Fiery Ripples
November 14, 2018
Inspirational Art
Following this week’s fire theme, we’re sharing this post from the September 2014 Polymer Arts blog archives.
A piece with shibori style ripples, fire, and crackling? How could I resist? The creator of this richly textured bracelet seems to go by nothing more than morskiekamni over on LiveJournal. This particular clayer dabbles in a little of this and a bit of that with a fair amount of miniatures and a lot of floral in there.
So, this bracelet comes as a bit of a surprise in the line-up of work. But, a lovely surprise. The cracks ripple across the base layer of orange, as well as along the edges of the flames. The whole surface looks to be in flux, and I find it hard not to get lost in intricacies; it’s an awful lot like staring into and losing yourself in those campfire flames or the fiery embers of a fireplace.
Yes, I usually give you a little something to work on come Saturday, but I couldn’t help but share this lovely piece first. If you are looking to try something new, how about creating using a ripple blade? The ripple blade looks to have fallen out of fashion in polymer within recent years, but I seem to be seeing it in use a little more just recently. Here is an older page full of still fantastic ideas for rippling up some really beautiful polymer! Enjoy!
Artist on Fire (September 2012 Archive)
November 12, 2018
Inspirational Art
Tenth Muse Central (AKA my house) is under mandatory evacuation orders so we are quite out of sorts and have been since the wee hours of Friday morning because of the Woolsey fire in California. I am staying with family an hour north and all people and furries are safe and sound but needless to say, it has been hard getting work done both because I am very distracted, hoping my home will be spared, and because my setup that allows me to dictate much of my work while my arms are still healing doesn’t work so well in a crowded house. So, this week, I am resurrecting a few older blog posts to lighten the workload and, with fire on my mind, we will make that the theme. Fire is frightening but also awesome and beautiful. I like the idea of celebrating its beauty while we wait to see if Mother Nature will be kind to us. So enjoy these fire-themed posts from past years. Our first is from September 2012.
Impact. It’s pieces like this, not overly complicated but with an intensity of color and dynamic patterning that add definite and strong movement to the work, that really define the word eye-catching. But that isn’t even the most impactful thing about this piece.
The artist Adriana Allen has suffered from debilitating arthritis since childhood. But it has never stopped her. “Every item I create is a victory over an unforgiving disease … when it hit, it hit hard. I never gave into it. Every piece I create reminds me of this fact … the disease cannot stop me from doing what I love.”
Such courage and from it, such beauty.
Textural Enticements
October 8, 2018
Inspirational Art
First of all, don’t forget you have a couple more days to get in your pre-order for the new Polymer Art Projects—Organics book due out at the end of the month. Heavily discounted pre-sale pricing ends this Wednesday, October 10th. Go to our website here to reserve your copy with a pre-order.
I know I have done dot-themed weeks a couple of times before but hopefully you are tired of them because we are going to focus on another type of dot this week although this is really more about texture than dots. There has been so much popping up out there in terms of heavily textural dots and this bracelet and earrings set by Sylvie Peraud led the pack this last week.
Why is this so enticing? I mean, this type of texture is reminiscent of reptilian skin and, for those of us with stupidly sensitive skin, certain types of hives and other reactions that result in a bunch of bumpy dots that are none too pretty. And yet this texture is something most of us find almost irresistible to touch. Rubbing our fingers over a surface like this is a feast for our fingertips. There’s also a certain richness to the density of this type of texture. Sylvie has added to this enticement with a gorgeous gradation of fiery warm colors. But the organic-looking texture and varied coloration contrasts starkly with the sharp geometric angles of these forms. This kind of high contrast adds energy and strength to this design.
She’s created bracelets in black-and-white as well as played with other surface applications on this form for at least a couple of weeks now with stunning results. Take a look at her photos on Facebook and hop over to her website for more on Sylvie and her work.
Keeping Busy
September 5, 2018
Inspirational Art
It has recently occurred to me that 2018 has been a very, very busy year for a lot of people for a wide variety of reasons. I think all this high energy and the complexity of our lives these days may be coming out in much of the work and techniques being used of late.
The Flickr page of Jana Honnerová is one such page that is full of new work and is visually busy but in a wonderful way. Her photostream shows off her explorations in surface texture as well as the completed pieces resulting from some of those explorations. The work is a beautiful mix of of undulating texture and color, reined in with simple but carefully finished forms.
These bracelets here, with the busy surface texture of each bead, have a lot of energy but it’s not overwhelming. One might expect them to be a bit riotous with all that texture and change of color packed into the highly kinetic visuals of swirls. But because of her chosen color palette and the repetition of the evenly spaced beads, all of the same size and form, the energy is controlled, giving each piece that sense of sophistication that is a signature of Jana’s work.
You can see what else Jana has been up to on her Flickr photostream.
Shiny and Striking
April 6, 2018
Inspirational Art
We are going to move away from polymer for the last piece of this week because this was just too amazing to not share right away. Caroline Rivière was originally a marine biologist; however, with the birth of her children she questioned her career choice and ended up exploring jewelry making. Self-taught, she really found her passion and a unique voice in metal and stonework.
The open airiness of her work is reminiscent of some of the polymer work we have seen in recent years from the likes of Sona Grigoryan and Donna Greenberg. I thought this would also be particularly inspiring to those working with a more delicate polymer construction.
For more inspiration, visit her website and check out the Instagram page “The Eclectic Artisans” where I first found this piece.
Keeping Dragons A-Round
January 8, 2018
Inspirational Art
I thought this week, we’d just check in with what our fellow clayers are posting this first week of the year and I found quite a few pieces of new work on Flickr.
This detailed and whimsical bracelet is by Dorota Kaszczyszyn. The individual ridges that make up the dragon’s back work so perfectly as separate beads fitted together to create the bracelet and I love how she integrated the closure into the design. The closures usually end up on top of the wrist in large bead bracelets anyways since the weight of the beads, being heavier than the clasps, spin to hang downward so why not just design for that eventuality? I thought it was a great way to finish off a well sculpted and textured set of beads that is sure to draw some attention.
This is not Dorata’s first dragon bracelet but is, thus far, my favorite. I do like the toggle clasp on some of the others versus a lobster clasp but the face on this guy is beautiful. See more of her dragons (and owls … another favorite creature of hers) on her Flickr photostream.
Riotous Floral
October 11, 2017
Inspirational Art
A meadow full of spring blooms or a wall adorned with thousands of roses becomes a thing of beauty, quite beyond what any one flower could create. Using many small flowers tightly set on a piece of jewelry also moves it beyond just being flowers. The texture and variation in the surface creates energy even among the tranquility so often associated with flowers.
Irina Dzhalilova who watermarks her photos with the online name Zafirka favors this effect in almost all her work. Working in variations on a floral theme, she creates very romantic yet energized pieces. It is the small but crowded compositions that allow for this. I chose this piece as an example because the colors are subdued and not commonly associated with flowers so you can see, even without the colorful presentation we usually see in florals, the gathering of so many small petals creates an inviting and relatively riotous texture.
If you are up for more riotous floral, you can find Irina all over the web from Twitter to Facebook to Vkontakte but you can also simply start on her website and follow links from there.
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Back When We Were Young
September 4, 2017
Inspirational Art
Okay, maybe we weren’t so very young still just five years ago but man, it sure feels like a very long time ago. What Angela has done between then, as wonderful as the work is, and now, is really incredible. Here is the post from May 15th, 2012:
Angela Garrod is an emerging artist from the UK. She’s featured in our galleries in the next issue (order yours at http://thepolymerarts.com/Subscribe.html). Her newest piece here is not in the issue but it’s just fantastic–cool, light, springtime polymer. Her new website just went up, too: http://clayninepolymerdesigns.co.uk/
You can, of course, jump over to Angela’s website as above to compare old and new but I like doing so on her Flickr photostream where a clear timeline is shown as you move through the pages.
