical has a lot of energy but it doesn’t mean that vertical is right for every piece.) Just changing the color however does not give the work a ton of energy so she adds a band of multicolored spots. I added a few more examples below the first pendant so you can see the various ways she pairs up the competing sides of the canvas. She uses large bands to separate when the surface pattern is subtle but goes for a simple slim line on the one with a bottom half already busy and full of extruded canes slices.

 

And speaking of changing up directions, you can also change up the point at which they meet. It doesn’t have to be a straight line or a simple curve Here is a simple design, actually done in terra-cotta, offered by a website called Tradenimbo. The zigzag line splits up the two sides with enough energy to carry the simple graphic look. Note how the pendant is the stronger design between it and the earrings, with the dots being a place of focus and rest for the eye as it jumps back and forth between the two sides.

 

Juxtaposing two different surface designs doesn’t mean it needs to be on the same canvas facing the viewer in the same direction. It could be on something three-dimensional so that the viewer has to walk around to compare. Or take it a step further and have a different surface on the front and back or get really ingenious and make it a curved surface so you can see both sides at the same time as Arden Bardol does with these whimsical earrings of hers.

 

You can also contrast different surfaces by creating one surface on the outside and another on the inside. Martina Buriánová did that here with two surfaces contrasted in pattern and treatment, yet with similar or highly contrasting colors which make a strong connection between them.

 

 

Splitting up is Not Hard to Do

If you find these contrasting surfaces interesting, click on any of the above artist names to see additional pieces for further inspiration. Then get to work trying your own!

Here is a simple series of steps you can try right now … A Cane Split Canvas:

  1. Choose a cane (or a few canes that go together) and pick a base clay in a complementary color.
  2. Roll a thick sheet of the solid color and apply canes to just one section, trimming or lining them up to create a boundary between a cane side and a solid clay color side.
  3. Burnish the canes into the clay sheet so the surface is smooth.
  4. Then, texturize a similar sized section next to the canes. You can use something as simple as sandpaper or add lots of tiny dots with a hand tool or stripes or lines or whatever you like, but I think you will find it more successful if the texture is very different from the canes. So, for instance, if you applied a series of flower canes with dots in the center, don’t texturize with dots but rather create something quite unlike anything in the flowers, such as a lot of orderly vertical lines or go for the randomness of a filter sponge texture. The cool thing about applying texture here is that if you don’t like it you can burnish it away and try something else.
  5. Once you have a texture that you like, use a cookie cutter, first as a frame to find the section to cut that includes the two sides– it doesn’t have to be half canes and half texture. In fact, 1/3 to 2/3 will probably look nicer in many cases. Move your cookie cutter around to see what you like.
  6. Once you find the section you like, cover it with plastic wrap and cut with your cutter.
  7. Your new split canvas form can be used as the beginning of a more complex piece or punch a hole at the top and you have a pendant or the first of a pair of earrings.

Now, if you want to splice together two different sheets of clay onto the same piece, you might want to check out this tutorial by Samantha Burroughs.

You may also want to take a look at the first issue of The Polymer Studio for the great tutorial by Julie Picarello who has a beautifully simple way to splice together a mokume gane slice and simple textured clay.

Got any great split canvases of your own? Share it with us by leaving a comment or a link at the end of the post!

 

Now for the Great Tile Adventure

Story time! For those entertained by the little dramas of my little life.

So, as you might have read in previous posts, we have been forced to do a kitchen renovation earlier than planned, in part because of a drain that collapsed under the slab on the kitchen side. The bad news came when the plumbers came out to plan the job and determined that the drain in the master bath was about to go as well so in addition to the kitchen, we have to tear out the shower in the bathroom. Oh, joy!

Actually, we were kind of happy about this because we really dislike that shower. It’s like a tiny tile covered phone booth, which is great for singing in but, not big enough for even a tiny mobile recording studio to make that worthwhile, it’s otherwise rather claustrophobic feeling. This is not to say that the news and the added cost to the budget didn’t give me a few more gray hairs, but I won’t be sad to see that go.

So, after spending two hours in a tile shop yesterday, mostly searching for just the right basic white but still subtly veined tile (veins in a cool, not a warm gray on a cool but not bright white – we are both artists so the color conversations have been quite intense) to go with our more dramatic accent choices and coming home and putting every tile sample we bought up against the wall, and not finding any to be quite right, I went into my studio for something and there in my stack of tiles on my studio table was the exact pattern of tile we were looking for. And I’ve been curing clay on it for the last six years! Now we just have to see if we can find eight full boxes of it somewhere!

Here I am giving my better half the not so great news that our ideal tile came from my studio stash and I don’t remember where I got it. But at least we know what we like!

I’m also, by the way, designing and making our kitchen backsplash which will, of course, have polymer in it somehow. So that should be exciting. Especially the part where I have to figure out how to carve out the time to do actually make that happen. But I will!

