Contrast of Self

Would you call yourself a selfish person? I doubt very many of us would think that way about ourselves. Yet, as artists, we often find ourselves “stealing” time away from others or other things to do what we love, reveling in it when we have it. Is that selfish? I mean, it is more about us than anyone else, isn’t it?

Yes, it is about us, and that is as it should be. In the requested comments for last week’s giveaway (scroll down to see the winner and this week’s giveaway), participants mentioned some version of the “me time” aspect of getting to sit down and create more than anything else. I mean, I know we create because it is something we enjoy, regardless of what anyone else thinks, but I just love that so many people acknowledged and celebrated it. We should!

I strongly believe that everyone should have something of their own, something they can turn to in order to express themselves or at least put something out into the world that would not have existed without their desire to create it. The art we create gives us purpose, exercises a uniquely human part of our brains, and helps us to love ourselves. Not to mention that we deserve the joy we get from it!

But, by definition, that is selfish—doing something because it’s what we want. I wish our society would get over the idea that doing something for ourselves is bad. I think not doing things for yourself is self-negligence. Why is that not a commonly understood thing?

This also highlights the bigger, contradictory world that we inhabit. We live in such strange societies where selflessness and humility are expected or requested, and yet we are also pushed to strive for excellence in what we do. How do we reach excellence without focusing on ourselves? And then there is this silliness where we are not supposed to acknowledge when the work we do is good or that we’re proud of it. If we do, others may think we’re being arrogant or grandiose.

So, do we strive to be great and then pretend that we’re mediocre? We talk about contrast being good in art, but this is so not the right kind of contrast!

I’ve long found the dichotomy of these contradictory but societally prescribed behaviors beyond aggravating as well as having the potential to be debilitating. I think that is why it made me so happy to see so many people acknowledging their creative hours as me-time, self-care, and a time of wonderfully selfish joy. Keep it up, I say!

Now, let’s talk about the good kind of contrast in art.

 

Design Refresh

Let’s look at the beautiful brooch by Lyne Tilt that opened this post. What do you notice first about this? There’s a lot going on in this little space, isn’t there? What are the three things that jump out at you as far as design elements?

I’m going to say color, shape, and texture. Did you come up with the same three? There is also a lot going on with marks and size. So, any combination of those would be spot on.

How about design principles? What do you think is the number one principal used in this design? Sure, we could refer to scale and proportion considering all the different sizes of the layers, or we could talk about focal point or even just key in on the centered composition. But the one thing this has in spades is contrast.

Obviously, there is color contrast in all the major color characteristics—she has a vibrant trio of warm colors contrasting the cool of the blue and cyan; color values range from the dark blue and deep red to the moderate orange to the light yellow and pale polished silver; and, if you check your CMY color wheels, you’ll see that the color of the bottom layer is a blue-cyan whose complementary AND split complementaries are the yellow, orange, and red that you see in the upper layers.

But doesn’t a color palette have to have at least one common characteristic between all the colors? Well, ideally, yes, and this does. Here it’s saturation. These are not muted colors. The orange may be slightly tinted (has some white in it) but not enough to feel it’s gone off base from the saturated characteristic that ties them all together.

Now, look at the contrast in the textures. The top and bottom layers might have the same texture, but the rest are vastly different. There are even different materials—metal and clay. But they work together pretty well, don’t they? Why?

The textures work together in part because they are all drastically different—the wide variety is part of the charm of this piece. But, like color, they need something to tie them together.

Did you notice that the textures are applied to the entire layer from one edge to another? Thier differences are connected because the application on each layer is the same. That does seem to be enough to allow them to exist in the same piece and not have it feel completely chaotic.

The shapes, on the other hand, are not completely different but they are not the same either, right? They are all some version of a hand cut circle, but some of them are definitely more oval. I think pulling back on the amount of contrast between the shapes also helps to rein in the potential chaos all this dramatic contrast and color and texture could fall into. The centered composition also adds a bit of calm to the piece.

Let’s take this week to consider the design principle of contrast. Would your pieces benefit from more contrast, or do you need to rein some of that in? Remember, it all depends on your intention. There are no wrong levels of contrast, at least not in art.

 

Last Week’s Giveaway

Drum roll please…

This last week’s randomly chosen winner is Eloise B! I’ve spoken to her and her clay is already on the way. Congrats Eloise!

 

This Week’s Giveaway

Thank you to everyone who participated in last week’s giveaway through comments on the post. As mentioned above, it really made me happy to see all the fantastic, positive and self-caring observations. I also hope it gave you a moment to focus on and appreciate what you love so much about creating.

So, let’s do this again.

The Goodies:

  • This week I have a selection of Sculpey clays in 2 new Soufflé colors, 3 new Premo colors, and 2 big 8 oz. blocks of clay stash basics—Sculpey III in Pearl and Silver. That’s 26 ounces of fresh clay along with a three-piece set of Sculpey silkscreens.
  • Or if outside the US, I have a $25 Tenth Muse certificate, since it would be such a gamble to ship clay outside the US.

How to Win:

  • Put a comment in the blog comments* (below), telling me what type of contrast you enjoy creating most in your own work, or the type of contrast you wish you used more of. And, yes, if you want to share pictures, you can do so by including a link. Just don’t put more than one link in or it may spam filter the comment.
  • Note: It can take some time for the comment to appear if you’ve not commented before since, due to annoying spamming, I have to approve it .
  • Giveaway winners will be chosen by random—it will NOT be based on your answers. I do hope you’ll give it some thought anyway. The answers could be helpful to you as well as interesting for the rest of us.
  • And let’s say you can only win once this month so we can spread the love around.
  • Get your comments posted by Wednesday March 17th at midnight Pacific time to get in for the raffle.
  • I’ll announce the winner here on the blog next weekend!

I’ll put together yet another pack of goodies for a giveaway in next weekend’s post, so stay tuned here!

 

 

 

You can support this blog by buying yourself a little something at Tenth Muse Arts or, if you like…

 

A Variety Show

January 24, 2021

Last weekend I talked about contrast, a concept closely related to variety, which is the subject for this week. Understanding the difference between the two can avoid a lot of confusion so I’ll be referring to contrast a bit today as well. If you didn’t see the last post, give it a quick read here.

Now, what is variation?

Variation is the range or assortment of differences throughout a design. Now, didn’t contrast also speak to differences? Yes, but those differences were between similar types of elements while variation is the degree of difference between all of the elements, principles, and placement choices in your work. It is like contrast in that variation is also used to create interest or energy or to otherwise support your intention, however, while contrast is often the key to adjusting the level of variation, you can have a fair bit of variation with little or no contrast.

To put it succinctly, contrast is the difference between two or more related elements while variety is about the relationship between all the elements in a piece. So, let’s talk about those relationships and how they are used in design.

 

Picturing Variation

First of all, keep in mind that you can create variation with elements or principles or pretty much any visual or conceptual part of your work.

Take the gorgeous pendant that opened this post. Liz Sabol has variation in color, line, balance, repetition, rhythm and even types of composition. In fact, even though we can identify a use of the Rule of Thirds, a Golden Spiral, and use of the Focus to the Right principle, it’s the barely-there nod to centered composition, created by an implied line from the midpoint focused, and yet asymmetrical, balance of the bail to the centered tip at the bottom of the pendant, that is holding all the chaos at bay. This piece is an absolute celebration of variation.

Alternately, if you use a lot of the same elements or employ principles in the same way throughout a piece, then there would be little variation. You can see that in this simple but still striking little pendant by an undisclosed creative on VK.com. (If you know who made this, do let me know and I’ll update the post.) Here there is regular rhythm, an absolutely centered composition, and every shape is circular. The only variation is created by contrast in the value difference between the black and white and the textural difference between the smooth outer elements and the rough interior disc.

Now, looking at the two pendants, I’m sure you can see that there is a huge difference between the energy and feel of them, largely because of the level of variation.

 

It’s a Matter of Degrees

So, as you see, a piece can be interesting with little to no variation or contrast. These concepts add points and degrees of interest. It’s your intention that should determine what role they will play in your work.

Just think, if you want a piece to feel solemn and quiet, avoiding high contrast and keeping your variation quite subtle may be what you need. That calm could be very awe-inspiring in its subtlety. Alternately, you can have a piece with the points of contrast and variation ranging from subtle to obvious.

You see an example of moderation in contrast and variation in Amy Genser’s Eventide pictured here. Yes, the piece feels quite busy and has a lot of energy but the contrast and variation are not that dramatic. There’s a lot of texture but it’s all rough and predominantly created from the rolled-up paper elements. The rolled paper elements are all ovoid in shape but with variation in regard to the roundness and width. They also range in size and are very in color although, like the rest of the canvas, they are predominantly blue and cyan, keeping to the cool side of the color wheel. The canvas does open up into a brief mix of reds and yellows in the middle and the color values do range from a dark blue to white. But the variation is applied in a gradual and moderated way. Most of the energy comes from the texture, the repetition, and the sense of movement.

So, we see here that the degree of variation doesn’t have to be high to create energy or interest as other elements and principles can do that quite well. However, I do think in this case that the level of variation included boosts the energy of the texture and repetition. It’s a team effort.

So, unlike some other concepts, there is no way to really list the different types or degrees of contrast and variation and what they might mean for your particular piece. As you’ve seen, this is in large part due to how much these concepts depend on, and play off of, the other choices made in the design.

 

This is only a quick introduction to the subjects of contrast and variation but I’ll continue talking about them in many of my future posts. If you think about it, I’ve actually been talking about these ideas throughout the year as the differences in your choices for the various elements and principles is quite wrapped up in your decisions on how you’ll employ contrast and variation.

Some of your choices for contrast and variation will be made automatically if you make characteristic choices for your elements before specifically thinking about contrast or variation, like choosing just daisies for a flower necklace or choosing green and red as your color palette because it’s for Christmas. Repeated daisies will dictate rather low levels of variation because of the sameness of the primary motif so you’d have to work with contrast in things like value and size to take it up a notch. And Christmas colors are high contrast so it would be difficult to make the work also feel calm or serene starting from that color palette.

However, you might find it more advantageous to make choices about the degree of contrast and variation that would best suit the work and then make that happen through the characteristics you choose for your elements. In fact, knowing the degree of contrast and variation you want can help you make more confident and intentional choices for your elements, various principles, and composition. That’s how influential the concept of contrast and variation is in art.

 

Perhaps this talk of contrast and variety will get you jazzed to try out some variations on variety your own self. So, while the sun is shining and the muse is calling, do try to have a wonderful, safe, and creative week!

 

You can support this blog by buying yourself a little something at Tenth Muse Arts or, if you like,  just …

Color Scheming

August 23, 2020

Noelia Contreras, stretches the idea of analogous color schemes by choosing pairs of colors that are in the same third of the color wheel then creating contrast by choosing tinted versions of one or both colors to create her stripes and spots.

As promised, this week we are going to start talking about creating color palettes. But first, because I love you all so much for following me as I blather about color and design, I want to make sure that you get in on the Damage Sale that is going on right now.

Damage Sale is on Now … and They’re Selling Fast!

Once every year or two, I pull out these boxes of publications that have been slightly damaged or marred and put them on sale, usually for 40-50% off. This time though, I marked it all down by 50-60%.

I started that yesterday and sold nearly half of them before lunch! Not wanting my blog readers to miss out, I went through my backstock boxes yesterday and pulled a number of imperfect copies that got shelf wear from storage so I’d have something to offer you.