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Balancing Silkscreens
February 23, 2017
Inspirational Art
As mentioned yesterday, silkscreen is great for adding pattern to a piece but you want to be careful that you don’t lean too heavily on the pattern to carry your design. As fun and novel as silkscreening can be for the maker, it is still just a visual texture. Something else has to come into play.
So, of course, I had to check out Helen Breil’s silkscreened pieces because I knew she’d have a fabulous example for us. This gorgeous bracelet gets energy and an interesting texture from the silkscreen but if it weren’t for the color choices of gold against a rich red and the undulating form, the pattern would not be overly interesting. But with texture, color and form combined, we have a very dramatic and energetic piece. Let’s not forget the anchor of that black focal point. Without it, all the movement and energy might be a bit much but the button in the middle gives the eye a place to rest before heading back out to take in beauty of this great combination of elements.
Of course, Helen’s shop is an excellent source of silkscreens as well as instruction on how to use them. You can find both on her website here and her Pinterest board of examples here. Also take a look at her video classes, including her new Magnetic Pendants class, all on her website.
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Melanie West’s satiny smooth finish has a heavanly tactile texture even though many people might think of her pieces as being textured because they’re so smooth. Yet smooth is actually one of world’s most loved textures.
How often do you touch art?
No, I don’t mean being the unruly museum visitor who gets yelled at by the docent, but in your everyday life, how many things do you touch that you would also consider art?
Works in the applied arts, which encompass decorative art, adornment, and functional objects, are often things that we touch. Because of this, the tactile texture of most applied art is exceedingly important. Not only can the wrong texture put someone off from buying a piece, but the right texture can make a huge difference between people liking your work due to its visual appeal and being utterly in love with it because it feels so good to touch. It is also another means by which you can express your intention.
Choosing Tactile
The first time I touched a Melanie West polymer bead, it was like taking a bite of the most heavenly chocolate mousse. Her finishes are flawless and so soft; my fingers just couldn’t get enough. That kind of tactile reaction is golden. It also supports her soft and organic themes. As wonderful as her finishes are, that kind of texture may not be wanted in your work or may not even be possible due to techniques or materials you are using.
The point is that her textures are part of the experience of her work and, if you’re creating things that will be handled, you too should consider the experience of touching your piece as part of its aesthetic value. As always, let your intention drive your decisions, but pay attention to the physical sensation experienced when handling the work and aim to have it support your intention, alongside all your other design decisions.
For instance, if you want to share your love of the beach through your work, think about the physical sensations that stand out the most – the soft breeze on your face, the refreshingly cold water on your feet, and your toes digging into cool sand. Now, how do you translate those physical sensations into tactile texture that will help you share that experience to those who will handle your work?
You can do so by thinking in terms of those adjectives – soft, refreshing, and cool. You probably want those to be the dominant sensations so don’t go for, say, a sandy texture just because the beach has sand. Is a gritty, sandy texture going to convey soft, refreshing, and cool? Chances are, it’s just going to remind someone of getting sand in their shoes and other uncomfortable places. You can create a visually sandy texture that includes sandy colors and a speckled look, but in terms of tactile sensations, going for a soft, maybe matte surface that will feel cool and soothing to the touch will share something closer to the sensations you want to relay.
Felt may have textural limitations but the final texture is still a choice. Olga Demyanova contrast a tight, even texture with the rippling and rougher orange edging and accents in this intriquing handbag.
There are a lot of materials that have limits on the tactile textures available. Polymer clay can replicate most tactile surfaces except for fuzzy, but felted work is limited to that dense and slightly rough feel of matted wool while glass will almost always have a smooth aspect. There are also techniques that create their own texture or limit how you can further manipulate the material to create texture. Learn the range of tactile sensations available in the materials and techniques you use so you know what options you have.
Work that Begs to Be Touched
There are a couple things you can focus on in order to create work that people will love to touch. It primarily involves smoothness and variation.
Smooth Surfaces
Our sense of touch enjoys traveling along a pleasantly smooth substance such as polished metal or stone. But what we like most is softness, such as a fluffy blanket or bunny fur. Softness is a type of smoothness as it allows our skin to glide across, unimpeded.
Note that you can re-create the look of fluffy and furry textures in hard substances such as clay or wood but you can’t re-create the same associated softness because, in those materials, you lose the ability for our fingertips to effortlessly glide across it in the same way due to the unevenness in a hard surface. So, recreating the look of fur doesn’t necessarily re-create the tactile experience. The ‘look’ of fur is just a visual experience.
So, be careful to think of smooth tactile texture, not in the way it looks, but the way it feels.
Klavdija Kurent gives the wearer of her jewelry much to explore with their fingertips.
Variation
Our fingertips were made for receiving information, and lots of it, so they do very much enjoy a variation in texture. However, we don’t normally enjoy variation that is sharp, prickly, scratchy, or sticky. These textures make it hard for our fingers to glide along and take it in, not to mention that they are also often painful.
However, bumps, grooves, and fine lines excite the nerve endings. It’s just like the sense of taste – we aren’t too happy with things that are bland but a lot of flavors that go well together thrills our tongue. Our fingers, likewise, enjoy complexity.
The Best of Both – Smooth and Varied
I think you’ll find that pieces with both a smooth and varied surface attain the pinnacle of touchableness.
Take a look at the pearled bracelet here. It is not even in your presence and you probably still feel a tiny urge to reach out and touch it. That’s because each half pearl has a small, smooth surface which is further aided by the round and unimpeded nature of its shape as well as there being a varied field of them.
The combination of smoothness and variation in this bracelet makes for an engaging texture, adding energy to the piece both in its tactile and visual nature. Note that this also has a bit of rough texture around the edges to provides textural contrast. Because contrast is important in texture too!
The contrast of texture fit well into my intention of showing the classic perfection and allure of pearls in an organic setting. I wanted it to be a subtle reminder of the messy world pearls actually come from even though we now associate them with neat, tidy, and conservative dress.
The Tactile Balancing Act
The textures you choose will dictate limitations in terms of surface treatments and other parts of your design, so you have to balance out your tactile texture choices with your other design choices. For instance, if you create a deep and dense texture on a light color, it’s going to appear darker, which you might not want. Or you may want a very smooth surface but want pattern to raise the energy so you would have to figure out how to incorporate pattern visually with inks, veneers, or other smooth surface applications.It just needs to make sense for your intention and the limitations of material.
If your tactile texture decisions, weighed in light of all the other decisions you have to make about color, shape line, function, etc., are chosen in service of your intention, you are sure to have a beautiful, cohesive, and interestingly touchable design.
Should I Call Them Mini-Mags?
The first week of the Art Boxer Clubs has commenced and one of the first comments about the weekly Pick-Me-Up is that it ought to be described as a mini-mag. I guess it is. It’s hard to take the magazine attitude out of me. There were 5 little articles and a good handful of links for further exploring. So, yeah, maybe it is a mini-mag. I might have to rethink what I call it.
But regardless of what it’s called, joining the club will get you a little extra boost each week and at least once a month, you’ll get a special discount, a first dibs or limited stock offer, and/or a giveaway. And right now you can get in on it with a 2 week free trial and a FOREVER discounted rate.