So, with my head full of tile images, I say goodbye to you for now. Have a wonderful rest of your holiday weekend and a great coming week.

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A Big, Bold Challenge

April 14, 2019
Posted in

Kathleen Nowak Tucci, Secret Garden Necklace

Have you considered challenging yourself creatively with something you’ve never done before, or at least not for a long time? I have a lot of creative friends who are doing just that right now and, as I work towards having free time again after an exceedingly busy couple of years, I am too considering what to start in on. My mind, probably like yours, never stops churning up ideas so the designs in my head and in my sketchbook have progressed into a variety of new possibilities. The question is, what do I challenge myself with first when I can get back to creating my own artwork on a regular basis?

Whether or not you are at a similar crossroads or want to change up what you’ve been creating, I encourage you to consider the question of how you could challenge yourself as we go through some work that is very much unlike what I have done in the past. I am hoping that, going through some of my own possibilities, this might start those wheels turning for you. What, if any, pieces here feel like they are in the same vein as your present work and which of these approaches have you’ve never imagined yourself doing but might consider?

Not Sage

I, like the vast majority of polymer artists, work primarily from organic inspiration. (See my post from last month about man-made inspiration for contrast.) A lot of my work is also rooted in story, particularly speculative stories dealing with the human struggle in both usual and unusual circumstances. It’s emotional, and personal and not at all neat and tidy. So, this means that certain styles of work almost never cross my mind as options. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try it.

Highly graphic work is one of the things that I’ve never done. I have no aversion to it and, in fact, really enjoy beautifully crafted and highly graphic artwork. I have even drawn particular elements as inspiration for aspects of my work, both in polymer and in graphic design, from the likes of Mondrian, Mucha, and even graphic novels. But I have never designed any highly graphic art work.

If I did aim for a more graphical approach, it might be something like Jana Lehmann’s colorful and fun pieces, with clean lines but still plenty of blended color and subtle color variation to make the colors glow and give it the calm energy I gravitate towards. I could see trying to create cleaner lines and using purer color and standard shapes although I think the organic would find its way in at some point.

 

Aren’t those flowerpot pins just adorable? That brings up another thing I don’t do much of. I don’t do cute. Which is strange because I love cute! Although I am kind of picky and maybe a bit odd about the cute that I enjoy. So, if I were to try to create something cute, it would probably be cute with a dark edge to it. Maybe something like these Bitty Bitey Ones by Darcy of North Carolina. Just look at these faces! The big black bead eyes help but it takes some serious sculptural instincts to get such great expressions. The cuteness factor is through the roof! Could I work on my skills long enough to create something even half as cute? Would I want to? Won’t know unless I try, right?

 

There is one thing though – I just couldn’t create such pieces in pink. Now, I have made some pink polymer jewelry in years past, mostly because of requests, and it did sell well but it didn’t do anything for me. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. But the important thing was that I tried and found out I just didn’t want to. That period did get me a touch more comfortable with the color so when it turns up incidentally in a blend or interference powder, I don’t just set it aside. The thing is, it’s not just pink that I steer away from. I don’t, in general, work in bright colors. But I’ve really been thinking that more saturated colors are something I should push myself into trying out.

Maybe I could do something like Jana’s super saturated color schemes above or, go completely over the rails and aim to mix-and-match a little bit of everything in one piece like Susan Dyer so expertly does. Talk about graphic! Her use of solid colors and highly contrasting patterns could be sniped from Bauhaus prints. Her compositions often teeter on the edge of chaos but the confining silver bezels and the consistency of her unmuddled approach to color and pattern creates cohesiveness.

 

One of the reasons Susan’s work appeals to me is because it’s not actually that big – the pendant above is all of 1.75” by 1.5”. I also tend to design jewelry that works as an accent or embellishment for the wearer rather than it outshining a person. But I know a lot of polymer artists prefer large pieces as one can really show off the surface design and techniques that way. And, honestly, I would love to do some really large jewelry but since I generally wouldn’t wear anything really large, it’s hard for me to envision what a wearer of this kind of work would want, and I think that makes me hesitate to the point that I have not tried.

I have been trying to work up the courage to go big by taking a close look at the work of big and bold artists like Kathleen Nowak Tucci. I love her work because it’s not only unabashedly large but it’s also, in part or almost wholly, created from recycled materials, such as the Saul Bellow award winning piece of hers you see at the opening of this post. And talk about going big … her work has also appeared on several big TV shows including the multiple times her work adorned the immensely talented Lily Tomlin on the show Grace and Frankie. You can see both Kathleen’s Leaf Necklace and Pistil Bracelet on Lily here.

 

What’s on Your List?

There are a number of other things I could try to push my work outside my comfort zone but these are presently on the top of my list.  So, now that you’ve seen the top of my list, what do you think you would you be willing to try out that you would not normally do?