Those got added to the sale inventory last night and so you all now have a fighting chance to grab some too. Just click here. But best be quick. It’s not quite toilet paper but I think there is a pandemic response thing going on here!

(If you got in on this Saturday but something was out of stock and is available now, buy it and I’ll combine the orders, refunding the difference in shipping if the order comes in by noon EST on Monday.)

 

Color Combo Considerations

Okay, now on to the business of color. Choosing colors to use in a piece takes into account quite a number of things but let’s hit on what I think are the three most important things to keep in mind:

Intention – What is your intention in creating the piece? What is the piece about? Go as far as writing it down and come up with some adjectives. Now, what colors go with those words and match your gut feeling about what you want this piece to be. I believe one should never ignore the gut but you do need to discern between instinct and taking the easy road or simply being dazzled by a color. That’s the hard part of using instinct but keep at it and hone it!

Importance – Should color play a major, supportive, or minor role in your design? I think this question is more important for color than for most design elements because we have such a strong and visceral reaction to color. There is usually a hierarchy of design elements in a piece and you benefit from intentionally deciding where color lands in that order. If you create a super tall vase, size is probably the major player in your design so do you want to draw attention away from that by making it a rainbow of bright colors? You absolutely might want to, but the size can make the colors even louder, which is great if that’s what you are after. However, if you want to focus on size because you want people to feel how monumental the piece is, one or two analogous colors in a supportive role might better support your intention.

Susan Dyer’s work puts color at the top of her design hierarchy with lots of contrast in hue and value but not a lot of contrast in saturation, going for bright and playful in most of her pieces like the one here.

Contrast – What level of contrast does your piece call for? High contrast creates high energy, low contrast creates calm, while something in between can be comfortable but still energized. Levels of contrast in a color palette can be created between color values (light versus dark), saturation (bright versus toned down), hues (complimentary colors), temperature (warm versus cool), and relative quantity (how much each color is used versus the others.)

Like everything else, how much contrast you choose should fulfill your intention but also, high or low contrast can be chosen to balance the energy of the work as needed. For example, you might have a busy piece with a variety of shapes and lines plus a lot of marks fulfilling your intention to create high energy but if you don’t want it too chaotic, you might use low rather than high contrast colors. Some intentional restraint in contrast will make the energy of the other elements feel more grounded. Alternately, you could go high contrast on the colors but go less busy on other design elements, especially if you deem color to be of high importance to the piece and don’t want it to be overlooked.

This necklace from Sandra Trachsel has low hue contrast using an analogous color scheme of yellow-green to blue-green but has value contrast between the two to give it a subtle energy but enough punch to really highlight the dimension of the interlocking geometric forms.

Okay, so, yeah, those are quite conceptual points and are very important to keep in mind when choosing a color palette but now, how do you even begin choosing colors? There are actually so many ways you can approach choosing colors for a piece and once you work with color intentionally and intelligently for a while, you will find your own way. But this week and next, I’m going to make some suggestions to get you started. Here is the first for this week.

 

Go with Your Gut

It’s going to sound like I’m saying this quite blithely but I’m serious about this – the most common way to start choosing colors is to go with your gut. Yeah, as mentioned, it may be something you have to hone but your instincts are really a great place to start and will help make your work truly your own. Now, you may think you have no instincts about color but we all do. We all react to color so the connections you make to color are in there and those connections are exactly what you need to find the colors you need for your work.

So, you can think about your intentions and see what colors come to mind or you can, with your intentions or associated adjectives running through your brain like a little chant, start shuffling through your colored art materials, a collection of color cards if you have them, or browse about online. Find yourself a base color to work off of. It doesn’t have to be the exact color yet but think of it as an anchor point for the time being.

Once you have that, you can start adding in other colors based on one of the following color wheel schemes. Keep in mind, this is not math. You don’t have to be exact in these color schemes. Think of them as templates that give you an idea of what colors to pair up with your anchor color.

You’re going to recognize a few these terms from the post on color relationships if you read that one. Those relationships for color mixing are also great starting points for choosing color palettes but I’m going to add a few more possible color combinations to your repertoire today.

 

Complementary – This color scheme involves focusing primarily on two colors, ones that are opposite each other on the color wheel. It provides great color contrast but, sometimes, these combinations create an almost uncomfortable tension. Fully saturated complements, when butted up against each other, will even cause a visual buzzing where they meet. Again, the tension between the complements is not a bad thing if that is what you are after but, because of this, this kind of color scheme should be carefully and quite intentionally chosen.

 

Analogous – this involves choosing colors that are near each other on the color wheel. These are usually two to four key hues so although you’re limiting yourself to one section of the color wheel you can still have quite the range.

Combining colors that are near each other on the color wheel creates palettes with low hue contrast and low or moderate value contrast, at least between the key hues themselves. If you choose colors that are desaturated (have reduced purity) due to tinting, shading, or toning of the color, that can increase the value contrast between analogous colors. So, you could create in blues and greens but go for a dark blue and a bright green so color value and saturation will be contrasted but since there analogous it will be relatively subtle. That’s why analogous color schemes are often found in moderate to low energy designs.

 

Triad or Square – I put these together because they are simply choosing a set of colors that are equidistant from each other on the color wheel. In a triad you are choosing three and a square you are choosing four colors. These create quite colorful and moderately high contrasting hue schemes. These color palettes tend to work best if one color is dominant (like your anchor color that you started off with) while the others play supporting roles in the color scheme.

 

Split Complementary – This can be a combination of two colors although I think it is best used as a three-color scheme. Here you choose one color and combine it with one or both colors to the side of the color’s true complement.

The TMA website scheme is yellow-green with its split complements magenta and blue (both leaning towards its true complement violet but still no visual tension.)

These create beautiful, high contrast color schemes but without the tension that direct complements can create. The combination remains lively and high in hue contrast but it feels much more refined than direct complements, triads, or squares. This is because you actually have a pair of basically analogous colors set against a high contrast one but not with high-tension contrasting hues. It’s kind of the best parts of all the previously mentioned schemes.

 

Monochromatic – The term monochromatic itself is synonymous with boring, I know, but this color scheme is anything but that. You may have just one base color but you then create a variety of shades, tints, and maybe even some tones of that one hue. Although it lacks hue contrast, you still get to play with saturation and value contrast so you can scale your energy level up and down with great control. I personally don’t think there is any other color scheme quite so sophisticated and clean as a monochromatic one so if your design is primarily about refinement, this color scheme should be seriously considered.

 

So, now you have one, somewhat structured way to start choosing colors. I would suggest this week that you play around with the various color schemes above. It could be as simple as pulling out your art materials and shuffling colors around on your tabletop to find complementary, analogous, triadic, and split complementary color schemes or continue practicing your color mixing by at least mixing up one luscious monochromatic scheme. Go with your gut and play with the colors as you feel you need to.

 

Not Much to Say

I know, I usually catch you up with what’s going on with me at this point, but it’s been a rough and tiring week for a variety of reasons and I am a bit talked out. I’ll tell you about drowning my sorrows in my minvan camper conversions project at a later date, okay?

I’ll just leave you pondering classic color combinations for now but next week we’ll going to get into some slightly more advanced ways of choosing color. Don’t worry, it’s nothing too difficult and you have all the tools to do it. In fact, I think a lot of you will be quite surprised at how easy and fun it will be. All this color study has been great fun, hasn’t it? I do hope so!

 

So, enjoy your week and fill it full of color!

The Need for Light and Dark

 

Libby Mills uses value in color to create drama and depth with a mostly monochrome color palette.

I planned on talking about color variation this week but then it occurred to me, that we will need to talk about color contrast and you can’t talk about contrasting color without talking about value. So, I switched up my plans and we’re going to talk about the often neglected concept of color’s lights and darks, otherwise known as value.

The Light and Dark of It

So, what exactly is value? Value is simply what I just mentioned – the lightness or darkness of a color. This has nothing to do with their hue. Remember, hue works more like a category so mint green and hunter green both are a green hue, but mint has a light color value while hunter green has a very dark value.

The most important thing to remember about value is that it used to create contrast. For instance, purple has a much darker value than yellow, right? Used together, they are high in value contrast and, so, make a rather dramatic color palette. On the other hand, a dark magenta and forest green will have the same or similar middle-dark value. Putting them together will not create much value contrast. Although there is nothing wrong with that – they belong to complementary (opposite) hues on the CMY color wheel so they have contrast there – the lack of value contrast greatly reduces the potential of their dramatic contrast in hues.

To be blunt, similar values in rich colors such as dark magenta and forest green would just be boring. Now, if you choose a slightly darker magenta and a lighter green such as a burgundy and an jade, that will increase the value contrast and make a much more interesting color combination, as seen in the example image here. Below the color combinations you see them with the hue removed, leaving just their gray value. So that’s another way you can think about value – it’s the lightness or the darkness of the color without any color in it.

 

Seeing the Value

If you are a painter you might be shaking your head at the simplicity of the above explanation so let’s get a bit more precise. (If your head is already spinning a bit, just read through this but don’t worry about understanding it fully yet. You can come back to this later.)

Value is not just the lightness or darkness of a color. It is the lightness or darkness of what is SEEN. That’s an important distinction because the color of things we are looking at out in the world won’t stay constant as the light changes.

For instance, have you ever been around someone in a restaurant or on a train – some poorly lighted space – thinking their hair is dark brown only to see them step outside and find that it’s a rich red? Their hair didn’t change color. The light did.

The less light there is, the darker things appear, right? That seems obvious, but it’s really important to consciously understand that. It underlines one of the primary principles about creating art, especially imagery you’re trying to reproduce in any realistic manner – it’s not about what you think something is, it’s about what you actually see. So, if you are painting a portrait of me in a dark room, you would not paint me with the bright henna red and copper hair you know I have, because in the dim light, my hair would not actually look red or copper.

You may not be a painter but if you plan to build images in canes or are painting with polymer or create pretty much anything where you are developing a two-dimensional illusion of form and depth , you will be working with these kinds of value changes in color. Even if you don’t create imagery, the concept of how light changes the value of a color is useful for understanding what value is and why it is important in your designs.

You’ve actually learned about the importance of value if you’ve ever tried to draw a ball – to make it look round you have a very light spot where light hits the sphere directly, a dark side where the light doesn’t reach, and a gradation from light to dark between the two. Now, if that ball had color, like the blue ball you see here, you can tell that it’s a solid blue ball even though it actually has a variety of blues in this rendering of it. But I couldn’t just fill in a circle with one shade of blue and have you understand it is a ball. We need to see that change in color value – the swatches pulled from the blue ball are all the same hue of blue but are all different values – in order to see a dimensional form.

Without those changes of value – those lights and darks, those highlights and shadows – everything would just look flat. That is also why you don’t want to take a photo of an object with the light shining directly on the front facing view – it will kill the shadows, eliminate value changes, and make it difficult to perceive its form.

 

Intentional Value

So, a change in color value provides us with visual information, right? We like that. We like to be able to perceive if something is round or flat, textured or smooth. The contrast between light and shadow gives us that information. It is one of the reasons that we look for (mostly unconsciously) the contrast in value in works of art as well. Contrast, or the lack of it, can tell us a great deal.

In these beads by Jennifer Morris, there is very little contrast in value but these are not about drama so it makes sense. There are muted and pale colors with feminine floral motifs on round forms with low value contrast to match. The intention for this to be soft and quiet is obvious and with all the characteristics servicing that intention, she has designed some very lovely beads.