So, if you enjoy my blog, support this while boosting your own creative endeavors by joining us in the Devotee Club or Success Club (there are only a few spots left in this upgrade to personal coaching option, at least as of my writing this), or buy yourself a good book or an inspiring magazine to curl up with. Just visit the website by clicking here.
No Fires Here
We are still a safe distance from all the fires and the sky has started to clear up from the smoke so nothing too exciting to report from Tenth Muse central. I’ve already gotten started on the next project but I don’t want to say too much about it. It seems like every time I say something, I get jinxed and delayed. So, you’ll just have to stop by and check in with me on the weekends, or read the newsletters, or, if you want to be the first to know, join one of the new Club options as Art Boxers will be the first to know (as well as getting extra discounts … just sayin’.)
I hope you all have a relatively unexciting week yourselves. It’s not like we need much more excitement with the craziness of the world providing plenty already. Just go make beautiful things and be kind and caring to each other.
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Dawn Deale, Crackle bracelet using gold leaf with alcohol inks.
Now that we’ve spent three months intensely delving into color, are you ready to completely switch gears and explore a different design element?
How often, when you are creating something, do you ask yourself “What kind of texture do I want?” Or, more importantly, “Why this texture?” I think we can all agree that texture is an extremely important part of all types of arts and crafts and, like color, is probably more often than not chosen consciously. But why do you choose a smooth texture versus a rough texture? Or a simple texture versus a busy one?
I think the first thing we need to define in terms of texture is what it actually is. Do you automatically think of some uneven and fabulously tactile surface? Well, certainly, that is a type of texture, but that is only one type. Texture is more wide-ranging than that. At its most basic, it is the feel or appearance of a surface.
Texture can be of two primary types – tactile or visual.
For instance, tree bark is generally rough. If you can reach out and touch the actual tree bark that is tactile texture. If you have a glossy photo of tree bark, the texture is still rough, it’s just visual rather than tactile. If we don’t make this distinction, you could say that the photo of tree bark is smooth but you’re actually describing the tactile texture of the glossy paper.
So, you know what? That means you potentially have two decisions to make when it comes to texture – what kind of tactile texture and what kind of visual texture will your piece have?
In this necklace by 2Roses (Corliss and John Rose), softly marbled polymer gives subtle variation to the visual texture of its beads.
Your initial decision for each is not too hard being that you really only have two basic options for each – will it be smooth or not smooth? Or you can say smooth or rough, although I think rough has a lot of specific associations but it does describe the alternative to smooth.
Your chosen texture will actually be on a scale from smooth to rough. It will also be relative to the smoothness or roughness of other textures either on the piece or to similar textures. Beech tree bark is relatively smooth compared to oak bark although it is relatively rough compared to, say, glass.
Lightly marbled polymer clay (like that in the necklace seen here) will have a rougher (or busier or denser) visual texture than a solid sheet of clay but is not as rough a visual as a finely crackled alcohol ink surface treatment (as in the opening image), don’t you think?
You may be tempted to say that sometimes you choose to have no visual or tactile texture, but what you’re really saying is that you want a smooth visual or tactile texture. There is still texture; it’s just smooth or without variation breaking up the surface.
Now is it really important to call what we might see as the absence of texture as smooth? Well, how will you define the emotive, symbolic, and/or psychological meanings or effects of your surface if you don’t acknowledge its type of texture? I think that would be a little rough. (Sorry for the pun!) And that’s what I really want to talk about today.
Talking with Texture
As with color, different textures communicate varying emotions and atmospheres but, unlike color, texture can rather easily communicate all kinds of abstract ideas in very concrete, and sometimes quite literal, ways. Concepts that deal with the physical nature of things like force, fragility, turbulence, or stillness are not only readily interpreted or felt by viewers but they are also readily determined by artists. I bet you can think of a texture that could represent each of those for physical concepts within a couple minutes if not a handful seconds.
Texture can also readily elicit specific emotions such as comfort, fear, revulsion, and desire. To come up with textures for emotions, you could just think of a physical thing associated with each (fuzzy blankets for comfort, sharp knives for fear, etc.) and from that come up with a texture (a soft, matte surface for comfort, or sharp, erratic lines for fear, etc.).
“Lichen” tiles in porcelain by Heather Knight. They are all dense, tactile textures but they convey different things. What words would you associate with your favorite 3 in the image?
You can pretty much come up with a texture to go with the intention of the work you’re creating simply by identifying what characteristics you associate with the ideas or emotion of your concept or theme. For some people, recognizing these characteristics is very intuitive. For the rest of us, or even for those who feel they’re intuitive, it can help to come up with words you would associate with your intention and develop your textural design decisions from them.
This could be as simple as throwing out a few adjectives to describe what reaction you want from the viewer or you could list specific ideas or objects related to your theme or concept and then consider textures that you associate with the words you’re writing down.
If you have a hard time just freely coming up with textures, you can find possibilities to jump-start your ideas by looking through your texture plates/stamps/random objects stash for textures that evoke those words. Or you can look at artwork to get ideas. Determine what emotions or sense you get from various pieces and then identify what textures are used.
I know I brought up visual versus tactile texture but I’m got not going to talk about them any further today. I’m going to save those for the next couple weekends this month. I haven’t decided which to do for next weekend so it’ll just be a surprise. Just have fun coming up with adjectives to associate with textures that you can use to help support the intention of your work.
Announcing the new Art Boxer Clubs!
The first of the latest projects I have been brewing has launched!
The content of these Art Boxer clubs will be aimed at all types of mixed media creatives, not just polymer clay artists. Like the blog, the focus will be on increasing your design and creative skills while helping you stay energized and engaged in your craft, all while mixing in a good dose of fun and exciting bonuses!
I am keeping core design lessons free here on the blog for now but giving you many of the other features that were in the original VAB plus some new exclusive offerings:
The Art Boxer Devotee Club… $9/month: Exclusive weekly (Wednesday) content including mini-lessons, creative prompts, project ideas, and challenges as well as member only discounts and offers, giveaways, and early notices on all sales, new publications, and limited items. Get 2 weeks free to try this out if you join during the month of September. Go here for full details!
The Art Boxer Success Club… $35/month: For serious aspiring artists or artists looking to take it up a notch, this includes everything the Devotees get plus twice a month email or once a month chat/zoom coaching sessions. I’m reviving my creative coaching services but in a limited way – only 20 of these memberships are available. This is a very inexpensive option (normal rate is $65 for similar coaching) for one-on-one support to help with whatever artistic and/or business goals you have been aiming for. Click here for the details.
*If you are already a monthly contributor toward the support of my projects and free content, you will automatically be added to the Devotee Club member list, even if you contribute less than $9. If you would like to move up to the Success club, just write me. Thank you for your early and continued support!
If you have questions about the clubs, write me here and I will get back to you on Monday.
And don’t forget … the 25% off PRINT publications sale is still going on.
Good only until Tuesday! Click here to get in on this before the sale is gone.
Under Smoky Skies
Thankfully (for me), I have no crazy personal updates or unfortunate stories to tell you about. I hope I haven’t disappointed those of you all into the Sage soap opera over here. I’m loving my new physical therapist and although I haven’t seen any significant progress thus far, my knees, shoulder, and elbow have not gotten worse. And hubby’s face is healing just beautifully so we are pretty content in our recoveries here. So that’s cool.
Speaking of cool, how many of you are dealing with weather changes due to fires in your area? We were supposed to have another hot week but the dense smoke all over California has developed its own little weather system, blocking out the sun and cooling down the day. Too bad the air quality is too poor to go out and enjoy the nice temperatures. We also have this weird orange-yellow cast to the daylight. It’s just otherworldly.