Keep in mind, this self-challenge is not designed to change your style but to just put yourself, and hard, to see what you come up with. There is the potential for as yet unimaginable discoveries about yourself and where you want to take your work. It can be a way to inject some fresh new energy into your studio time and, since there is no end goal such as even showing the work to anyone or selling it, these explorations can give you the freedom to just push yourself in unselfconscious directions.

Are you one of the ones that have been doing this already this year? If so, maybe you’d like to share what you’ve tried to do and how you like the experience. You can insert a comment at the end of the post to let me know. Maybe when things slow down over here in the chaos it is my home at the moment, we can devise a midyear challenge for us all to work on. What do you think?

 

A Bit of Business … Last Chance to Subscribe and Get Issue #2 Directly from the Printer

If you haven’t subscribed or renewed your subscription to The Polymer Studio, you will want to do so by end of day Monday as we send off the mailing list to the printer to Tuesday morning. Be one of the first to get the new issue in your hot little hands by subscribing or pre-ordering your single issue now.

Your subscriptions and purchases support what I do here so if you like the blog, help me keep it going while also continuing your artistic education with our highly informative, entertaining, and rather pretty publications.

 

Back to the Chaos

Ok, gang, I have to get back to wrapping up the next magazine issue while navigating my discombobulated house. The chaos is in a holding pattern while we wait for the city to get the plans back to us. There is a ton of construction still going on due to the fires in November so things are a tad busy over there. But at least we figured out how to NOT have the refrigerator in the studio although it is just outside my door, just looming over me. So my present challenge is not to open that thing every time I have to squeeze by it!

As for you, my darling readers, I hope you are enjoying your weekend and have a fabulous week to look forward to.

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The Contrast Conundrum

March 31, 2019
Posted in ,

What would you say is the area of your craft that you most need to work on? Is it a skill that you want to acquire or improve? Is it simply getting yourself to do more work more often? (I know that’s one of mine!) Or is it some particular approach to the work that regularly seems to baffle you?

For me, I have always struggled with contrast. It’s not that I don’t like contrast, I just tend to like it done subtly. But if I am too subtle, the work lacks energy. On the other hand, if I consciously push it too far, it doesn’t feel like a genuine expression of mine. So, the idea of contrast is often on my mind when I am working.

First, let me correct a misconception that some people have. You do not have to have a high contrast in your work to create a good design. There can be little to no contrast in a piece and it can still have a beautiful design. Contrast is about the degree to which elements such as color, texture, pattern, shape, size, etc. are dissimilar or alike. Like anything else in design, good use of contrast comes down to making an intentional decision about how you will use it in your work.

For instance, high contrast tends to be high-energy and bold while moderate contrast comes across often as refined or restrained, and little to no contrast tends to be quiet and reserved. These descriptors are not always true because the level of contrast plays differently depending on what design element is being contrasted and how it works with (or against) other characteristics in the work.

Okay, enough jabbering on about these abstract concepts. Let’s look at some examples and get those little gears in your head turning as you ponder how you use contrast now, or how you would like to be using it.

Compare and Contrast

One of the most common ways to develop high contrast, especially in polymer, is with color. From canes to mokume to silkscreened veneers, high color contrast is the only way to have the effect of some techniques even show. But at the same time, minimal color contrast with little value change can result in lovely but subtle marbling, it helps support the dreamy feel of blended alcohol ink techniques, or allows us to showcase texture or form while color is relegated to a supporting role.

One of the most foolproof ways to use color for contrast is to go black and white. But if you go that extreme, you will probably need to heavily play up other design elements such as form, pattern, line, or texture. Or, you can put other colors into play.

That’s basically what Lynn Yuhr did with this earring and pendant set. The primary high contrast is a black border surrounding a white background. That’s simple enough, but then she throws a variety of colors in there, both warm and cool ones from across most of the color wheel. Then she goes for contrasting shapes by including both the softness of circles and the sharp angularity of triangles. Not only that, (this is really a piece all about high contrast!) she includes both solid shapes and thin lines. Some shapes are floating and unattached while others are overlapping, and some lines are solid while others are dashed. Often, this much variation can become chaotic and ungrounded but everything here has clean, defined and very graphic edges and she only chooses 2-3 variations of each design element. But the most grounding aspects are the black frame holding it all in and the swath of white being the common “floor” that this is all scattered on. It is energetic and yet contained, fun but still sophisticated. You can see, in the opening image, that she uses a similar approach but goes for full washes of color as the background, for slightly less dramatic contrast.

 

Have you ever been told to not wear plaid with polka dots at the same time? Well, you can if you play it right, pushing the contrast by adding even more pattern to your outfit so that is an obvious intentional choice. You’ll often find this approach in the work of Louise Fisher Cozzi. This necklace below has many different patterns. Some are very regular, while others are more organic. Most are rather busy but then there are those strings of solid pieces with nearly no pattern but for a slightly uneven glaze of color. Regardless of all these contrasting patterns, they have a connecting commonality in their circle form as well as being in a limited range of color saturation (pureness of color), giving what would otherwise be a cacophony of visual texture, a necessary cohesiveness. The result is a sophisticated kind of fun, sure to draw a bold, gregarious, and fun-loving buyer to this work.