On the other hand, here are liquid polymer painted pieces by Lynn Yuhr who is clearly going for a bold and graphic look with wide ranging color values to support that objective.

So, don’t think that you must have a high contrast in the value of your colors. It can be high or low depending on what will best serve your intention. Value contrast also can bring attention to certain portions of your work or lead your eye around the piece.

For example, the fish on this clock by Gera Scott Chandler are much lighter in value than the background, bringing our focus to them first. The light value of the circles on the background subtly connect to the larger fish since they are similar in value so that your eye moves from fish to circles, going around the face of the clock.

 

Furthering Your Color Consciousness

So, before I get into how to manipulate values – something we will get into next week – I suggest you spend some time getting familiar with the values of color. I have a couple suggestions for you.

Go Grayscale

To better familiarize yourself with the actual value of colors, I find it helpful to look at colors in grayscale. A grayscale image will show you the actual value of colors, relative to the colors they are grouped with.

This means taking photos of your work in “black and white” mode or changing color images (yours or other people’s if you want) to grayscale in a photo editing app or software. Not all cameras have a black and white (or grayscale) mode. If you’re not sure, look up your camera model online along with “how to shoot black and white” and if no information comes up, then it probably doesn’t have that option.

The other way to do this is to edit the image. To do this on your computer, use Photoshop or whatever default photo editing software is available on your computer.

  • In standard Photoshop, go to Image> Mode> Grayscale.
  • In Microsoft Paint.net, you go to Adjustments> Black and White.
  • If you are using another program, search the web for “how to convert image to grayscale” along with the name of your editing program.*

If you take a picture with a mobile device, you can usually edit it to grayscale directly in the phone or tablet.

  • On an iPhone or iPad, select an image, hit “Edit”, tap the three overlapping circles icon, then scroll the little thumbnails of the photo over until it is in “mono”. Tap “Done” if you want to save it but keep in mind it will save over the original. If you do this accidentally, just follow the same steps and you’ll find the original version in that little row of thumbnails so you can convert it back.
  • In Android, and pretty much any mobile device, you can use Google photos. Open your image in this app, tap it to bring up the icons and choose the three stacked lines. Slide the thumbnails over until it is in “Vogue” mode. You can also save it and undo it later.

*Note: There are quite a number of articles online suggesting you convert an image to grayscale by using a “saturation” adjustment. DO NOT do that for this value exercise. As we will discuss next week, saturation has nothing to do with color value. Reducing saturation tends to also reduce value, more for some colors than others. It will completely mess you up. You need a conversion to “grayscale”, “black and white”, or “mono”.

If using software and apps is just too much of a bother or you don’t have a software program, here is a free online service. You just click the file icon, browse to and open the file, and it will appear in the browser window in grayscale. You can save it from there by hitting the floppy disk icon.

Once you have these grayscale images, start looking at how much value contrast shows in the images.

  • Is there a lot of contrast or all the values fairly close?
  • Does the amount of value contrast match with the probable intention or feel of the piece?
  • Do any of the colors set next to each other just blend into one another because the values are so close? If so, do you think that works for the piece or do you think more value contrast could help it? (We’ll talk more next week about how to choose alterantives when you want a different value.)

Just make yourself more familiar with value. You can also use this value scale (click on it, then print it out) to check values of colors or pieces you have. You can lay the scale next to a color and see which value you think is the closest. Then take a photo of the scale next to the color, convert it to grayscale, and see how close you came to matching the color to the right  value. Do this a few times and you’ll be seeing in values quite quickly!

 

Get a CMY Color Wheel

You know how I recommended you get a CMY color wheel? Well, the more I work on these articles, the more I wish you ALL had the CMY color wheel from the Color Wheel company. I can’t tell you how many times I reference mine, and I am convinced that when we get into how to use these color concepts to pick color palettes and to mix color, having this particular CMY color wheel will make it all such a breeze.

No, they’re not paying me to push this. I have met the owners and they are a fantastic little family company (who worked with the polymer community’s very own Maggie Maggio to help build a CMY based grade school art curriculum, by the way) but more than that, they are so intensely passionate about color and education. That’s why they’ve done such a superior job with this particular color wheel.

So, if you haven’t gotten one yet, you can buy it directly from the company for $9 (including shipping in the US) and you will have it within 5-7 business days. It’ll be the best $9 you ever invested for your creative journey. Outside the US, I am not sure where it is best to get them but you can search for “Color Wheel Co CMY” and look for this wheel:

https://colorwheelco.com/buy-now/product/cmy-primary-mixing-wheel-7-3-4-diameter/

 

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed this immersive in value. I have to say I am always surprised at how much there is to talk about each characteristic of color. These articles really could be much shorter but I don’t know if you would walk away really understanding and feeling confident about these concepts. We retain concepts better when we spend some time with them. I’m hoping these articles do that for you! If you have any thoughts or suggestions about the length or detail of these articles, I am always up for hearing them. Just reply to this if you get it by email or write me through the website. 

 

Wondering about my references to Intention? Or how to support this content?

Read what so many VAB members have said was a life altering (or game changing or mind opening) set of articles on Intention in the February edition of the Virtual Art Box and catch up on the concept of marks, lines, and shape too. And they are all on SALE, 25% off right now – no promo code needed. I’m also having a 20% off sale on ALL books!

The purchase of a box would help support this free content that I am creating now as well as give you a stronger base for the conversations we will be having going forward. 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.

Thank you for your past, present, and future support!

Connected to Color

June 14, 2020

Cornelia Brockstedt communicates her sense of each season through color sets (cones and the cord) that speak to her idea of Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.

So, here we go with the second installment of this summer’s color adventure. If you didn’t read last week’s posts, you can find it here. That post really lays the foundation for a lot of what I’ll be talking about over the next few weeks so you might want to read or review that first.

This week I want to expand upon your knowledge of hues but, more particularly I want to talk about the expressive nature of color. I know last week I may have forced a shift in your thinking about primaries but to confirm that and as a way to connect last week’s post with this one, let’s ride this CMY train a bit farther down the tracks.

Hopefully, we are now all in agreement that the most accurate pigment based primary colors are cyan, magenta, and yellow. That is particularly helpful to keep in mind when mixing but that hardly gives us enough categories to work from in order to have a sense of how colors communicates or how to choose color palettes. I would like you to add a few more, starting with the CMY secondaries – the colors that result from mixing two primaries together – red, green, and blue.

Hmm. RGB, you say? Doesn’t that sound familiar? If you remember from last week, RGB are the primary colors for mixing light (such as the light that creates images on any digital screen.) Yes, CMY’s secondaries are the primary colors used to mix with light. And the reverse is true – CMY is the secondary color set for RGB. Why do you think they are interrelated like that?

You may remember from last week’s post that RGB is considered an additive color while CMY is subtractive so it’s not surprising to find them as opposite sets on the same color wheel. This is not the same RYB color wheel that painters have been using for years, mind you, so if you have a color wheel that depends on bread, yellow, blue, you might want to either get a CMY color wheel like this one by the Color Wheel Company. Or use a CMY color diagram like this one below. (Note that colors in this image below will shift if you print it and may be off due to your display already. Also the percentages listed are just guidelines when mixing colors as quality and concentration of pigments between types of materials and brands can differ greatly.)

Click for full size and to print. Created by SW Pryor, 2009

 

Back to color categories. Right now, you have six – cyan, magenta, yellow, red, green, and blue. How about we add four more for a nice even 10?

Since the majority of the art world has been working with red, yellow, and blue as primaries for the last 200 years, their secondary hues have been widely referred to in color psychology and communication. Those are green (which we already have), purple and orange. Purple and orange carry very particular associations so we can’t leave them out.

The other two I feel necessary to include are black and white. For the sake of simplicity, I’m not going to wander into the mire that is the argument about whether these are actually colors. I think that argument is really based in the one inarguable fact – they aren’t hues. Depending on the color mode, either black or white is the inclusion of all hues or the exclusion of all hues but the argument on whether they are colors is just semantics so for our purposes I am proclaiming them color categories.

 

Connecting in Color

Now, why is it important to have categories? Well, you have to realize you’re going to be communicating something specific with the colors you choose so it’s best to choose with intention. Having color categories and knowing their specific association gives you a base from which to begin making those kinds of decisions.

We all react to color on some level, so color choices are no small thing. For instance, if there are a set of sisters who are triplets, all dressed the same but one has fire engine red fingernails another cobalt blue fingernails and the third has sunshine yellow, do you not draw different conclusions about each of the women? The one with a red nails might come across as strong but conservative, the one with the blue may strike you as audacious or even rebellious, and the sister with yellow nails may seem carefree and funky. You might draw a different conclusion that I did but I’m guessing we’d agree that we would think of each of those women at least a little differently based solely on the fingernail color.

Strangely, those conclusions I made about the fingernail colors are not necessarily associations common with those specific colors but that’s our curveball here. It goes to show that it’s not just the color that creates what you are communicating – it’s also the context. And you.

Since there is a lot more to communicating with color than what we might assume is inherent in each hue, I’m going to give you very general associations as a kind of jumping off point, but you may very well have other strong associations not listed for these colors. We’ll get to that in a moment.

For now, simply read through this list but don’t try to memorize it. Just let it sink in as you read it, maybe just asking yourself what associations are true for you that I have listed, and mentally (or in writing) adding your own as you go. Then I have some thoughts about how to use these categories for your own authentic creations.

 

Color Associations by Color Category

Here are the color categories we’ll work on for now. We’ll get to the grayed out sections later.

 

Magenta – uplifting, balancing, and cheerful, this color can convey and encourage happiness, creativity, and compassion.

Purple – often thought of as the color of luxury and grandeur due to its historical rarity, it is now also associated with drama, ambition, and dignity. Purple also encourages daydreaming which may be why it is associated with mysticism and imagination.

Blue – one of the most liked colors in the world, blues can feel uplifting, quiet, calm, and reliable, as well as communicating trustworthiness and comfort.

Cyan – lively but calming, cyan invokes the serenity and brightness of tropical oceans along with a sense of cleanliness and focus.

Green – relaxing and reassuring, green is a very positive color that is easy on the eye, literally. It lessens glare and absorbs ultraviolet light reducing eye fatigue. It also represents growth, freshness, nature, and harmony although in certain contexts and tones it can also be associated with illness.

Yellow – considered the happiest of colors this is associated with joy, optimism, and spontaneity. It is visually dominant which means it can drown out other colors, so it is often used in small amounts or as a background color.

Orange – energizing, cheerful, and friendly, orange literally wakes us up by encouraging oxygen intake in the brain. It is also highly visible which is why it is used for construction and warning signs even though emotionally it feels playful.

Red – well-known as representing love, passion, power, and excitement, it is also associated with danger and blood. It also appears hot so much so that a beverage will seem hotter in a red cup than any other color. It is also the most eye-catching, so it gets noticed regardless of how little is used.

Black – is often associated with death but in the absence of a context with death associated symbols and imagery, it will more likely convey authority, respect, seriousness, and decorum while sometimes feeling aggressive. It can make objects appear deeper or heavier than light or white versions.

White – purity, cleanliness, goodness, and innocence are the more common associations with white although it can also be thought of as formal, cold, sterile, and stark. When it is not a dominant color, it is overlooked, reading as an inconspicuous background.