To be clear, there are no fires anywhere near enough to endanger us although I suppose that could change at any moment. Between the wonky weather and just what a ridiculous year this has been, I think we all should just stay in and create beautiful things for a while. At least until the skies clear up. What do you think?
Well, I hope, wherever you are, you are staying safe and healthy. If you join one of the clubs, then I’ll chat with you on Wednesday!
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Understanding color strength in your materials becomes key to creating even gradations in blends like the one here in a bracelet by Jana Honnerova.
Are any of you having color information withdrawals after nearly 2 weeks since we’ve had the chance to chat about color? I did miss it myself! And I do apologize that I wasn’t able to post anything last week. I had hoped to at least post an explanation for my lack of an article but, unfortunately, it has been a very chaotic time in my family’s world and, honestly, I simply couldn’t focus enough to write. I’ll catch you up on my world at the end of this post for those of you who are interested but let’s talk color a bit first and get back on track.
Math versus Cooking
If you have been reading this blog since early June, you essentially have all the tools to successfully mix colors with control and confidence. At least in an ideal world. What I mean by that ominous statement is that the information you have does provide you with the basis for successful pigment based color mixing but now I am going to challenge you to take ideal information to an erratic and uncertain pigment world.
You see, the information I gave you appears, and in some circumstances is, pretty predictable. It’s practically math since you can, theoretically, determine that if you mix this much of one hue and that much of another hue, add a small portion of white, black, gray, or a complementary color to further tint, shade, or tone it, and you will get a specific predictable color. However, you are working with pigments. That is more like cooking where you work with a generic ingredient list, imprecise measuring tools, and primary components whose flavor and texture are subject to the whims of mother nature.
Our clays, paints, dyes, and inks may not be subject to mother nature but the manufacturing of these artistic ingredients are subject to product changes due to the availability of materials and fluctuations in quality, storage, age, and, of course, brands and lines within those brands. These variations will inevitably affect the characteristics of our color mixing materials.
I could tell you a lot more about the variations in materials and why they affect each other the way they do but I’m not going to do that at this moment. Right now, let’s just experiment with what we’ve learned and with the most dominant issue you run into as a result of these variations – color strength.
Knowing thy Material
One of the most basic things you will need to become familiar with in your materials is that some colors are much stronger than other colors when mixed. What I mean by this is that you can put equal parts of 2 different colors into a mix but when one is stronger than the other, it will dominate the mix and look like you put a lot more of that color in than the other. For instance, in a lot of art materials including polymer clay, darker colors tend to have more pigment and so when mixed with a lighter color, you can readily recognize the darker color but a lighter clay color may have less pigment or a lot of white in it so it gets kind of drowned out. More saturated colors tend to do the same thing, espeically when they are more saturated as well as darker than the other color it is being mixed with.
This is also often true between inexpensive and high-quality brands or lines. The manufactuers of an inexpensive line may use less pigment or poor quality colorants to help keep their costs down so they can offer the materials at a cheaper price. If you mix an inexpensive brand with a high-quality brand, you should not be surprised if you find the high quality one is generally stronger when mixing, espeically in colors of similar color value or saturation.
Getting Your Hands Colorfully Dirty
This week, I’m going to suggest that you try to become familiar with the stronger and weaker colors in your preferred brand and line of materials. This exercise assumes that you’re using opaque material such as clay or paint. The exercises work differently with translucent colors such as dyes and inks, which can get quite complex, so I would suggest you practice with only opaque materials for now. We’ll talk about translucent materials later.
Color Bias Chart
- Start by gathering a selection of colors. You can grab three primaries, three secondaries and black and white, or, if you’re ready for it, gather primary pairs based on the color biases we learned about in the last post. For bias pairs, pull 2 versions each of yellow, cyan, magenta. That means you’ll need a yellow that leans towards green and the other leaning towards orange, a cyan leaning towards blue and the other towards green, and a magenta that is more red while the other is more violet. You’ll want black and white as well.
- Then prepare your materials for mixing. If you’re using polymer clay, sheet each color in your pasta machine on the same thickness and cut with a single size punch cutter so that each “part” is one punch of clay. If you are working with paint, use approximately the same size daubs of paint and use them directly out of the tube or at least don’t dilute them.
- Start with just the black and white. Mix one-part white and one part black together. Mix them completely to get a gray.
Pull out your grayscale or print the one here. (Click on the image to get a large version to print.) Check the resulting gray of your mix against the grayscale here. I’m guessing it’s going to be pretty darn dark instead of a middle gray (5 on my chart). In general, black clay or paint has a ton of pigment which means you probably need a lot of white to make a middle gray.- Try it again but this time use one part black and four parts white. Now, where does that land on the value scale? If it’s still not a middle gray, make another mix, changing the proportions to include more white or more black depending on whether it needs to be lighter or darker to reach a middle gray.
- What was the final proportions to get that middle value? Make note of that. Now you’ll have an idea of how much a bit of black can darken a color or how much white you’re going to need to lighten a color. Yes, it will take practice to get something exactly as you want it but just becoming familiar with the strength of your black versus your white will get you there a lot quicker as you move into tinted and shaded color mixes.
- Now, choose a yellow and your darkest color (that is not black) from the colors you gathered. It’ll probably be the cyan that leans towards violet or a blue. Do the same thing. Start by mixing the exact same amounts and see which color seems to dominate the mix. Chances are, it will be the darker one, although in some lines, there are some pretty strong yellows and some pretty weak blues. What did you come up with? Adjust your proportions and mix them again until you have a sample where neither one seems to dominate. How much of the weaker color did you need to acheive that?
- Finally, mix a set of secondary colors if you gathered primary color biased pairs to work with, or mix tertiary colors if you gathered a set of primary and secondary colors in your materials. (Review this post if needed.) See how much you need of one color versus the other to create a secondary or tertiary color that neither color you mixed with dominates. Make mental or actual notes on which colors dominate a mix.
As you do this, you will begin to become truly familiar with the strength of the colors in your material. This will be absolutely essential when we get down to masterful color mixing. It also will save you a lot of wasted materials, allowing you to mix small amounts that don’t end up being large amounts because you have to keep adding the weaker color to get it where you want. In fact, when you start mixing with unfamiliar colors or a new brand, do this exercise to become quickly familiar with the variations in colors. And if you end up with some really yummy new colors doing these exercises, save the sample and note the proportions so you can mix it for a future project!
Worst Year Ever
2020. Worst … year … ever. I’m just putting that out there. It started with friends getting choked out from the terrible fires in Australia, then there was the pandemic, then the economic fallout, then there were the not new but spotlighted tragedies that led to racial protests and riots, and now, closer to home, my family and I are trying to fathom our own personal tragedy.
Many of you who follow me on Facebook already have heard that we lost an important family member last week–a brother-in-law who my siblings and I grew up with. He was no less than a brother to us and he married the sister I consider my closest confidant. Theirs was the kind of relationship we always said the rest of us aspired to have and they were the two I came to in my darkest days. It just breaks my heart to think of him gone and to watch my sister and her kids as they try to comprehend this loss and rebuild their homelife without him. So, I am here with them in Colorado now, having driven through the night the Wednesday before last when his previously hopeful fight with cancer went suddenly very wrong. Now my siblings and I are just trying to help them ease into this awful new reality, in a world that is already so full of uncertainty and chaos. There is a lot to do. There is a lot to talk through. It has been, and will be, my priority for the next few weeks.