 

Tactile texture can also be used as a contrasting mechanism in your design. An easy way to achieve contrast with texture is to have a smooth surface and a rough surface. It could be as simple as part of the work being highly polished and part of it sporting a matte finish. You can create textural contrast without going for the smooth versus rough by having two types of rough surfaces. That still contrasts if a bit more subtle.

The gorgeous Jenny Reeves earrings below, a metal, rather than polymer example (although there are plenty of folks who do similar texturing in polymer) has plenty of contrast although it does not jump out at you. The matte silver on the sides of each circle contrasts with the rough reticulated metal but not jarringly so. The matte finished silver moves to rough silver moves to rough gold so that there is only one level of change between each of those three treated sections of the circles. This somewhat gradual change diminishes the impact of the contrast resulting in a softer feel. Imagine how this would have looked if it went from matte silver to rough gold without the transitional section? It would have a very different feel.

As I mentioned, going for low contrast has its place and advantages. Dorota Kaszczyszyn doesn’t generally go for high contrast, but that is probably because she focuses primarily on her imagery and creating the forms and textures to bring her fantastical adornment to life, as is evident in her Water Dragon necklace here.

It’s not that contrast doesn’t exist in this piece – there is certainly contrast in texture, especially on the wings, going from a dimpled cap to a feathery brush below. However, all the surfaces have some kind of hand tooled texture, minimizing the contrast in that regard. The colors also have a minimal contrast, going from silver to a similarly shimmery brush of color using an interference green/purple powder, a color scheme echoed even in the focal shell on the dragon’s back. This low contrast gives the necklace, and her creature, a quiet grandeur, but it is not bereft of energy, instilled with a light but rippling liveliness through the texture and the flow of the shapes.

 

A Contrasting Evaluation

If, after seeing the ways you can work with contrast, you feel inclined to play with the way you use this design element, you can do so with some simple exercises.

Color is pretty easy to start with. Starting with a color combination you commonly use or tend towards, replace each color with the same hue but choose colors that are much darker, brighter, lighter, or subdued than the other colors. You will want the colors to have at least one characteristic in common (like they could all be very saturated or all be very light or they could all have a bit of black added to them) to keep the combination cohesive. You could also simply take out a bunch of blocks of clay and create several color pallets by shuffling them around – one high contrast, one meeting contrast in one low contrast. See which one you like the best.

If you want to better understand your options in color, grab Maggie Maggio and Lindly Haunani’s Color Inspiration book, or for a more condensed overview, grab your copy or get the Summer 2017 issue of The Polymer Arts which is all about Color! (We still have that 33% off 3 or more magazines sale going on and you don’t need a promo code for it now.)

You also can do a self-evaluation by grabbing a few of your favorite pieces, as well as a few pieces that weren’t successful, and looking at the difference in contrasts in the following areas:

  • Color
  • Texture
  • Shape/form
  • Size of forms or motifs
  • Pattern

See if you can identify where contrast worked well in the successful pieces and maybe where it could have been improved in the less successful ones by simply imagining increasing or decreasing contrast in each of the design elements listed above.

If you’re one of those who likes to make lists, copy these five design items out onto a piece of paper (or into an Excel sheet if you like those) and for each piece you have, identify whether the contrast is low, medium, or high for each design element. Then if you look at your evaluation list, you may find that you always have low contrasting color or high contrast in pattern, or vice versa or that, in general, you don’t work in high contrast or you never try low contrast. Whatever you’re not seeing a lot of, try to consciously create designs that push you out of your comfort zone.

Now, as I mentioned at the beginning, I don’t like to push high contrast in my work so it may seem funny for me to ask you to do something that goes against your norm, but I was only able to determine my preference because I did exercises like this. Push yourself like this can really help you discover a lot about yourself as an artist.

But if you’re more of the low-key, intuitive type, just keep contrast in mind next time you’re at the studio table. Like any design consideration, your work can be improved simply by being aware of whether you are making conscious decisions about design. If you are now more aware of contrast, you may find you’re able to more easily identify why a piece may not be working by checking the contrast and asking yourself whether low or high contrast or something in the middle would best serve what you’re trying to express or the type piece you are trying to create.

From Behind the Scenes

On that note, I am going to go work on the contrast that exists in my life between having a normal living situation and figuring out how to work and live in the beginnings of a halfway gutted house. But I always like a challenge!

I almost have my makeshift outdoor kitchen ready! Grill cleaned and ready for action. Check. Camp stove hooked up to grill size propane tank. Check. Camp table/sink with an actual running faucet via my garden hose set up. Check. Yep … no crazy construction is going to keep me from my creative cooking!