Now, you might be asking, what about brown? Or gray? How about pink? Yes, we do have very specific associations with those colors, but they are variations on hues, not hues themselves and I am aiming to give you baby steps, more or less. Trying to figure out how you feel about 10 colors is a pretty big baby step already. We’ll get to the rest in future weeks.

 

Real and Authentic Color

Okay, now that I you’ve read that list, let’s talk about the only color associations that really matters – your specific emotional connection to color.

Choosing the colors you want to use to communicate your intention really should be based on what you feel, not what you THINK, about those colors. This can be tough to figure out but if you’re up for it that’s what I’ll suggest you work on this week. Let me explain.

Take the color blue. It supposed to be calming, peaceful, and trustworthy and is one of the favorite colors of all times. Well, strangely, I myself have a kind of aversion to the hue of blue. It’s not all blues, but I certainly steer away from it when it comes to my attire. Other than maybe a pair of blue jeans on a back shelf, there is no blue in my closet. I know I associate dark blue clothing with domineering personalities (my father wore a lot of navy, for instance) so I don’t find it comforting or uplifting like many people might.

So, if I wanted to create a piece that portrayed a peaceful calm, I would not choose blue even though that is supposed to readily communicate that concept to others. It would be like trying to laugh at something I didn’t find funny. It will come across as inauthentic. However, I might go with green or even cyan as a dominant color because those colors do feel peaceful to me. That choice, combined with my other design choices, all rooted in my personal intention to convey a peaceful calm, should result in a cohesive and authentic feeling piece.

I know you might be concerned that choices based on your personal associations won’t communicate well to a lot of people. It is true – it might not. But for the right people, the people that will love and feel connected to the authentic you they see in your work, it absolutely will. It will also be a more joyful and satisfying piece to create for you.

 

Connection and Context

You might’ve noticed my persistent use of the word “connection”. I’m using this as a kind of catch all term for the various objectives an artist might have for drawing people to their work. Sometimes we want people to feel drawn to, and therefore connected to, the work on a personal level so that they want to buy it. Or we may be more concerned about captivating them in order to elicit a specific emotion or to get them to think, which is another kind of connection.

You can also have the objective of not trying to connect to others at all but may simply want to please yourself, which is wonderful and more than valid. In that case, it is even more important to make design choices based on how they make you feel than about what they mean to others. Even though you’re communicating with only yourself initially, the authenticity of your choices will communicate and connect to others if and when you share your work. Personally, I think this is the best way to work.

If you haven’t already noticed, everything in design is about relationships. Although the relationship between your artwork and the viewer is one relationship, I am more specifically referring to how every design element is related to each other in a piece to create an overall feel or message. Your choice of color, as strong as it can be in relaying a specific message on its own, relates to the other design elements which can change how the color and the overall design feels.

Look at these two pendants by Melanie Muir. They are using essentially the same color palette, but they have a notably different feel. For those of you who were with me last month, or bought the May VAB about shape, you might have readily recognized how the softer, round shapes of the left pendant has helped create an inviting and fun feel in that pendant. Yes, orange is associated with a sense of joy to start with but then look at the one on the right. It still has a burnt orange with black and white palette but the sharp corners of those shapes make it feel more serious although still lively due to the orange.

 

Here is another comparison with two different color palettes but the same design by Christine Dumont. Do they not feel quite different? Even though I like the core design, I am more drawn to the blue-green (yes, even though I am not big on blue.) I am a huge fan of green and I don’t think of domineering men when blue is combined with it. It actually feels uplifting and comfortable to me. The magenta, a color known to be particularly cheerful, is quite elegant here but feels too loud for me. That’s probably because I am essentially an introvert so although I like my attire to be creative, edgy, and even weird, I don’t like it to be loud.

Which do you prefer and why do you think that is?

 

 

Exploring Your Version of Hues

So, if I haven’t fully confused you by giving you a set of rules and then telling you to toss them out window, I would suggest that, this week, you spend time investigating how you feel about particular colors.

Now, how do you figure that out? Well, honestly, it’s going to take a lot longer than a week for most people if you’ve not done this before, but you can start by simply making word associations and becoming more aware of your reaction to color.

Wrapped in Color Exercises

Try to put yourself in a place, physically or mentally, where you can respond to color that surrounds you.

Go and put on different colors of clothing, wrap yourself in various colored blankets, or, if you have a stash of fabric, pull out some solid colored bits and wrap yourself up in them. Then ask yourself how you feel in each color, especially if you can do this in front of a mirror (you know, when everybody else is out for a walk or asleep or something so you don’t have to explain yourself.) What colors make you feel more energized? What colors make you feel more relaxed? Do any of them make you particularly happy or make you feel regal?

Since you are likely to be wrapping yourself up with colors that are not a pure hue, you could start making note of how you react to the hues when they are dark, pastel, bright, or muted. You may be responding to that version of the hue, not the hue itself. Like I might feel very bold and confident in a plum dress, but I would probably feel a bit subdued and delicate in a lavender one. (More on color variations next week.)

If you don’t have sufficient colors to wrap yourself up in, just try to imagine yourself in a room painted all in one hue. How do you feel in the yellow room? Does it make you want to dance around or is it annoying? How about a red room? Does it make you feel impassioned and energized or maybe frightened? How about a white room? How about a black room?

You aren’t really trying to make any specific conclusions about your relationship with color at this time. Just try and become more familiar with how you feel about various colors. Color relationships are complex. Like I love using copper polymer when making jewelry, but I can’t imagine ever creating anything with orange. Orange just doesn’t speak to the things I want to express. But you should know, I also hate tomatoes but love salsa so, I’m probably just particularly weird.

As we work through the various aspects of color over the next few weeks, you can continue to ask yourself these questions about how you feel about particular colors. And when you are designing, you could also ask yourself what color comes to mind when thinking about the emotion associated with the specific intention of the piece you’re working on. You might be surprised with what you come up with.

 

Wondering about my references to Intention? Or how to support this content?

Read what so many VAB members have said was a life altering (or game changing or mind opening) set of articles on Intention in the February edition of the Virtual Art Box and catch up on the concept of marks, lines, and shape too. And they are all on SALE, 25% off right now – no promo code needed.

The purchase of a box would help support this free content that I am creating now as well as give you a stronger base for the conversations we will be having going forward.

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.

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.

Iconic Shapes

May 31, 2020

If there was a shape that could represent state of the world today, what would you say that is? Chances are, you’re thinking of something that works as an icon or symbol rather than something as simple as a circle or octagon. Abstract shapes are something I touched upon only briefly in the article about shape and form at the beginning of the month. They are most commonly created for things that we are already familiar with, many of which are considered universal. Some have been with us for ages such as stars, teardrops, and hearts, but simplified shapes will pop up whenever a quick method of communication that is not language dependent is needed or preferred.

For instance, right now, a square with half circles on the ends, often with a few horizontal lines in the square, represents a medical mask. Such an icon may have meant nothing to you at the start of this year but it’s hard not to recognize it for what it is now.

That is the power of abstract shapes. With minimal characteristics, these shapes represent an object if not an entire concept. For this reason, I suggest you to not use them too frivolously. If you pop a heart shape on something, it should be because your intention necessitates calling on the viewer’s emotions rather than just putting it on to be cute. Now, I’m not saying that using hearts to be cute is a bad thing but realize that people will see it as an emotional expression. And I say emotional, not love, because the heart represents a base positive emotion associated with love, caring, and happiness but if your heart shape has a hole in it, is cracked or torn, or is jet black, the viewer will start thinking of things like loneliness, sadness, or even animosity.

Not all abstract shapes have such a wide range of potential meaning but many can elicit a similar or even  stronger reaction, such as the shape of a cross or particular types of star shapes, depending on the context in which it’s used.

If you want to use abstract shapes but do not want to be so obvious or bring up the more common associations, you might find it useful to combine abstract shapes or to use them in unexpected ways. This approach to the use of abstract shapes can make for a much more subtle or complex statement which means your viewer will probably react more viscerally even with a readily recognized shape since its associations won’t be so blunt.

Here are just a few examples of abstract shapes where the association with them has been toned down.

Here, Elsie Smith overlays the impression of leaf forms on heart shapes showing just how perfectly they fit together. Pairing these makes the heart a gentle emotional background to the focus on, and apparent love of, nature’s intricate leaf formations.

 

This next one is a really good synergy of recognizable abstract shapes. Speaking in terms of the silhouette of the piece below as well as the focal point of the opening image, we could see a sunburst, a starburst, or a flower shape. Since Zuda Gay Pease was primarily creating flowers at the time she created this, we can assume her intention was for it to be a flower, but the energy of all those many pointed tips makes it come across as celestial. So, we get a combined association – the femininity and beauty of the floral shape with the energy and excitement of bursting light. It’s quite an impressive mix.

 

It’s interesting that practically all types of celestial bodies have a recognizable abstract shape (or variations of them.) There is probably nothing quite so common in abstract celestial shapes as a crescent moon. Our association with it can be fairly wide ranging from simply symbolizing the quiet and dark of night to embodying the ebb and flow of life.

In this example, I found it very curious that the lines on these crescents appear to be sun symbols with all their brilliant energy, and the bright blue ends of the crescent, visually truncating the shape, make us less likely to think crescent moon than simply an angular and curvy shape. The moon and its mysteries therefore become a quiet background to the louder energy of the colors and lines. I really like this contrast of concepts here as the sun and the blue color brings in a liveliness while the unconscious reaction to the moon shape is a quiet but divergent undertow. (Unfortunately, the Etsy shop from which this was saved is no longer available, so I am not sure who created it. If anyone knows, I would be ever so grateful if you would send me their name so I can update it.)

 

Is this making sense? I don’t think it’s hard to grasp the general idea of how iconic an abstract shape can be so I’m going to keep this short today. It’s also been a busy week getting all your accounts fixed up and so I should get off this computer. I challenge you to look around at the way abstract shapes are used in art work, be it your own or other people’s pieces.

 

Go Forth and Be Free… to be Inspired, For Free!

If you haven’t heard yet, starting in June (this next weekend) I will be posting the upcoming Virtual Art Box content previously planned for the VAB membership project on this blog so everyone can read it for free. I wanted readers, regardless of budget right now, to have access to these discussions, lessons, and exercises so we can all work on our art and increasing our skills and enjoyment together as well as give me the opportunity to take my work load down a notch or take breaks when necessary without being unfair to paid subscribers.

So, you can look forward to some in-depth article length discussions and ideas with a bit more juice to it than the blog usually has along with ideas on how to work with and apply the concepts if you so desire. Take it like a free class or just let the ideas sink in and enjoy the art. It’ll be here for you, starting next weekend.

Supporting Free Content

I am glad to have your support, in anyway you can provide it, to help me produce this content for free. Your supportive emails are always appreciated but if you want to help me keep the lights on, making purchases on the website is one of the best ways to do so since it gets you (or a lucky giftee) something to enjoy as well giving the contributing artists further exposure all while helping to keep me in busines.

If you have everything you want from the website at the moment, I have provided a donation option here for those who have asked and can afford to toss me a little something to help me, in particular, pay my tech guy and allow me much needed doses of dark chocolate!

So … until next weekend!

A Voice Inside (Big Sale Inside too!)

How often have you heard that you need to hone your artistic voice? It’s a bit of a catch phrase in the art world, a nebulous goal that sounds like it will herald your arrival into the art world as a “real artist”. Well, although I am one of those who talks about artistic voice a lot, I thought I’d put the record straight and just say … you don’t need to develop a unique artistic voice to create meaningful work.