There is not much more to say at this point but I did want you to know why last week got missed and why there might be some irregularities in my posting and the answering of emails. I am still a one-woman business at this time, unable to hire anyone due to changes in California laws, not to mention the pandemic. So, while I do what I can for my family here, I can continue to fill orders and write these posts but timing might be a little off here and there. There is a comfort in the familiarity of writing these articles and dealing with day-to-day business things but there are definitely moments when the circumstances of our lives right now don’t allow for a regular schedule. I know you will forgive me if things get wonky and I thank you ahead of time for your understanding. I believe I will be back in California by mid-August and will figure out my new normal then.
I do hope you all are staying well, safe, and healthy and are caring for each other as best as we can in this crazy year.
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Lampwork beads by Pikalda Phuengpong
Have you noticed that, in art, very few things exist or are created in a vacuum? In other words, every choice you make has an effect on all the other choices you have made or will make when designing and creating original works of art. So, if you are coming to my blog for the first time, you may want to read the last three weeks of posts first because each successive article builds off the last.
Last week we talked about color value and this week we’re going to talk about how you can change the value along with something called saturation. This will be a little heavy on terminology but it’s easy stuff and by the time you’re done reading, you will have quite the sophisticated color vocabulary.
I also want to speak for just a moment on the reason you would want to do this deep dive into color and design. Whether you create your own colors or simply choose colors from pre-mixed options, your choices are best ruled by your understanding of the characteristics of color. Of course, understanding color characteristics is essential in color mixing but choosing and identifying color requires the same knowledge especially when creating color palettes, analyzing your work (or the work of others), and correcting or improving your color choices.
Working with color, like anything else in design, is about the relationship between colors and between all the design elements. In design, we work with likeness and disparity. That’s really what all relationships are about, aren’t they? Think about your spouse or your best friend or the coworkers you like to hang around with. You have something in common, some area of your life that overlaps that you can share. But you also have differences. These differences make the relationship interesting, encourages curiosity and conversation, and allows each of you to fulfill different roles in the relationship. That’s how design works as well, including between colors.
So, if you keep in mind that these conversations are about those design relationships, I think you’ll start to see just how useful and essential these immersive color lessons are regardless of whether you makes your own colors, pick available colors, or simply want a better understanding of the art that you enjoy.
Saturation is Not Value
Now, let’s talk about value versus saturation. For some reason, these two concepts get confused a lot even though they are quite different. As you learned last week, value is the lightness or darkness of a color. Saturation, however, is about how intense the color is or how close it is to the unadulterated hue or “key” color, at least in regard to pigment. (This is dealt with a little bit differently when it comes to mixing light in RGB. Just thought you ought to know that in case you come across a definition that talks about saturation, brightness, and luminosity. That’s RGB stuff.)
So, let’s take a pure blue as an example of both high saturation and dark value. Take a look at the color wheel. True blue, in its most saturated and vivid form there on the outside ring of the color wheel, is far darker than pure yellow. You could make that blue as light in value as yellow by adding a lot of white to it but that would also change its saturation because the addition of white takes away from the purity of the hue, right? The addition of white in a color is called tint.
Now let’s take that yellow. If you wanted it to be as dark in value as the blue, you could add a lot of black, so much so that it would probably look gray with little yellow to be gleaned. This would both darken the value and desaturate it, a lot. The addition of black to a color is known as shade.
So that’s the thing with adding black or white to a color. It will desaturate a color but it also will make it lighter or darker in value. I bet that doesn’t fully clarify why value and saturation are so different since adding white or black changes the lightness or darkness (value) as well as the intensity of a color (saturation). Well, here’s the thing – you can, on the other hand, change the saturation without changing the value, just not with black or white.
Let’s look at the color red for moment. On the CMY color wheel, you can see that opposite red is cyan. They look to be about the same midrange color value, right? If you add a bit of cyan to the red that will reduce the saturation or purity of the red by altering its hue but it will not make a noticeable change to its value. If you got yourself one of those CMY color wheels, you’ll see on the front side there that each ring getting closer to the center shows what happens when you add 10%, 20%, 30%, or 40% of each hue’s complementary color. That kind of mix tones down the color which is why it is called a tone.
You can also tone down a color without changing its value by adding a gray that is the same value as the color. In fact, a fully desaturated color would be just gray. Or you can mix in a lighter or darker gray to make the color lighter or darker while toning it down but without muddying the key with its complement. A gray mixed with a color is also called tone.
So, you see, changing saturation can, but does not always, change value but changing the value will necessarily change the saturation of a hue, making it less pure. This is true for color mixing or even using digital photo editing (and is why I warned you last week not to use saturation options in photo editing to look at values in grayscale, because value is not taken into account.)
Your Bright, New, Shiny Color Vocabulary
Congratulations! You probably didn’t realize it but you just completed a major step in your color education. If you’ve read all the posts, you have learned (or refreshed your understanding of) the three most important aspects of color – Hue, Value, and Saturation.
And, now, with this article, you’ve come to know the three primary ways to change a color. Let’s review because it’s kind of cool to realize how much you’ve soaked up.
The three primary characteristics of color:
Hue – the key and name of a color.
Value – the lightness or darkness of a color.
Saturation – how pure or how adulterated a color is due to the addition of white, black, gray or a complementary color.
The three primary ways of adjusting color in pigments:
Tint – the addition of white to a color.
Shade – the addition of black to a color.
Tone – the addition of gray or a complementary hue to a color.
Look at that! You have six color terms that are going to help you tremendously in color mixing, choosing palettes, and analyzing work. But let’s spend a little more time with those last three just to be sure you got them well seated in your creative little brains.
Color Quiz
Okay, let’s put your new knowledge to the test. Take a look at the opening image and the images below and find the pure hue (just visually – you don’t have to name it) and then determine the variation of that hue was accomplished with tints, shades, and/or tone. We’ll chat about them after you have a chance to come up with your own thoughts.
Carved wooden vessel by Louise Hibbert
A polymer bracelet by Judy Belcher.
Well, what did you come up with? Some of these examples are not so straightforward but I find them very interesting.
First of all, Pikalda’s glass beads that open this post have a saturated blue as its key color while the other color variations, aside from the black and white accents, are the key blue with white added so they are tinted versions of the key color. Pretty easy to see that, right?
With Louise Hibbert’s wooden vessel, the key is a kind of violet and, I’m sure you guessed it, the gradation to the nearly black tips is the result of adding black, in other words, creating shades of the hue. But there are also diluted versions of the hue where she lets the wood show through towards the center. Is that a tint because it makes it lighter or a tone becuase it isn’t quite white that has been added?
Well, think in terms of the color elements here. Since the violet color is translucent, it visually mixes with the color of the wood, a pale cream, which is a tint of yellow. This actually makes that diluted violet a tone because the change in color is not due to the addition of just white or just black and it’s a color that muddies the key color even if just a little. It’s true that yellow is not the direct complement of violet – that would be a yellow-green – but you can actually tone down a color with something close to its complement too. We’ll get more into those complexities when we get deeper into color mixing so you can just stash that info away for later if you like.
Now, in Judy Belcher’s bracelet, it gets even a bit more complicated because, in truth, the fully saturated hue is not present. That would be bright lime green but the key color has been toned down with variations of gray. In fact, the entire bracelet is a series of lime green tones with nothng else but some white. Some tones are due to a very light gray addition, others to a few different middle grays and the darkest green would be a tone with a dark gray. Being able to spot the key in something like this takes practice but not a lot. It might just take the following little exercises.