Now I just need to make covers/cozies for my instant pot and my non-polymer countertop oven so they can sit outside more or less protected from the elements. Then … I need to clear space in the studio for the refrigerator. I have always said that one’s studio or office should be as far away from the refrigerator as possible to discourage unintentional grazing so I’m seriously breaking my own rules here! Didn’t I just say I like a challenge? Maybe I should have clarified how much of a challenge I like. *sigh*

I’ll be juggling all this while I am in the midst of polishing up the next issue of The Polymer Studio but have thus far been able to stay more or less on schedule. Just don’t miss out on this next issue!

Issue number two of The Polymer Studio has a wonderful collection of projects for you as well as a tour of Christine Dumont’s studio (so exciting!), an interview with the uniquely creative Cynthia Tinapple, stencil explorations with Debbie Crothers and much more! We would love for you to join us in The Polymer Studio… Just subscribe to get your plethora of polymer fun and inspiration. Your subscription also supports this blog and all the polymer obsessed artists that have helped to create the beautiful content of our publications.

Thank you for your continued support! Enjoy the rest of your Sunday and have a creative and inspiring week!

 

 

 

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Mixing and Mingling, New Cover, & 33% off Back issues

March 24, 2019
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We have a bit of business to do first today but it’s exciting business! I wanted to share with you the next cover of The Polymer Studio, coming late April.

We are thrilled to include projects from Cynthia Tinapple, our featured and interviewed artist for this issue, as well as Christi Friesen, Kathy Koontz, Elena Mori, the Mitchell sisters, Deb Hart, and Wendy Moore. Also, tips, tricks, and other bits of wisdom from Debbie Crothers, Ginger Davis Allman, and little old me. And you won’t want to miss the tour of Christine Dumont’s studio, complete with a conversation about her space and process, which I think you’ll find very intriguing.

All this and more, just a month away! Support our projects, this blog, and the betterment of your own polymer journey, of course, or just because you’d like to look at all the pretty things tucked into those pages, by subscribing to The Polymer Studio here.

(Be sure to scroll down to the last section for the 33% off sale stuff.)

A Fine Mix-up

So, did you get a chance to look through the winning entries for the IPCA awards? Here’s the link again if you didn’t see them. The winning entries are just beautiful and maybe even a bit surprising. If you saw it, did you notice any trends or changes in trends and what was presented? I thought it was interesting that there were a lot of mixed-media pieces where polymer clay might have been the focus, but other materials played large roles in important design aspects and visual impact of the work.

One of the reasons I find this so interesting is that the idea of expanding into other materials seems to be a regular conversation myself and many other people are having. I couldn’t say exactly what that means but I do believe that polymer, with its unparalleled flexibility for combining with other materials, has kind of come of age where our exploration of what it can do is being placed on the back burner in order to focus on artistic expression. I look at these mixed-media pieces in the awards and other pieces I find during my research and general perusing online, and it seems that we are seeing more instances where polymer centric artists decide what they want to make and then determine the best materials for the work rather than push to see if polymer can be used for most, if not all, of the components of a piece. Or perhaps I am just hoping this is the case because I would love to see more folks focused on personal expression will rather than letting our obsessive, but understandable, infatuation with the material determine our creative parameters.

Of course, for most of us who work in polymer now, this colorful, durable, and chameleon material will remain our primary love and, regardless of other options, we will often still try to do as much as we can with polymer, if just to see if we can push it a little bit farther. But, opening oneself up to the possibilities of combining it with other materials in major ways will allow us, and even the viewer, to focus more on the design and expression and less on the material itself, which will let the artist’s expression, vision, creativity, and aesthetic really shine. I find this very exciting!

So, this week, let’s look at some of the mixed-media pieces where other materials play a primary role alongside polymer. This could be very helpful for you if you have felt like you’re in a rut or are too often hitting technical or design walls in your work. Trying out a different material may just be the thing to inject you with new enthusiasm and, possibly, send you down a new path with your artwork.

Mixed Directions

Let’s first look at some of the winners of the IPCA awards and in many ways that other materials have been mixed in.

This first piece is both a mixed-media and a mixed artist piece. Ellen Prophater or worked with Sherry Mozer, a glass artist, led to the use of the black glass piece with its shades of green within reflected in the mokume polymer it sits upon. It is set in a silver bezel and accented with Swarovski crystals. Both the mokume and the glass show off a subtle transparency, drawing the connection between the two along with the green cast colors. It’s a nice reminder that collaboration can also push us in new directions making new discoveries in our work and even ourselves and our friendships.