It’s true. The need to develop a creative voice isn’t for everyone as it rather depends on why you create. Some people simply enjoy the process of creating or have an intense passion to acquire new and better skills. If that’s you, then fabulous! Go at it and don’t worry about a unique voice. Just create what you like but don’t copy (or don’t sell or teach those pieces if you do.) Do hone your skills so the work goes more smoothly and so you can enjoy your creative time that much more.

If however, you are one of those who have something to say or some­thing they need to pull from inside themselves and put out into the world, then having a particular voice, versus just muddling around with the styles and inspiration of artists you admire, is rather important. Your particular voice is a pathway to self-expression and sharing your vision with the world. Even so, I don’t think you should put undue pressure on yourself to find that voice. I know… I sound rather contradictory, but the fact is, if you put in the work, learn the skills, follow your true passions, and work with a particular intention always in mind, your voice will come out of its own accord.

I don’t know why people go on about the need to be unique so much. We all are unique already! There is no one else in the world quite like you so there is no rea­son to try to be, or create, something that will make you more unique than you already are. If anything, we need to lose those crippling preconceptions of ourselves and how we need to be or act in order to find a more authentic sense of self. (That would be a discussion for another time, though!)

So, keep in mind, a discussion of creating a unique voice has nothing to do with becoming a unique person. Rather, it is about determining what, if any, mode of expression you want to explore in order to share your­self, your passion, and your vision with the world.

Voices Calling

Who do you know of that seems to create with that kind of authentic voice? Think on that for a second. Then ask, why does their work come across as unique and personal or as a passionate mode of self-expression?

Asking myself those questions, I just have dozens and dozens of artists that come to mind and probably as many reasons why. I really believe that polymer clay draws some very unique people due to its broad range of possibilities which leaves so much room for expression as well as room to reach into the realm of other materials and approaches.

For instance, is there anyone else that you’ve seen that does the range of work that Wendy Wallin Malinow does? It’s really different, a bit macabre (or sometimes more than a bit), and utterly fascinating. What I personally really love about her work is that she creates in absolutely whatever medium fits her purpose. Polymer clay is one she returns to time and again, but really, no material is off limits to Wendy.

Here is a collection of nests of by Wendy that I got a photo of at the Racine Museum in 2017. The upper left one is cut from copper, the one on the right (if memory serves me well) is created from polymer and paint, and the third is a detailed pencil drawing. Wendy seems to explore ideas and materials simultaneously, but lets the project determine the possible material, not the other way around. That distinction can be so necessary when feeding your own voice as, ideally, you don’t want to restrict your options simply because you identify with one material more than others.

 

Wiwat Kamolpornwijit also comes to mind as a really authentic voice, primarily because his artwork developed out of pure exploration while learning the material for a purely charitable reason. He had not set out to be a jewelry artist but was merely looking for a way to raise money for a cause he deeply believed in. But then the need to raise money continued and so the creating never stopped. His distinctive look came out of a natural progression in his process as he picked up skills and developed ideas out of a self-imposed necessity. As I understand it, he never aimed to create a distinctive voice, it just manifested itself from all the work he put into his craft and from letting his curiosity lead his designs. The result is that his award winning work is always easily recognizable. Below is a collection of his pieces from the Smithsonian Craft show in 2018.

 

Meredith Dittmar is another artist that is definitely on her own path. She too moves between materials, largely polymer and paper, in order to fulfill the needs of her projects and vision. It’s interesting to see though how polymer is sometimes treated like paper in a very flat manner, while other times, paper is rolled and folded to become more dimensional. The piece opening this post is listed as mixed media although I think it is primarily polymer. You can see how some pieces of it could be (and may be) paper. And below, she had to be working with some construction materials as well as paper and polymer, for this huge installation piece at the KAABOO Del Mar 2018 festival in southern California.

 

These are just a few of the people that have intrigued me over the years with their unique expression and sense of authenticity. By the way, the reason I can make rather certain statements about these artists is because they were all interviewed for articles in The Polymer Arts at some point. You can read more about Wiwat’s intriguing path to art in the Spring 2017 issue, about Wendy’s color approach in the Winter 2013 issue, and get a peek at Meredith’s process and studio in the Summer 2018 issue of The Polymer Arts.

 

Coaxing Your Authentic Voice

Okay, so I have an idea to help you bring out your authentic voice but it’s going to sound like a sales pitch because, well, it is although that’s not my primary motive. I want to help people find a place of joy, solace, and accomplishment in their personal creative endeavors. That’s my passion! My publications and projects happen to both help you in your creative pursuits and helps me pay few bills so I can keep doing this.

But let’s talk about you now. If the subject of your artistic voice and identifying your passions or the direction of your artwork is important to you, then you really should join us for the March Virtual Art Box. The VAB is not just another publication–it’s a community and virtual classroom with group creativity coaching that focuses on design education and exploration to help you cultivate the creativity and skills that lead to joy and fulfillment in your creative endeavors. The content applies to all professional and aspiring artists who, like the artists above, want to follow an authentic and fulfilling creative path.

So, come join your kindred spirits (from novices to some really well known and accomplished artists) already enthusiastically digging into their Boxes by snapping up the March box, or both boxes for February and March, available without a subscription if you just want to get a taste. Or jump in feet first while getting significant savings on recurring subscriptions. It’s a minor investment in your art and your creative self – less than a couple cups of coffee and it’ll warm you from the inside for longer, too!

As it does look like most of us will be spending a lot of time at home these next few weeks, it seems like a perfect time to put your spare energy into your creative endeavors. If you join VAB, you will also have access to a deep store-wide discount on all publications on the Tenth Muse website (much bigger than the one below even) and on Christi Friesen PDF tutorials as well!

But if you just want good old magazines and books, well, I want to help you out too. So, here …

“Make Your Own Package” Sale: 25% off $29 or more!

The discount is good on whatever collection of single publications, print or digital, that you put together in your cart when they total $29 or more.

Use coupon code: MYOP2529

Offer good through March 31, 2020. Discount doesn’t apply to sale items, packages, or the Virtual Art Box.

 

Okay, my dears, I am off to clean the studio so, hopefully, I can get some creative time in this week. I hope everyone is staying safe, staying sane, and keeping in touch with loved ones, especially those that can’t get visitors or go out during this crazy period. This too will pass. We got this!

Changing Forms

Table by Alice Stroppel – www.polymerclayetc.com

So, have my suggestions thus far this month triggered any new ideas for fresh and exploratory directions in the studio? Well, if it hasn’t yet maybe it will this week. Even if this month’s ideas did have you looking into some previously uncharted territories, my theme today can work in conjunction with new materials, big new projects, and collaborations as well.

But first, at quick note … have you signed up for the new Virtual Art Box coming out next weekend? I do hope you plan to join us if you haven’t already. Not only will you get great material to keep you inspired and keep that creative wheel in your head turning all month long, I have a couple specials just for my art boxers including a freebie and deep discounts. 

I’ll be drumming up such specials from polymer and mixed media craft resources every month, most will be worth much more than you are paying for the art box itself. Plus, for just another week, you can get in on a forever lifetime discount, just because you jumped in both feet first with me on this new adventure!

Ok, back to pushing ourselves, or at least thinking about it, this month.

I was thinking that a really stimulating challenge would be to work in a form that you have not worked in before. You know, like if you normally do jewelry, try decorative arts or sculpture. If you do wall art try your hand at jewelry. But knowing most of you, you’ve probably dabbled in a quite a few different forms. So, I think we need to look at some unusual territories within various art forms you’ve already tried.

For instance, if you work in jewelry or other adornment, consider what types you haven’t tried creating. Hair adornments, perhaps? Ankle bracelets? Gauge earrings instead of pierced? Tiaras perhaps? How about lapel pins, cufflinks, tie bars, or bolo ties? Or just men adornment in general?

If you create or cover a lot of home decor, move beyond the vases and switch plates and look around for other hapless home victims like ceiling fixture pulls, trashcan lids, lampstands, or the finials on the ends of drapery rods. Really, nothing should be safe from your decorative touches.

I could probably make an insanely long list of oddball things that could either be made with their covered with polymer, but let’s just look at what a few people have done with some less than common forms and see if these pieces can’t push your ideas about what you can do with polymer clay.

Strange Polymer in a Strange Land

when sitting down to write this, I wandered around the house looking for things I thought could be made with polymer, but I hadn’t seen much of. It is actually kind of hard. I see a lot. But how about this– incense burners? Maybe people don’t burn incense quite as much as they used to and perhaps that’s why we don’t see people making them in polymer clay but, on the other hand, they’re so easy to make and you have a really wide range of possible shapes they could take. You would think a few people would be regularly popping some out. But they are hard to find.

For an incense burner, all you need is a stable form with a snug hole big enough for the incense sick to stand in and, preferably, a platform to catch the ashes. You can have incense stick standing straight up or have a long tray the stick would hang over or you can ignore the tray component completely. That should be easy, right? I do wonder if people hesitate to make incense burners with polymer because they believe the hot embers will singe the clay. I very much doubt that would happen, especially if you create a straight up stand type, where the ashes have a long way to fall. Here is one example of an incense burner created with cane petals by Israel’s Marcia of Mars Design. It’s a straightforward construction and a pretty, as well as functional, little piece

You should check out her dreidels as well. I’m not sure Marcia is working in polymer anymore, or at least she’s not posting, but she did have a lot of fun ideas you can find on her Flickr photo stream.

 

This next suggestion seems to be such a minimally explored area of adornment for a category with such a wide range of options. I’m talking about hair adornments. There are so many of them – barrettes, hair sticks, hairclips, hair combs, hair beads, bun caps and cages, hair slides, tiaras, head wreathes, hairbands, headbands, hair charms, hair rings, and hair twisters (a.k.a hair spirals or ponytail wraps). I am partial to hair slides myself because they can double as scarf and shawl pins so you can pull them out for all kinds of occasions. You can see how I make mine with the in-depth tutorial in the Polymer Art Projects – Organics book. Here’s another example of a hair slide from Emily May. Like the incense burners, as long as you planned for the basic form, one that allows a stick to pass through from one side to the other, you can create pretty much whatever you want.

 

And I did mention the nothing should be safe from polymer in the house? I can’t tell you how often I look up at window molding or the insets in a door panel or the trim on a cabinet and think “A bit of polymer could go right there!” Okay, maybe I’m pushing it for someone with limited studio time who wants to add sculptural elements, not canes or other veneers, to large immovable parts of my house. So, does may be a cane covered table sound more reasonable? That can be pretty ambitious as well but at least it can go with you if you move or can be sold. Just look at the table by Alice Stroppel that opens this post, or this amazing work by Bridget Derc.

Bridget’s canes are intense, as is her process, really. You have to skim through her Flickr photostream a bit (check out the bottom half of pages 3 and 4) but she posts a lot of photos of her process. It’s pretty amazing. And check out Alice’s website for more of her polymer table adventures.

 

Now, what if you’re into sculpture? How do you push the form there? I suppose if you normally sculpt “in the round” you can do bas-relief sculptures or vice versa. You could, of course, also venture into any of the other myriad areas of polymer and craft and apply your sculptural skills there, but this next piece might give you a whole other set of ideas. Why not, literally, take your sculpture somewhere you haven’t taken it before. Like outside maybe?