For Further Study
Okay, so there are a couple ways you can further concrete your, hopefully, not too hard-earned knowledge. These are both fun and easy and take 10-15 minutes each to do.
Color Wheel Studies
First of all, if you bought yourself that CMY color wheel I suggested – or even if you didn’t – you can see tones, tints and shades set up on this handy color tool with approximate percentages that one would mix to achieve these colors from a key. Here is a video that the Color Wheel Company put together to explain how to use their color wheel tool while making note of where these items are on it so you can familiarize yourself with them just by looking over your color wheel. Clicking on the image takes you to the purchase page but scroll down to find the videos.
Isn’t crazy just how much information they put on this little paper tool? Keep in mind that those percentages for the tones, tints and shades are approximate because in the real world, our materials have varying amounts of pigment so adding 10% of one complement to a color could make a dramatic change while adding 10% of a complement to another color may make almost no change. You’ll start to get a sense of the stronger and weaker colors (and brands) if you do the exercise below and as we work through color mixing in July.
Mix it Up
Studying the color wheel is an easy and quick way to see the difference between tone, tint, and shade but the best way to not only remember the terminology and what it means but to really understand how saturation, tint, shade, and tone work in color is to mix it up.
So, grab some clay in one fully saturated key color. Pick your favorite or grab one of the primaries – cyan, magenta, or yellow. You also need a bit of your chosen color’s complement plus black and white. Roll out each clay on your thickest pasta machine setting and, using a single punch cutter, punch out portions of clay from each sheet. (You can also do this with paint – you won’t be “punching” out your portions but, instead, you’ll be picking up dabs of paint.)
- At the top of a piece of paper, write Tint, Shade, Complement Tone, and Gray Tone as column headers
- Put one portion of your key color under each column header. This will be a starting point for each color as we desaturate it.
- Punch out two portions of your key color and mix it with two portions of white until well mixed. Sheet the clay and punch out one portion of this mix. Put it under the tint column with space enough between it and the key color for another portion.
- Take one of those mixed portions and one of the key color and mix that. Punch a portion out of this new mix and place it between the previous mix and the key color.
- Take the last portion of the first mix and mix it with a portion of white. Punch out a portion of this very light mix and line it up in the column under the middle mix, followed by a portion of whites to complete a column of tints from key color to white.
At this point you have three desaturated tint versions of the key color. These are not a lot of steps between the key color and white but it will give you an idea of what white does to a fully saturated color. If you are game before creating a wider range of this tint sampler, you can double the amount for each of the three mixes we just did so you can mix additional portions and create four more steps, one between each of the five portions in the tint column.
- Now go through the exact same process, creating 3 or 7 mixes, as you prefer, but instead of white …
- … make a column using black to build a range under the Shade header. You may want to use 2-3 times as much key color as black for your middle shade to get a better gradation since black is very strong, as you can see in my example. I used twice as much key color and all the mixes are still awfully dark.
- … use the complementary color to create a range under the Complementary Tone column.
- … mix a gray (I used twice as much white as black to get my middle gray) to add to the key color to create a range under the Gray Tone column.
You will probably notice, as you mix, that sometimes the progression from the key color to the color you mix in is not very even or regular. For instance, if your key color is particularly dark in value such as the Ultramarine blue, the jump between the last mix and white may seem quite a bit different, like it could use another mix in between. You are, of course, welcome to change up the portions of color in your mixes to make a more regularly graduated range. This will, however, demonstrate that the amount of pigment in different colors of clay and between brands can differ and so some colors will dominate in a mix. You’ll need to use more of the weaker color to make the range gradations more even. But making a perfectly graduated range is not the purpose of this exercise. The idea is that you make the mixes, see the changes in color, and associated with the terminology.
Now why am I so adamant about you learning the terminology? Well, in July, as we learn about color mixing and palette choices, being able to verbalize the common and contrasting characteristics in a set of colors will be key to making beautiful, intentional color choices. Plus, you can impress friends, family, and complete strangers with sophisticated color banter!
So, relax and mix up some colors. It’s easy and often surprising how the colors come out. I have found more than one “new favorite color” doing these kinds of exercises. You just might find a inspiring new color or two as well!
Wondering about my references to Intention? Or how to support this content?
If you enjoy these articles, you can help me keep the lights on by making a purchase of any of the publications I have on the Tenth Muse Arts website or by making a one-time or monthly contribution here.
Read the set of articles on Intention in the February edition of the Virtual Art Box or catch up on the concept of marks, lines, and shape with a purchase of one or more of the original Virtual Art Box offerings. They are all on SALE, 25% off right now – no promo code needed. I have also put all books on sale at 20% off for the next couple weeks so it’s a great time to fill up your library.
Your purchases help support this free content as well as giving you a stronger base for the conversations we will have going forward.
If your budget doesn’t allow such support, that’s perfectly okay. I just hope this is supporting your creative journey giving you more joy in your work. if it does, just let people know this is freely available so I can support even more folks.
My Weird Low Pressure Week
Hopefully there aren’t too many mistakes here. I need to beg your forgiveness if there are. My brain has literally been shorted as I gave blood this past week and got tested to see if I am a antibody plasma donor candidate to help out COVID-19 patients but my naturally very low blood pressue has yet to recover so I feel very dingy and am sometimes dizzy still, 5 days later. I never could give blood in Colorado due to the high elevation and even lower blood pressure up there but they thought I’d be fine down here. Well, guess not. We learn something new all the time!
So, I probably can’t give plasma eithere but I am still going to do all I can during this rough time to help others and, as part of that, maybe you will allow me to ask a little favor. I know this has gotten a little political here in the states but thsi is not about politics … I would just like to ask that when you are out, and it has been recommended where you live, you can show your love and concern for your community by the simple act of wearing a mask. I wear one everywhere even though I’ve already had this bug so I am supposedly immune and can’t pass it on. But people are scared and worried and wearing a mask shows you care, even if you question the validity of the science that says it will save others from getting sick. We need all the consideration and caring we can put out there right now, don’t you think?
Ok, that is my public service announcement for the day. I hope you are all staying well and will find joy in a creative and colorful week!
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Craft art is visual right? But is it just visual? One of the unique things about craft items in the world of art is that a majority of it is functional which means it is often handled which makes it not only visual but often tactile. When someone mentions tactile characteristics, you probably think texture, right? Well, our tactile sensation perceives form as well as texture (and density, temperature and even weight but that’s another set of subjects.) Functional objects and jewelry in particular are pieces that are regularly touched so people experience these works both visually and tangibly, even if the sense of touch is not always recognized as part of their enjoyment of the piece. However, the tactile experience can make a huge difference between people liking your work and being utterly in love with it.
Think about how often you touch adornment when you wear it – pendants, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets, are often where our hands go when we are nervous, contemplative, or excited. Functional objects often have parts that are specifically designed for our hands such as handles, knobs, and grips, or are formed for handling such as the neck of a vase or width of a cup. Because of these interactions, you have an opportunity in the form of such pieces to further express your intention.
I realized as I started to research potential pieces for this post, it can be really hard to “show” you things that feel good in the hand. So, we’re just going to have to guess and imagine it!
All the Feels
It’s interesting to note that the characteristics we might associate with visual shapes and forms often translates to our perceptions through touch. For instance, full, round forms, such as spheres and pods will relate the same characteristics as visual curvy shapes and forms – that primarily being comforting and feminine qualities. Imagine wearing this spherical bracelet by Bettina Welker. Even with the energy of the cracks and directional streaks paired with a deep black and the dramatically contrasting yellow-green, the roundness, both visually and tangibly, bring down that energy and drama to a refined and rather relaxed level.