 

Donna Greenberg just killed it as the professional mixed-media category. This wall piece is called Wedgewood Wave but the word that keeps coming to mind for me is swoon. Not just because I feel like swooning, it’s just so gorgeous, but that’s also the word that comes to mind from that fabulous flow of energy through those waves, back into the pool of blue. Those waves are paper, but the application of color and shape are similar to the polymer pieces so the different materials feel cohesive. This is definitely one of those cases where another medium was the better choice. Trying to create those waves in polymer would’ve been just silly, even though it could be done. The paper gives a lighter feel to the overall piece as well as a light and easy flow to the visual movement. She also used Ultralight polymer alongside the Arches cold press paper, acrylic gouache paints, watercolor pencils, and Apoxie paste, each material fulfilling its purpose in a way that another material would not have been as successful with.

 

With the issue of the environment heavy in many of our minds, we are seeing a lot of exploration into found or recycled or upcycled items. Sarah Machtey offered up this steam punk pouch necklace with removable magnifying glass for the mixed media category of the awards with a bit of all of that. The front and back of this small pouch is from a soda can turned inside out – you can still see the printing of the soda can on the inside – but she embossed the can with decorative lines and used mica powder infused liquid polymer in the recesses to make them stand out. The band across the top is upcycled copper from a renovation project while the side leaves and earrings are polymer clay. Not sure if the magnifying glass was bought or found but it certainly could have been reused from something else.

The pouch is 7” (18 cm) in height from the top edge to the bottom of the magnifying glass, so it’s no small bit of tin on there. Of course, she could have used polymer to create the metal sections but it would’ve been a bulkier piece. The tin keeps the weight down as well as adding some structural strength that would only have been accomplished with a much thicker wall of polymer.

 

Keep in mind, when we are talking mixed-media it doesn’t necessarily have to be another art material. For instance, I combined poetry with photos of polymer in a challenge last year that I was posting on my personal Instagram page. Other people mix it up by installing the work in unusual places so that the what is placed on becomes part of the artwork such as fairy doors installed on walls or in tree trunks or tiles installed into a kitchen backsplash. Rachel Gourley takes it just a touch further, installing her little collections so that they recede into the landscape. She scatters her polymer elements out and about in natural settings, looking much like organic growths but unexpected in their color, shape, and placement.

 

Putting Together Your Own Mixer

This week, I didn’t pull any tutorials for you to try because it would have to be a mad, a long list of other materials to give you any real idea of your options. Instead, I might suggest that you keep your eye open for what other polymer artists are doing with other materials. Perhaps one of the above ideas piqued your interest already. If so, research that other material and find ways to acquire or hone your skill in that medium. Just put “polymer clay and [fill in the blank with the material you’re curious about]” into the search bar on Pinterest, Instagram, Flickr, or Google images and see what pops up. Add the word “tutorial” to see what offerings there are online. I’m sure there will be plenty of inspiration.

You can also grab your Spring 2015 – Diversity issue of The Polymer Arts or the Convergence themed issue from Spring of 2016, both of which have a ton of ideas around using other materials with polymer. You can see the table of contents for all back issues of The Polymer Arts on this page to check out what these issues have to offer. Then, if you don’t have the issues, you can order them on the website.

In fact, let’s have a sale!

Why don’t you grab a few back issues and take a full 33% off 3 or more! Good on digital or print, I’ll keep this up until next Sunday so grab them this week. Use promo code TPA33 at checkout.

And … I’m Off!

I would normally have some community news and deals for you to look into at this point, but I did not get to that. This week has been a struggle. I am being kept busy by a house that has decided to just fall apart all of a sudden. My creative energies have been used up relocating kitchen activities to the garage, the porch, and even my studio because of plumbing issues while getting tons of exercise running large circles around the house because the garage door won’t open, washing my clothes in the bathroom sink because the laundry machine won’t drain, and constantly shuffling ice packs from freezer to fridge because the fridge is on and off and its replacement is weeks away from getting here. All this happening two weeks before we start some (apparently!) much-needed kitchen remodeling. I’m not making this up.  But talk about mixing it up!

So, I’m going to get back to my at-home glamping while trying to get the next issue wrapped up for you. But tune in next week for more polymer pretties and inspiration, and, hopefully, less house drama from Sage’s corner! In the meantime, if you work with another medium, please share it below. Or tell us the most unusual medium you’ve combined with polymer! I’d love to get a feel for what you all are working on besides polymer. Leave links to the work as well if available! (If you get this by email, click on the post title to get to the post page and scroll down to comments.) I’m excited to see what you all have to share!

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Mosaic Flow

February 24, 2019
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Are you familiar with something known as the flow state? This is that space you get in where you are lost in your own little world because you are so wrapped up in what you are doing. It happens quite commonly when people are working on creative projects and it’s a really good thing for you, both because it dissipates stress and because it increases your level of “feel-good” chemicals like serotonin and dopamine. It’s also defined as an “optimal state of consciousness where we feel our best and perform our best.” Now, who wouldn’t want that?