Tatjana Raum photographs her tree spirit sculptures as if they are in trees, although I think these are all in detached parts of trees like large swaths of bark and pieces of drift or dead wood. Even if they are not attached to a living tree, the tree material gives these other-worldly faces an unusual context that enriches the sculpture and how a viewer will perceive it. And what if you did put a bit of polymer art into a living tree? What a great surprise for a passerby!

 

Okay, that is all for today. I’ve got to start making these posts a bit shorter as I will have a lot to do for the Virtual Art Box each month. I am so super excited about what I have for our adventurous art boxers though. I don’t think it’s going to be what anyone is really expecting but I think it’s going to be a fantastic surprise, especially for readers who really loved The Polymer Arts magazine. I think we’re going to get to know each other a lot better and are in for a really creative year!

 

For now, have a wonderful and really creative week and I’ll see you next weekend!

 

Go Big or Go Personal

January 5, 2020

So, here we are. The new year has begun, and we have 12 months and nearly 52 weeks of possibilities before us. Will you be changing the way you work or challenging yourself this coming year?

If you read last week’s post, you know I have mixed feelings about New Year’s resolutions, but I do believe in always having goals. Goals give you something to bounce out of bed for in the morning. Even small goals can get you up and going and keep you focused. However, this weekend I want to talk about making big goals, or particularly big projects.

This will mean different things to different people but whether or not the idea of doing something challenging in size or scope appeals to you, I think it’s just one of those things you should periodically ask yourself. Do I want to do something big, monumental, dramatic, or just drastically different? There is nothing wrong with saying no and just focusing on small, easily manageable projects. But I think you ought to ask the question just to be sure.

Nearly a decade ago, I interviewed Gwen Piña who, at the time, was the most prolific polymer artist I knew of in our community, with over 600 accounts she regularly fulfilled orders for. (She has since retired from polymer.) With all that work, I was really surprised when she took me to a side room to show me her personal projects. These were rather tall dolls and other pieces made from found objects and polymer. These were her personal projects which she didn’t always try to sell. Although they took time away from her primary wholesale work, she acknowledged that she needed that creative outlet to make her happy.

I think that is an important consideration. Not everything you make has to sell. Actually, unless your livelihood depends upon it, nothing you make needs to be sold. Go ahead – create for the sake of creating! How freeing is that idea? I bring this up because, many times, our big personal projects are not something that is either easy to sell or easy for us to part with.

So, setting aside the idea that everything you make has to support a business, let’s talk about big personal projects you might consider taking on to feed your soul.

A Big Way

Large, showy art pieces are often referred to as “statement” pieces. Big necklaces, towering vases, and wildly colorful wall sculptures can all be considered statement pieces when they outshine the wearer or dominate the room they occupy.

There is more latitude given for the functionality of craft art that is created as a statement piece. Awkward and uncomfortable collar necklaces, dangerously spiky brooches, and vases that are too monumental to hold any kind of flower arrangement are forgiven their lack of functionality in exchange for being a conversation piece or attention grabber. These can be great fun to create because you have fewer restrictions with that concern for functional construction set aside. If you’re looking for a bit more freedom in your designs this year, this might be something to explore.

But what if we change that definition of a statement piece and attach it to work that is primarily personal—making that kind of work a personal statement piece, as in you have something to say. You may just want to share your aesthetic views, or you may have opinions about the state of the world, or you might aim to share the emotion of a personal experience. These are all expressions of the artist being taken from inside themselves and put out into the world. That’s really at the core of what, arguably, defines something as a piece of art.

So how about YOU get noticed for some “big” piece of yours this year that is focused on expressing what you want to put out into the world? Being that this kind of project is more for you, you also get to define what a big project means to you. It could be literally large. It could also be small but so minutely thought out or detailed that it is big in terms of its process and scope. A big project could be based on a really delicate or difficult personal subject that you have previously found hard to share. It could also be a large collection of work instead of a single piece. Or a piece made up of a lot of smaller pieces. Do any of these ideas spark a fire in you?

Let’s look at just a few “big projects” other artists have taken in polymer.

 

Thinking Big

Heather Campbell goes big quite often. The piece of hers that opens this blog, Trippin’ in Spain, is 6 feet long! A handful of years ago, you might have seen the challenge she took on of making this insanely detailed polymer quilt called Keep Circling. Much of the texture and pattern is created with the attachment of many small, but easily replicated accents and objects as can be seen in the detail shot.

This piece is both a great approach to creating big, beautiful artwork in polymer and a metaphor for how to take on a big project or any daunting goal. Just do one small thing at a time and, if you just keep at it, next thing you know, you have something huge and amazing and that goal is reached.

 

A similar approach can be used in jewelry. A gloriously monumental bit of adornment does not have to be complicated. You can simply make a lot of something that you love to create and bring it together into a single magnificent piece. Gloria Danvers does a lot of this type of thing with polymer butterflies, leaves, and other caned shapes.

 

You know how I mentioned you could set your big goal to not just be one thing but that you might consider just creating a big collection? Well, what if you did both? That’s essentially what Jeffrey Lloyd Dever did with his Edensong Revisited installation piece from 2011. Taking dozens of individual pieces, he created a fascinating wall piece that you have to just keep looking at to take it all in.

Edensong Revisited | 2011 | Approx. 50”H x 42” W x 3.5” D | Polymer clay, steel wire, plastic coated wire, repurposed mixed media, latex paint | Photo credit: Jon Bolton/Racine Art Museum

 

The idea of something big for you though, might just be a project that’s really different and daring. If so, I would strongly suggest looking at artwork in other mediums for inspiration, not just polymer. I don’t know if anyone’s doing any really wild with ear cuffs like the ones below in polymer, but this is just one possible inspiration for what could be done with polymer and unique forms of jewelry. Check out this site for some wild pieces. No artists are listed although they do say these are handmade.

 

Sometimes your big idea can simply be sticking with a particular theme and really pushing yourself to see what you can do with it. I got a wonderful email from blog reader Suzanne Andrews, noting how the last post on having a goal really resonated with her. She’d already started on her goal to get focused this year by cleaning up her studio (and that’s a pretty big project for many of us, I know!) And then, she said she, “placed one photograph for reference on the wall in the studio. It is of a painting that speaks to me and my goal is to create pieces that belong with this painting.” I don’t know if she’ll make anything literally big or complex, but I love that idea of committing to that painting. It will give her a focus on something that she feels personally connected to, which can take some bravery. And that is a statement!

 

The Big Idea

So, whether or not you’re ready to take on something big, in whatever way you define it, or just want to play around this year, I’m hoping to make setting goals, or at least working on a focus, to be a bigger part of what we talk about throughout this year. It’s something I’m going to focus on with the Virtual Art Box, hoping for those of you who are up for it, to make what I share with you a more active kind of information exchange. Most of us aren’t reading this to simply pass the time, are we? This material and our creativity drive us to make art, right? So, let’s do that and make art that we are personally passionate about! I can’t tell you how fulfilling it is to take risks and push yourself. You won’t always succeed but, man, when you do, there’s nothing like it!

We’ll go over a few other ideas for possible goals and focuses you might want to take on over the coming year if you’re not sure what you want to do yet, if anything. There really is no rush so just let ideas wash over you until something grabs you.

Myself, I need to put a rush on some things. I think we finally have the technical end ironed out for the new Virtual Art Box so I’m getting ready to get sign ups set up on the website. Just need a few more tests. Then back to whipping the content into shape. That’s my focus this week so keep an eye out for newsletters for more info and I’ll update you on the blog this next week and as well. Get on this list here to be notified first for special discounts.

 

Nudge Sale is Still On!

Don’t forget we have that nudge sale going for another week or so. Almost everything is on sale so if you need more inspiration at your fingertips as you set yourself up for a great creative year, hop over to the website and snatch up a great deal on beautiful print and digital publications!

 

 

Happy first full work week of 2020! Hope its a beautiful and creative one!

Moving Objects

September 15, 2019
Posted in

Don’t you love when something you put out in the world actually has a real and positive effect on other people? Last week’s post about movement really hit a chord with a lot of people. I just love that! To get such a lot of you thinking and jazzed about trying something new really makes my day! Thanks to you all who wrote me or posted messages. Please keep the feedback coming in. Criticism and suggestions as well as stories of your inspired studio ventures are all most welcome!

Last week’s discussion about movement was all based around jewelry, largely because kinetic movement is necessarily a consideration of good jewelry designs because anything worn has the potential for movement. The human body does move about a lot. But functional and even decorative objects as well as sculptural artwork can be designed to have movement with beautiful and intriguing results.

I am pretty sure that the majority of my blog readers work in jewelry as a primary form and if that’s you, don’t think that design in these other forms I’m going to talk about today doesn’t apply to you because jewelry and sculptural objects have a lot of crossover. Most art jewelry is a kind of small sculpture with the added complication of wearability thrown in. So, if you work exclusively in jewelry, look at the way these artists add movement to their objects and sculptures and consider how their approach might be translated in jewelry. And if you work a lot in functional or decorative objects, well, I have some great ideas for you today, but I hope you look at the design of jewelry for inspiration as well.

Not Standing Still

Many, many moons ago, just a few weeks after graduating art school, I packed up everything I owned into my long bed Toyota truck and drove from southern California to the middle of New Mexico, eventually landing in Albuquerque. I had no job there, I didn’t know anyone, I had no place to live, and I was completely alone. I was there because I had been through there once and fell in love with the landscape and I had desperately wanted to experience something besides California.

That move was crazy and scary and eventually proved to be one of the most difficult times of my life, but it was also one of the most magical periods of my life. To this day I will declare that my sudden uprooting then was one of the best things I could have possibly done. I knew it was a risky thing to do but you never really know who you are, what you can do, or how strong you are until you really push yourself way beyond your comfort zone and introduce yourself to completely new things.

Think about it… what would you say the most magical time of your life was? Not places but experiences, things that really opened up your eyes and fired up your passion. I bet it was something very new to you and probably a little scary and maybe even something that made you very uncomfortable initially. And I bet you wouldn’t trade it for anything. And why would we not trade in these often difficult and life altering experiences? Probably because they opened up new vistas in our life, helped up to understand ourselves, allowed us to grow and believe in ourselves like we never had before. Well, that crazy move alone was what I think of as the most magical time of my life.

Santa Fe, New Mexico was at the center of this magic back then. There were no jobs in Santa Fe so I couldn’t live there but I drove up there every chance I got to wander through the galleries and the artist studios and explore the truly deserted ghost towns that dotted the land around there. I remember walking into one gallery and seeing a small inverted teardrop pot just inside the door in glazes of matte oranges and greens. There was a small protrusion, a loop of clay, at the throat of the pot from which hung beads, a tiny bundle of reeds, and feathers and they fluttered lightly in the breeze as I entered. Talk about magic! I was mesmerized by the mix of those colors and the liveliness of those gently dancing accents. I was working in wood and wearable art at the time and suddenly decided everything would have something that moved. That’s when I first fell in love with the idea of kinetic energy in art and although it fades to the background sometimes, I always drawn back to it. What are you drawn back to over and over?

 

Nowadays, a leather thong with beads and feathers around the neck of native American pottery is not an unusual thing. You see them in gift shops throughout the Southwest so that whole idea now has a kitschy, touristy vibe but done right, it can still make a piece feel alive in a way that no amount of surface detail can. For that reason, I find it surprising that there are not more examples out there. In fact, the only person I could find working with dangling components on polymer vessels is Christi Friesen. I mean, what would this vessel be without its many pretty dangling bits and how alive must it look when they are swinging?