If you want to encourage people to touch your work, a soft, smooth surfaces and smooth, knobby ones are pretty irresistible. Exploration of the texture may often be the original draw to touch something, but further tactile exploration can be encouraged by the form, especially those that lead the fingers around through amorphous, curvy structures or strong but flowing angular forms. For comparison with Bettina’s example, take a look at the opening image, a bracelet by Jana Roberts Benzon, which is primarily curvy but has sharp aspects to it in the form of those regular incisions. It’s a great combination as the fingers can follow a winding curvilinear path through the valleys of the bracelet’s form with vibratory sensations from running over the cut clay, making those cuts more texture than form but however it might be classified, those two elements certainly work well together.
Flowing forms, even when sharp and angular, are extremely alluring when it comes to touch. Tell me you don’t want to run your fingers along the ruffling but angular fins of this vessel by Melanie West. Honestly, it’s impossible not to touch Melanie’s polymer work if it’s in reach. Her forms are full and inviting, begging to be nestled in the palm of your hand, for details to be explored with your fingertips, and the softness of her unfathomably smooth matte surfaces … just dreamy! Seriously.
I don’t think you can come up with any object handled more than hand tools and writing implements. When decorated with polymer, the handles of most of these are simply covered rather than intentionally formed. Take pens for instance – polymer pens are typically cylindrical forms that are covered with a sheet of treated polymer or cane slices but why stick with just the cylinder? Look at these pens by Jana Lehmann. They’ve gone from cylinder to pod like with additional forms added for visual and tactile interest.
Now, I believe Jana’s pens are created over a standard wood form as they all have that basic elongated pod shape but since polymer is so sculptural, there’s no reason why functional objects you are decorating with polymer can’t be reformed. These spoons by Jacques Vesery are wood rather than polymer, but it would be no big thing to sculpt such enticing handle forms.
Okay, enough of just looking at the forms of artwork – why not search out forms in your house or around your yard that you like to touch and hold in your hand. Most likely you’ll find that you are drawn to the more rounded and curvy forms. They are simply more comfortable to touch then angular or blocky forms but that doesn’t mean when creating a form that will be touched by the user that it needs to be round or curvy. Sometimes comfortable is not what you’re trying to express. Other times you’ll want to focus on the visual aspect and not encourage people to touch so much as look at it. It all depends on your intention.
So, go be a 3-year-old and touch everything!
Some Big News
So, I’m going to be making some changes again, mostly to your advantage. The gist of it is that I’ve decided to share the upcoming planned content for FREE!
I’m doing this both because I’m not comfortable with the VAB’s automated subscriptions costs in a time when things are so uncertain. Nearly all the people who have had to cancel the last month or two are writing to apologize for not having the budget for it and lament missing out. That has made me terribly sad, especially for some of my long-time readers who have lost jobs and income.
The other reason is that with my increasing physical limitations, and no staff to pick up the slack, hitting deadlines are hard and quality suffers which isn’t fair for paying subscription members. But I want to create content—I love doing this stuff. If it is not paid for, though, I will have more leeway to take the breaks I need or change what I put out.
So, starting in June, I’ll be posting VAB content here, on the blog and have it sent by email to VAB and blog subscribers.
If you are a present subscriber, you should have received an email Friday night/Saturday morning to explain how that affects you. If you do not see this notice, please check your spam or junk mail folders first but if not there, write me to get the notice resent.
For those want to contribute to the cause …
Creating and getting out the free content will still cost money and time but with my husband still working, I feel secure and fortunate and am happy to share what I can. I am, however, happy to get a boost from those who want to support my work.
The best way, honestly, is to buy yourself an inspiring book or magazine back issue on my website where you can further get to know other artists and community businesses. It’s a real win-win-win. I have also set up a contribution option on the website for those who want to support the free work I do but have everything they want from the shop. Between steady sales and a contribution here and there, I can keep writing, pay the digital services and my tech guy, maybe hire back my proofreader, and support my need for dark chocolate!
There’s a bit more news but I will wait to post that in the newsletter coming out this week. If you aren’t signed up for it, I’ve been adding tips, bits of community news, and just fun creative finds to make you smile. You can sign up for it here if you don’t get it already.
So, with that, I am off. Still waging war with the ground squirrels in the veggie garden so getting my outdoor time and the movement my neck needs to not stiffen up although I have to watch how much I use my right arm still. Yesterday, I planted the last round of sweet potato slips which are up on a hill, hidden behind the ice plant, and will finish this weekend relegating the green beans and zucchini to pots up where the dogs like to hang out and the squirrels do not. I’ve given up on the cantaloupe though. That’s a little depressing but everything eats those leaves! So, wish me luck!
As always, I wish you all a safe and healthy week ahead!
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How often do you sit down at the studio table to create something and think, what am I going to do with the edges of my design? It’s unlikely to be the first thing you think of but does it come into play at all? This is something we have been exploring in the Virtual Art Box this month. We started with work on texturing edges for variation but this week, I thought we talk about the sides of edges!
As you know, we work in a 3-dimensional material and, therefore, even a flat pendant has not just a front and back, but sides and a top and bottom. Do you consider and treat those with anything like the consideration given to the front? Well, if you haven’t done that often to date, let’s make it a thing from now on!
Whether it’s a flat pendant, a bangle bracelet, the lip of a vase, or the base of a sculpture, those edges on your three-dimensional objects should be planned out just like every other surface. If it’s going to be seen, it should be well considered.
Side Effects
So, here’s an artist who obviously considers the side view (and the back and the top and the bottom) in every piece she creates. Sarah Shriver, known for her canes, doesn’t hesitate to add pattern and additional embellishments to all surfaces of her beads. The thick cut of the patterned layers on the back and snakes that work like frames in the front, bring the patterns into the side view, making the sides an integral part of her beads rather than an afterthought.
Sarah even treats rounded edges, such as lentil beads, with additional embellishment. See the twisted snake that encompasses her lentil beads in this post’s opening image? It not only adds pattern and energy to the piece, making them key components of the design, but they seal off the two halves of the lentil with no finishing of a seam to contend with.
Donna Kato is doing something similar to layering in these bangles below. There are several layers and patterns just on the side edge, but with the dome of the bangle surface curving into the side, it all becomes a unified design. Even if you don’t make bangles this thick and domed, you can certainly treat the edge with layers and patterns of this kind.
And what about thick slabs of mokume or canes? These would create a pattern for the back as well as the sides and can be used either as a base upon which to build the front view or it could be covered by a thin, solid sheet of clay and just be the pattern for the back and sides. I couldn’t find any photos of someone doing this in polymer although I’ve seen it. However, looking at examples in other materials can show you how good such an option can look.
This is mokume in metal, the original material for mokume gane, designed by an Australian company, Soklich & Co. Just look at how beautifully the layered pattern decorates the side. It would not be hard to imagine getting a similarly patterned side from thick slices of mokume off a stack whose layers were not rolled overly thin.
Of course, solid, straight cut, rounded, wrapped, or otherwise well finished edges may do just fine. It all depends on what the piece is about, what your intention is for it. Just consider that you have so very many options beyond solid colors for your edge’s sides.
If you want to dive in deeper with my wonderful group of Art Boxers, there is still time to get this month’s bundle and get a subscription for next month. Get it all right here!
Taking Off
I’m taking the weekend off to spend it with one of my amazing and beautiful children who is out visiting me. Our intention this weekend – to just relax and live in the moment. A coastal drive, tidepools, rock shops, gluten free bakeries, and yoga with baby goats in pajamas (the baby goats are PJs, not us … oh the cuteness!) are on the list to fill our few short days. So, if you reach out this weekend and I don’t answer, I’ll get you on Monday! I hope you have a beautiful week!