I bring this up because I want to talk about mosaics. I think a lot of people look at all those tiny pieces and think, “That looks like a ton of work!” And, yeah, there might be a lot of steps to putting a mosaic together, but the technique is also one that really gets you deep into a flow state. It can be kind of like doodling but with little pieces.

It would not be a hard thing to start on. Most of us have access to tons of tiny pieces, either through leftover canes, unused polymer sheets, or failed projects we haven’t had the heart to toss out. Just slice up those canes, cut up those sheets, and/or start chopping up those cured elements and you have all you need to start creating mosaics. Of course, you can make pieces specifically for mosaics from fresh clay, too!

Mosaics have been on my mind these last couple weeks because, while working on the latest book, Polymer Journeys 2019, it became quite apparent that one of the bigger trends making a splash right now is polymer mosaics and so I thought we ought to take a closer look at this not so new but definitely interesting and flexible technique. (By the way, today is the last day to get the Pre-order Sale pricing on Polymer Journeys 2019! Go to the website to get it at 30% off the cover!)

Mind you, being the insanely creative and exploratory artisans and crafters that they are, polymer enthusiasts aren’t just slapping together any old standard expectation of a mosaic. They are mixing mediums, trying out every shape in the book, using three-dimensional forms, and generally just pushing the boundaries of what the mosaic technique is. Gotta love polymer crafters!

So, let’s take a look at what some people are doing as of late and we’ll end with suggestions for getting into the mosaic flow yourself.

Different Kinds of Bits & Pieces

One of the folks who, at least initially, takes a classic approach to the art form of mosaics but certainly adds her own flavor to it, is Christi Friesen. She cuts out squares of polymer, lays a base to adhere them to and then arranges the pieces in pleasing and energetic patterns. But of course, Christi can’t leave well enough alone — she has to add bling and embellishments of all kinds! She’s been mixing in glass, wire, charms, beads, and probably a bunch of other things I will never be able to identify, to create her whimsical tiles, vessels and jewelry. Can’t you just sense the depth of the flow state she must have been in creating this beautiful maelstrom?

You could say that Claire Fairweather is classically inspired too, but her work has a twist to it. That twist is a commitment to circles used to create these wonderful images of graduated color and varied texture. Using round elements instead of squares and straight-sided shapes that join neatly together, leaves more open space but it’s one that has a fairly regular rhythm that flows in and out of the carefully placed circles. This gives the imagery more orderliness and a softer look as you can see in the many sides of her mosaic globe below. (Be sure to jump over to her blog to get the rundown on what each side is showing.)

 

Keep in mind that a mosaic piece does not have to be all mosaic. Large swaths can be made up of other types of polymer elements such as textured, silkscreen, impressed, or hand tooled layers or forms. A lot of Susan Crocenzi’s work, especially earlier in this decade, consist of entire halves of her pieces being a kind of polymer landscape, surrounded by glass mosaics or a mix of mosaic mediums. Here is just one example below but you can find more on her website too.

 

For all of you mad caners out there, here is an example of how beautifully energetic a piece can be just by arranging thick cane slices on a simple form. This bib necklace is a yet-to-be-hung creation by Ivy Niles, who makes some of the most impressive canes. You can see how much more impressive they are when working together in this off-center mandala type pattern.

If you really like the idea of doing mosaics don’t relegate your sources of inspiration to the work of polymer artist’s, as unique as they may be. Take a look at what glass and tile mosaic artists are doing these days as well (just type “mosaic art” into your favorite browser or an image-centric site, like Pinterest or Instagram) if for no other reason than there is some amazing and gorgeous work out there to enjoy. Here is a gorgeous piece by Francis Green in what seems to be a rare piece of wall art. This woman will mosaic anything she can get her hands on! She kinda reminds me of some unbridled polymer artist with their canes. Just take a look at her website.

The How-Tos of Mosaics

So, are you itching to try some mosaics now? Here are a few places you could start:

Whew! I got into a flow a bit there myself writing excitedly about all this fun stuff. I hope you’ll give mosaics a try if you have not already, or at least give yourself some time to just get lost in your craft today. It’s good for the brain and the soul and you never know what will come of it later in your creative journey!

 

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A Bevy of Bezels

February 10, 2019
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First, a quick announcement … the new Polymer Journeys 2019 book is now available for pre-orders!

As usual, we offer a HUGE discount for pre-ordering: $7 off the print edition cover price and $4 off the digital edition. So jump to our website to pre-order this great tome of beautiful polymer art with artist’s insights into their work as well as a historical retrospective that we hope will help continue to elevate how people see polymer in the art world and beyond.

Now onto a Bevy of Bezels …

What is your favorite kind of polymer bezel setting? Would you say you even have one? Let’s be honest, when it comes to bezels do most of us really give them a lot of thought? Some people really do but I think for many of us, when we do create one, it is probably not much more than a functional element we need in order to hold and maybe frame a stone or focal element. So, I thought this week we would take a look at what else you could do and where you can take the functional, and often essential, bezel.