I am sure there are other polymer vessels with dangling accents or more, but I couldn’t find them for this post. if you know of others doing that kind of thing on vessels, please send me the links in the comments here. Commenting is better than sending me an email because then we can all see what additional sources of inspiration there might be. If you get this by email you could always click the title of the post at the top to take you to the online blog where you can post a comment.

 

Dangles are not the only way to enliven a decorative object that would otherwise sit in relative stillness. There are a number of people who add airy, springy bits that will bounce and wave in passing. Jeffrey Lloyd Dever is one of those in the small circle of polymer vessel makers for which movement is often added. It doesn’t hurt the liveliness of his pieces that they also look like they might get up and clamber off at any moment.

 

Ok, let’s set my fascination with lively vessels aside and look at the most kinetic of artwork–mobiles. Mobiles are all about balance and movement. They are inherently energetic because, even when still, we know that the slightest breeze will get these hanging (or sitting, in the case of mobile’s desktop cousin, the stabile) creations moving. Mobiles are often credited to the 20th century artist Alexander Calder but only because his work was given the name “mobiles” (by Marcel Duchamp not Calder himself actually) in 1931. Previously deemed “kinetic sculpture”, mobiles and decorative pieces that move have been around since prehistoric times, primarily in the form of windchimes and complex hanging charms and ornaments.

Kinetic sculpture was recognized as an art form only around the second decade of the 20th century, primarily due to a handful of Russian artists. The first artist to use the balance construction that is so familiar in mobiles today was actually the visual artist (best known for his photography) Man Ray. Using a series of wooden coat hangers and a cart and plow pulling design used for centuries all over Europe and elsewhere (Yes, the hook up to the animals is not a hanging one but the pulling weight of the animals is the same as the hanging weight of elements on mobile), Man Ray figured out how to perfectly balance multiple layers of coat hangers. You can go to mobile artist Marco Mahler’s website for his brief account of mobile history and pictures of Man Ray’s first mobile, complete with his early instructions for making your own.

Now, if you want to attempt a not so complex mobile design and in polymer, you might take inspiration from Marie-Charlotte Chaillon whose mobile opens this post. She smartly mixes her version of Carol Blackburn’s moebius twists with loose spirals and scattered balls for a very energetic and fun look. It might seem a complex piece at first but a quick inspection will show that all parts are hooked onto a simple set of crossed bars. You could do that kind of thing, right? Or you can go even a tad more simplified and hang a series of elements vertically, like with this mobile of hers.

 

Debra Ann, the inventor of the NeverKnead (that fantastic machine that saves you from tons of cranking on your pasta machine and readily works to soften hard clay blocks) is also the artist behind Atomic Mobiles. Although she makes her mobiles (or her stabiles, verticals, atomic screens, or earrings … she is very much into kinetic art!) from acrylic sheets rather than polymer clay, the principles are all the same. Here is one of her stabiles with a painted acrylic base.

Although she probably could have made the above stabile with polymer, the use of the acrylic material is more practical, probably quicker to create and more stable, especially for the base. Get a nice stable base out of whatever material makes the most sense for the construction of your own piece then polymer can take over for the hanging elements.

 

And as I mentioned at the beginning, kinetic sculptural art can readily be translated into jewelry and I couldn’t resist at least one example. Just look at this pair of earrings by TyAnn Zeal, with polymer for the earring base and brass for the dangles. The weight of the metal dangles will quickly get the closely arranged pieces back in position after any vigorous headshaking. With polymer, if you make mobile like earrings, you may want to make the dangling pieces somewhat thick so they too have some weight to keep them from flipping all over the place all the time.

 

Although these blog posts can never be completely comprehensive on any one subject, and there is so much more I could share on this subject, I would really be truly remiss if I did not include Georg Dinkel’s artwork in a discussion of kinetic sculptural pieces. Although not all of his work has moving parts, they all look like they could. He does love creating his mechanical pieces though and he loves putting videos together to show off the movement. They can be quite entertaining.

Ok, Georg’s hand cranked pieces might be hard to translate into jewelry but maybe some moving gears on a pendant? Or a hand-cranked brooch? They have potential, right?

 

Moving Forward  

I’m hoping these items might get a few more of you thinking about movement and how it might work in your own creations. Next week I’m going to share with you the secrets of creating visual movement. There are some pretty simple tricks to add high-energy and liveliness to your pieces without attaching separate actual moving parts. Although the kinetic energy is fantastic, it is sometimes not the most functional way to instill that level of energy. There are many other ways!

In the meantime, especially if you make decorative or functional objects, consider how you might be able to add a simple dangle, a string of beads, or a springy stalk with an accent on the end to bring some liveliness to a design that seems to need just a bit more energy. Or, using spare beads or unused elements you already have on hand, why not make a simple vertical mobile or even try your hand at balanced mobiles if you’ve never done them. You can find full instructions for creating polymer mobiles along with kinetic jewelry in the Summer 2016 – Movement issue of The Polymer Arts available on our website. It’s only $7.95 to get those tutorials in print (or $5.95 for a digital edition) along with all the other great content.

 

Slow Progress 

For those wondering how I am doing, I’ve hit some kind of plateau with the arm. It has been flaring up randomly all week after a fairly good week last week. It’s frustrating that for all the care and physical therapy, its not that much better than a month ago. But there will be no giving up here. Just like with a design or technique that has been giving you trouble, if you keep at it, you will break through. I am sure that will be the case with this arm too!

On the other hand, my metabolic issues are making progress and I am sleeping and feeling much better! So, there is progress somewhere. Yay!

There has also been progress on future production plans. I’ve been in some pretty intense talks with my managing editor, Anke Humpert, and I think we are close to a plan for getting back to some version of production with maybe some creative and practical changes. I do beg your patience for a little bit longer as its still hard to judge when I will be able to get back to print work but we are working on it. We will have some truly wonderful things to share with you in the not too distant future. I promise!

 

So, for now, go off and have a wonderful, energetic, and moving week!

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You’ve Got to Move It, Move It

September 8, 2019
Posted in ,

What are some of the first choices you make when creating a piece? Do you ask yourself, what colors are you going to use? What forms to make? What textures, what themes, what techniques? Do you ever ask yourself, what kind of movement will this piece have?

Movement is not one of the primary options that come to mind for most people when designing. If movement or kinetic components are not essential to what you are doing, it may not come to mind until much later on, if at all. And yet, in three-dimensional work and especially in jewelry, this is an integral part of the design. Sometimes the idea of movement doesn’t come along simply because it is created through another avenue – visual movement is created by lines while physical movement is created by the chosen construction. But where and how you placed those lines or the choices about the construction are actually choices about movement.

Movement is one of my favorite things about creating in three dimensions. It took me a long time to be brave enough to work in pieces that move. Why does that take courage? Because a piece that moves changes and has not one look but a multitude of looks. We are used to seeing artwork, when on display or in photographs, facing us in one neutral position where it hangs or sits still. But just as sculpture in the round will look different as you walk around it, any object that is worn or used functionally will look different as the wearer moves or the user works with it, especially when it moves and that means you aren’t always going to be able to have complete control over what the viewer of the work will see because movement means a piece will change.

Movement is actually such a big part of design and I have so much to show you on this subject, that I’m going to split this up into two or three posts. Today let’s focus on work that has physical, kinetic movement and in jewelry in particular, but keep in mind that movement isn’t just for jewelry!

 

Moving Right Along

One way to add really dynamic movement that also forces you to just rip the Band-Aid off and give in to the constant change in composition that the movement will create is to dangle a lot of individual elements in a cluster. As you see in the necklace by Natalya Aleksandrova below, the gathering of elements is going to sway and rearrange itself as the wearer moves.

However, unlike the designs of this type that utilize wire, each bead element is on a leather cord looped around a thick collection of cords, a combination that limits the amount of movement since leather on leather does not move smoothly. If this was a single cord necklace, or better yet, a thick metal wire wrapping around the neck, and the elements were attached using metal wire loops, the beads would swing far more freely. Here the beads still move but, for what is normally a very kinetic type of design, that energy will be restrained. I think that actually works in this highly organic design as you rarely see organic elements in nature swinging as freely as these would if on metal loops.

 

The above is really a subtle example of what I think this next piece does really well. You see, you can use your choice of movement to add a touch of realism or connection to the real thing it represents or was inspired by. The feather set below is also Natalya’s work. You can see how well polymer can emulate the texture of a feather, but you know it could never move like one. Breaking these feathers up into multiple sections allows the pieces to flutter and at least harken back to the movement of a feather when on a bird.

 

Necklaces and earrings are not the only pieces that this kind of energetic movement can be added to. The pin you see opening this post is by Celie Fago and was originally created for Dan Cormier’s fantastic Broken Telephone Project. It is not the still little creation one might normally associate with brooches. The leaves of the pin flutter, not unlike leaves on a tree. The light and almost whimsical movement of the leaves plays well with the very open design and its flowing lines which themselves create visual movement (more on visual movement in a week or two).

 

Celie’s work also tends to include a lot of movement, so we’ll look at one more of hers as well, but this time her bracelets. Bracelets move up and down an arm, making movement almost inherent in the idea of a bracelet. Dangles and charms are also not uncommon for bracelets, especially chain types, but they are fairly uncommon for bangle versions. The way Celie adds movement to her bangles is genius – the rings and charms on these bangles move the way the bangle itself would move up and down an arm, like tiny bangles on the bangle. This type of movement creates some of the most dynamic movement you can get in a bracelet.

We’ve been looking at a lot of horizontal or circular compositions for movement but another way to have movement in a design is with a stack of elements that you hinge so they can swing somewhat independently. I love this design because the long vertical automatically gives the piece a sense of strength and boldness—characteristics intrinsic in vertical designs–especially when it’s really long. The movement as a kind of sophisticated energy because instead of pieces swinging in multiple directions, the whole line tends of beads or elements tend to move together.

Below is a piece by Carla Benedetti, with each component being attached to the one above it by jump ring hinges. The whole vertical line of elements will swing side to side and forward and back, fluidly, and all together. Using relatively large elements gives this vertical stack some weight which pulls the whole piece against the body when the wearer is upright and helps to keep the pieces lined up as it swings. In other words, the composition of this piece really doesn’t change even though it will move and sway. This allows for all the elements to be easily seen and gives you more control over the composition that the viewer will see while still harvesting the energy that movement imparts.

Let’s make this a two-pieces-per artists-post with a second piece by Carla! Another way to add movement while holding onto the composition somewhat, is to create layers of chains or beads that can move individually or altogether, to varying degrees. Multi-strand necklaces like the one below gives you the opportunity to change up and create contrast between the strands with both the forms, elements, type of strand, and even how much each one can move. For instance, the chained strands on here will move much more than the densely beaded ones. As a result, this piece has more dynamic energy than Carla’s vertical composition above, but the construction keeps it from being just a jumble.

 

I’m telling you there is so much to this whole movement in design thing. There are tons of examples of movements in pieces that are not jewelry, but I don’t seem to have time for that this post. Let me get a bunch of those together for you for next week and then maybe we’ll get to visual movement after that if we are all still having just a ton of fun with this.

 

If You’re Feeling Moved

I strongly believe that all choices in a piece of art should be intentional in order to bring out all the potential that your design has and, of course, that includes deciding how much, if any, movement your piece will have.