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How often, when you sit down to create something, do you think about why you’re doing it, the story behind what you are creating, or even just the theme or look? Apparently, it’s not overly common, at least not amongst the readers writing me this weekend.
Friday evening, I finally got the Virtual Art Box out after some technical difficulties that required a change of plans on the backend. I was a bit frazzled over reworking the technical stuff and, even though I was happy with the content I’d created, I was getting a bit nervous about how this new project would be received. But, as I wrote in the immersive design article for the Virtual Art Box project, things generally work out well when you have a particular idea in mind and you make all your decisions based on that overriding intention.
Well, my intention for the Virtual Art Box was to immerse the readers in a particular design idea that can be explored throughout the month. I was hoping that the primary design article, supported by the additional content the readers would journey through, would encourage them to really delve into the idea I presented in a purposeful and substantial way. But the question was, would they?
I thought it might be a bit of a challenge this first month since my chosen theme is conceptual rather than being a more concrete design element. But it’s just such an important concept in art. The immersive design theme this month is “Intention”. It’s simply the idea that when you sit down to create something, you can be more successful and have a more fulfilling creative experience if you have an overriding idea of what you are creating in terms of its purpose and its concept, concept being the theme, story, style or whatnot.
Well, I think my own intention to keep my focus on making the Virtual Art Box an immersive learning experience is working. Already. (Yay!) I have to say that I am a bit startled and overwhelmed by the reception of the project so far. In a community where publications, both in print and online, are dominated by project tutorials and things that are “easy and fun” (not that there’s anything wrong with fun at all!), my approach feels rather serious even though, as many of you may have seen, I do try to stay conversational and lighthearted and occasionally I just get silly. Art should be fun, and enjoyable, and fulfilling. But making good art in a truly fulfilling creative life does take work. I don’t know why I was worried that people wouldn’t want to put the work in. You, my readers, have always been pretty gung ho!
I already have a few Creative Pursuit challenge forms in (this is the part of the Box in which you create a self-challenge, and the form shares it with me and with you, and I help track it and keep you motivated.) It turns out, people look to be quick intrigued by the idea of working with intention. I love that I’m not the only art nerd who gets into things like that!
The thing is, I think intention is the core of all design. Without it, no matter how well you understand the various aspects of design, construction, workmanship, etc., it is difficult to create a successful design. Every piece of art needs a base, a core, a grounding concept from which the artist can build, otherwise the work risks being chaotic. It’s true that a chaotic design could work but only if it is the artist’s intention to create chaos. Then it has purpose. But chaos without intent is not art; it is just messy.
Intention not only gets you where you want to go but it helps guide your design choices along the way. When you make design choices based on what works for your overriding intention, the result will be a cohesive, purposeful, and, most likely, well-designed piece.
Now, I know, some of you are already thinking that you don’t want to think so deliberately about what you’re creating or that you just like to explore. Exploration, creating for the joy of it, and stream of consciousness creating are still processes with a particular intention. Because isn’t the success of a piece really measured against how well it fulfills your intention?
Let’s look at a few of the examples.
Debbie Crothers prefers to explore and make lots of pieces as she exhausts a technique or material’s possibilities. She doesn’t usually work with a finished piece in mind but, with extensive exploration as her intention, she finds success in much of what she does and ends up with undeniably stunning beads.
Joseph Barbaccia specializes in inspired polymer illustrations of people and things he admires and enjoys so his intention is to visually represent objects, places, and beings from his view point such as this great portrait of David Lynch.
In Melanie Muir’s Summer Seas in White cuff, you can see that from the colors to the patterns, even to how the patterns are tilted on the tilted square of the beads, this piece speaks of bright light on rippling ocean waters. Her intention is clear and all her design choices align with the intended look.
Are you starting to get the picture? If so, think about what your intention means to you and what you intention is next time you sit down to the studio table. And if this concept really intrigues you, even if you don’t want to subscribe, you can buy the Virtual Art Box for just the one month, get all the details and ideas I am offering on how to make intention a new and exciting tool for your creative work, and see how you like the Box.
Now, if you signed up for the Virtual Art Box and didn’t see your access email, check your spam folders. It went out Friday evening (PST). If you purchased it online (rather than had your prior magazine subscription balance transferred to the Virtual Art Box), you should find the PDF package download in your account on the website. If you expected it and can’t find it in either place, write me and we’ll get you fixed up.
And with that, I am off to relax a bit. Its been a bit of a marathon getting the new project off the ground but now that is has taken wing, it’s time to attend to me a bit and I am going to make that include some further intention … the intention to make studio time a priority at least a couple days a week. How do you ensure you get the creative time in that you need? Maybe we’ll look at that subject a bit this week as well.
In the meantime, have an intentionally, purposefully, and mindfully creative week!
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Here you are, on the eve of the new year. What are your resolutions for the upcoming year? Isn’t that the big question tonight? Well, in my humble opinion, the only thing that really matters, art-wise, is that you create and that what you create is something that makes you happy and satisfies your soul. Now, how do you make that happen?
A big part of keeping yourself creating and doing something that makes you happy is keeping motivated with fresh ideas flowing. That is really hard to do all alone in your head so getting outside help is extremely advantageous. To that end, I want to share with you a few options for keeping yourself motivated this coming year as this week’s theme.
Of course, keeping subscribed or checked in on this blog as well as other excellent blogs such as Cynthia Tinapples’s “Polymer Clay Daily” will be a great help. I would also suggest looking at non-polymer artwork. This can be easily done through other art blogs as they will basically do the searching for you. Some of my favorites are Colossal, which looks at all types of art but, it seems to me, they show more craft art than a lot of art blogs but mostly it’s full of amazing crazy work.
If you focus on jewelry-making, you should really check out the Art Jewelry Forum blog. I think I first became aware of this blog when led there by a search for work by Ford and Forlano. This post, which you can click through to here, featured some gorgeous jewelry by the duo including the necklace you see here. Although they do not commonly feature polymer clay, it will introduce you to a lot of mixed-media that can readily inspire polymer ideas as well as beautifully designed pieces.
You can also search for blogs by keywords plus the word blog for additional resources of inspiration, such as +art +jewelry +blog, or +polymer +clay +blog. Try it out and see what treasures you find!
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Polymer clay is well-known for how well it plays with other materials. Pushing that mixing of mediums seems to be the next great horizon for the polymer community as a whole as we seem to see more and more crossover of mediums in polymer art.
Polymer artists have played with inclusions mixed into polymer nearly since the inception of polymer as a fine art material. In a kind of flipping of the tables, Melanie West brings a source of the fine arts to polymer clay when she works her inclusions into the clay. Melanie searches out and acquires high-grade dry paint pigments which she mixes into her polymer clay, creating these incredibly rich colors and densely grainy visual textures, as you can see here in this lovely bracelet.
Having dabbled a bit with natural paint pigments and polymer in the past, I have a fairly good idea of just how tricky it can be to mix in the right amounts as different color pigments have different grain and dispersion characteristics. Melanie shares her processes in her intense technique-driven classes and workshops so you may have a chance to learn about her pigment inclusions if you’re lucky enough to grab a spot in an upcoming workshop.
If you’re interested in joining Melanie for one of her workshops, keep an eye on her upcoming schedule on her website and follow her for workshop news and her fantastic inspirational artistic finds on her Facebook page.
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