Like any other element on your jewelry that can be seen, a bezel is a part of the piece’s design and so their form and finish should be quite consciously decided, which means, with polymer clay there’s a tremendous range of things that can be done with it. Mind you, there is nothing wrong with the bezel been simple and primarily functional, as long as it makes sense for the design.

That said, let’s get to the interesting point … there is so much you can do with bezels and bezel style settings in polymer clay! I could yammer on and on about all the things you can do but I think it’s better to just show you. Make notes and start considering what you do with the clay that holds in the focal pieces on your creations and how you can expand on it.

A World of Bezels

One of my favorite bezel-ers, Chris Kapono, has the most wide-ranging ways to hold down a stone with polymer. Her tile and home decor pieces are also a great examples of how bezels can be used for pieces other than jewelry. She has many more tricks up her sleeve in this regards as seen on her Flickr photostream and in her Etsy shop.

Susan Waddington has always been one of my favorite polymer bezel makers. Her bezels are almost always black but are formed into pretty much anything but a basic square or circle and they are textured and inset with additional embellishments to work with the focal piece. This one may be a decade old but it is still inspiring as is her entire collection shown on her Flickr page. I don’t think she does much polymer any more so you have to scroll down past her paintings although looking through them is no hardship either.

A bezel can also be made from individual bits, all lined up. As seen in this pendant by Elsie Smith. The setting around this bezel continues the radiating lines that those lined up little squares start around the gem.

A bezel does not have to be symmetrical, continuous, sit with the stone or focal point straightforward or even completely surround what it’s holding. These pendants by Switzerland’s Chandani of ChaNoJa Jewerly on Etsy give you a few examples of non-traditional bezel settings with polymer.

And don’t be afraid to consider creating, or having a metalsmith create, metal bezels to put your polymer clay creations into. Making her own custom precious metal bezel settings is standard for Grace Stokes’ beautiful jewelry as seen here.

The How-Tos of Polymer Bezeling

Now, if you’ve not created polymer bezels before, or you would like a refresher or some jump-start, hands-on ideas, there quite a number of tutorials and such that you can reference.

Here’s a super quick way to make a bezel that works especially well for small round stones and crystals.

  1. Roll up a ball of clay about the width of the stone you want to set
  2. Press the ball flat but not too thin then press the stone or crystal into it.
  3. Gently push the sides of the clay in towards the stone so that the clay sits up around its edges and holds it in. At this point it can be further embellished with powders.
  4. Then just scoop it off your work surface using a blade and place it on your piece, maybe with just a tiny touch of liquid polymer to guarantee its adhesion.
  5. You can embellish it further here too. Just impress dots or lines into it with a needle tool, being careful not to move the clay away from the stone’s edge and lose its grip on it.

That’s it! It’s a super quick and easy bezel. It can be used on other shapes besides round too. You just have to shape the clay to the same size and shape as the stone before you press it into the clay.

By the way, you can see this quick set bezel and how I often use them in Issue #1 of The Polymer Studio in my tutorial, “Shimmering Scenery Pendants”. That same tutorial also shows you how to make an easy polymer clay frame which can readily be used as a bezel setting in addition to the techniques use for frame setting surface treated polymer sheets. Get your issue or a subscription if you don’t have it already. Single issues are only $7.95 in print, $5.95 digital, and that’s for eight detailed tutorials plus other fantastic articles. Can’t even buy one tutorial for that!

For a polymer bezel similar to traditional metalsmithing bezels, take a look at Tina Holden’s tutorial on her blog here. She shares her basic bezel and then some ways to embellish that are very easy to do but give the bezels a very rich look.

For a dainty frame bezel frame with filigree, there is this classic filigree tutorial here. If you stop after the first rim is placed on and cured, you have a bezel frame for cabochons or cut polymer sheets. But the filigree stuff is fun if you have the patience for it. The text’s English may sound a little wonky because it will be translated but it’s worth trying nonetheless.

If you want, or need, to create bezels quickly, you might want to look into purchasing Cabezel molds from Shades of Clay. These molds allow you to create a frame and a perfectly fitting cabochon for it in seconds. Once you have the basic frame molded you can expand on the setting in the area beyond the bezel frame or embellish the bezel itself so although it’s a mold, it has a lot of room for customization. Shades of Clay is a great resource for all kinds of unique polymer related supplies as well. (Keep in mind, this is a Canadian retailer, so the pricing is in Canadian dollars although Wendy does ship via USPS. To estimate what it will be in US dollars, deduct about 25%.)

Got Bezels?

Do you have any great bezels of your own? Or are you aware of any other great tutorials for polymer bezels? Leave links and comments in the comment section below. If you get the this by email click here to leave a comment. Myself and many a reader here would love to see more.

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