You can start thinking about movement now by looking at pieces that you’ve previously created or designs you have in progress on your table or in your sketchbook. Ask yourself, “Does this have movement or stillness and how well does that fulfill the need of the design?” Or, “Would this benefit from more movement, less movement, or no movement?”  If you can get yourself to regularly think about movement in your work, you’ll be thrilled with the many options you have to add energy, atmosphere, and interest in your pieces. All you need to do is think about how movement should or could play into your designs to have a myriad of new possibilities suddenly open up before your eyes.

 

All Quiet on the Home Front

Strangely enough, I very little to report on the house and health situation. This is not to say that I’ve not been extremely busy, because I have. Getting this house back together is quite the huge task and there are dozens upon dozens of little things that need to be taken care of, things that might be barely noticed by others except if they were not done or finished properly.

I have started to feel some work withdrawal, however, and I think it’s keeping me up at night because some nights I just can’t fall asleep even though I don’t have anything overly stressful on my mind. I think I just feel a little out of touch. Thank goodness I have this blog to look forward to so I can connect with all of you!

 

Last Days of the DAMAGE SALE

 

The last few days I actually did do a fair amount of work although it wasn’t in production or writing. We had our Damage Sale and, holy moly, was that crazy! We sold out of half the stock in the first two hours. I think that may be a record!

Feeling bad for anybody who didn’t get to read the newsletter right after it was sent out, I went through the unopened boxes in my storage space, opening and pulling out many of the so often damaged first and last copies in the boxes, and found some publications that took some damage during shipping that was unnoticeable until boxes were opened.

So, the sale items were restocked some and even today there are still a decent number of magazines and books, in slightly imperfect condition, that are available for up to 60% off. You can get to the sale page here.

The sale will go on through Wednesday September 11th, or until all items are sold out, whichever comes first. I only sell the imperfect copies for one week each year because it’s a bear to track them separately from the other items on an ongoing basis, so you’ll want to grab these deals now while they are still available.

 

Well I am off to work on the Mosaic backsplash I am creating for the kitchen. I promise to share that when there’s any real visual progress but right now it’s just a lot of cutting little tiles. Do enjoy the rest of your weekends and have a beautifully inspired and moving week!

 

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Tile Talk

May 12, 2019
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Do you ever stop to ask yourself if what you create makes you happy? It seems like a silly question since creating is usually passion driven so being able to feed that passion should make you happy, right? But have you ever found yourself creating something because you believe it is the kind of thing other people would like but later realize that you don’t enjoying making it?

I found that happened a lot when I was a selling artist. You get wrapped up in what you think the market would want, what you think will sell best at the next show, and you’d be just making things for the money and not because it’s what you want to make. Other times we think that in a particular material, like polymer clay, it is best used for certain forms such as jewelry and home decor. But as we all know, polymer can do almost anything and yet 85% of it being created and shared online is jewelry. Jewelry is pretty fun stuff to make, sure, but if you enjoy polymer, just keep in mind you don’t have to make jewelry.

I myself have been moving away from jewelry. A pendant or pair of earrings are oftentimes still the best items to create to show off a polymer technique for a magazine article or tutorial but more and more, I create objects without an end goal in mind and am really enjoying just making little objects and samples of techniques. Last year, I started to see patterns and connections between them and eventually started putting them in shadow boxes. You can see an example of one of my “specimen” boxes in the latest Polymer Journeys book, if you’re curious. I’m also trying to devise a class for doing it. It’s so much fun!

But when I have to create jewelry because I am vetting an article for the magazine or want to make a gift, I have lately found that I don’t look forward to the engineering of it – figuring out how it is going to hang, what stringing material will work best, what findings I need, as well as worrying about comfort and durability. I find I don’t want to think about those things when I create and it’s not out of some kind of laziness, it’s just not what I want to spend my mental and creative energy on, and I’m good with that. I just really want to follow creative paths that make me happy right now.

To that end (and because I’ve spent so much time in tile stores lately), I’ve decided I might just focus on tiles for a while. They are a very freeing form. A tile is just a canvas for 3D materials. You can do whatever you want on them. You can make them any size, any shape, and can attach whatever you want or attack it however you want. I think we really should all give ourselves the freedom to play with this form, to let ourselves be free to create from the heart with a material we love. At the end of a session of tile making, you may find you are really looking forward to creating necklaces or making beads or covering vases. But I am going to suggest you give a tile a try here and there to just let yourself create freely. Doing this can help with your designs in other forms.

To that end, of course, I’m going to share some tiles this weekend. I am going to share a lot of non-polymer ones because I think, if you’ve spent any time online, you’ve probably seen your share of polymer tiles these last few years, especially with the Fimo 50 year challenge a couple of years back and with the common inches exchanges (inches are just tiny tiles). So, I’ve got a quite a mix for you but it is all art that can translate to polymer even if it is in another material.

 

Laying it All Out

The opening image of this post is a photo from a class conducted by Laurie Mika. She is well-known for her colorful and intricate collage/mosaic pieces which, by the way, she teaches at various events. This collection of student work was from a polymer clay tapestry class she taught at the SAMA (Society of American Mosaic Artists) conference in Nashville just a few of weeks ago. They are all just lovely. There is no high-end technical skill needed to put these types of things together which makes them ideal for exploring color and texture and just letting yourself go. (You can check Laurie’s workshop schedule on her website.)

Jael Thorp caught my eye some years back with her “clay doodles”, including the one below. I thought they looked like zentangles for clayers. Can you imagine the flow state she must’ve been in to create this? You can just get so completely lost in this kind of work and that is a big part of why people find tiles such a wonderful creative outlet.

Check out this post with her various doodles from some years back. She went on to refine her technique, making beautiful beads and home decor with the same type of application. You can find them on her Flickr photostream.

 

Let’s move from polymer to ceramics now. It is a rare thing in ceramics that can’t be replicated in some fashion in polymer so I find ceramic art quite inspiring. Here is one of my favorite tile makers in ceramics, Chris Gryder, who has gone a bit more three-dimensional of late but his tile compositions are timeless.

In this composition, each tile is its own separate piece but he’s connected them all with these lines that he creates through the grid of tiles. So, really, you can make a whole bunch of tiles without worrying about what they’re going to end up as, and then, if you want to put them together as a composition because they have a similar or complementary set of color palettes, textures, or motifs, you can use lines that flow throughout to visually connect them for a larger composite composition. This approach would allow you to just make tiles as the muse directs and then you can later make them into a larger wall piece.

If you like this piece, go browse through his website or his Instagram page for more fantastic inspiring wall compositions in tile.

 

Keep in mind, just because tiles start out flat, they are not two-dimensional and you can create extremely three-dimensional pieces on them. Here’s one example with some very organic forms and textures created by Lauren Blakey, another ceramic artist.

 

And here’s another three-dimensional example in glass by Shayna Leib.

As you can see, tile work is open to all types of materials so keep that in mind as you sit down to tile. Mix in anything that your heart and muse desires. Mix and match mediums, embed oddball trinkets you’ve kept for, as yet, unknown reasons, and just keep an open mind.

After pulling these examples for you, I realized that all the examples are squares here. You don’t have to create square tiles to play with but that is the more common form. However, if you’re not feeling square, try a free form shape or an oblong one or maybe, because today is Mother’s Day, create a big heart for all the mothers out there. Happy Mother’s Day to all you amazing women!

Here’s a heart from Tina Ruppert of Wisecrackin’ Mosaics on Etsy. Pick a favorite shape and a bunch of canes or other scraps of clay and you can do something along these lines as well.

 

Getting Squared Away

I’m going to leave you with these thoughts and hopefully some curiosity about playing around with a tile or two, in whatever form and techniques interest you. If you need some jumpstart tutorials, here are a few places you can go:

Sara Evans has a video about her tile making process here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FAxYwgJfLo

If you want to do something tile like but still want it to be something functional when done, maybe you would like this polymer clay tile box tutorial –

https://mermaidsden.com/blog/2015/02/12/polymer-clay-tile-box

Or have fun with one of our true masters of polymer clay tiles, Chris Kapono, with her very detailed and yet tremendously fun tile project in the Polymer Arts Projects book which you can purchase and download digitally if you need it immediately or order the print edition from our website.

I opened with a discussion about doing what makes you happy and hope it gives you some food for thought. If you want to hear a couple of transformative stories in that vein, please be sure to get your copy of The Polymer Studio Issue #2, recently released, which starts and ends with stories about finding one’s happy place with one about Christine Dumont’s studio complete with a visual tour, and the other about Donna Greenberg’s focus moving from jewelry to large wall art. Check out the Issue #2 Sampler if you haven’t seen the new issues yet.

 

We’re daily trying to find are happy place over here as our house has continued to be demolished more and more, beyond what we (or our contractor) expected even. Old plumbing can be a tricky thing! If it would just warm up here, it wouldn’t be so bad. A cold Southern California in May is just weird.

I’d share progress shots of the house but it’s pretty much just down to studs and busted up concrete floors. Oh… And a large trench across the whole of the front yard for a new drain line. I’m thinking about making it into a moat. Like a habitrail (if you remember those hamster houses) for our pond fish. They could just swim circles around the house! Okay, probably not but gotta have fun with all this bedlam, even if it’s just dreaming up nonsense like that!

I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday and Mother’s Day! I’m off to have mimosas with the family’s fabulous females myself! Enjoy the day and your coming week!

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Splitting the Difference

April 21, 2019
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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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The Contrast Conundrum

March 31, 2019
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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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Man-made Handmade

March 3, 2019
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Have you noticed that most people who work in polymer will cite nature as their primary inspiration? Do you, or would you, too? But isn’t it ironic that, as inspired as we are by nature, we work with a wholly man-made material? I’ve been thinking about this because, as I polished up the Polymer Journeys 2019 book, I was making notes on some of the trends and I noticed that all but three people who cited their inspiration said they were inspired by nature. It got me to thinking about why we aren’t more inspired by the man-made world, as rich and diverse as it is.

My curiosity piqued, I did some research and made more notes to see if, for one, my perception was correct in that polymer artists look to nature more than anything and, secondly, to see what things other than nature inspire people. So, the observations that inspiration from nature is predominant in polymer art was upheld by all I looked through. I also found it interesting that, when it boils down to it, nearly everything in almost all art forms looks to be inspired by nature or by man-made styles and designs that themselves were inspired by nature. To see examples of where nature is inspiration for man-made design, just take a look at styles such as Baroque or Art Deco. Flowers, trees, leaves, vines, butterflies, birds, and a myriad of other natural flora and fauna are evident sources of inspiration in the forms and lines of those styles. We might be inspired by the designs of that age but the inspiration is still rooted in nature.

However, I did my best to find pieces that were inspired by man-made objects, scenes, or styles. Let me tell you, it was not terribly easy but just because it is less often turned to does not mean it doesn’t have wonderful forms, colors, motifs, and textures for all of us. Let’s take a look at some of the work created by polymer artists who are inspired by the man-made.

A Gallery of Man-made Inspiration

One of the first people who came to mind when thinking about man-made inspiration was Cornelia Brockstedt. She has had several series such as “Street Life” and her “City” bangles. She also did a series of what she called “graphical studies” in 2015. So I went to her Flickr photo stream to find something to share with you and it struck me that, even with the graphical tendencies and inspiration taken from city life, there is so much organic that shows up in her work. This tended to be true with a lot of artists. This pendant, one of my favorite pieces of hers, was inspired by sidewalks and the grass that grows up from around it. So it was inspired by man-made walkways but with contrast in the nature that is still sneaking in.

 

Another artist who came to mind, even before I started my search, was Sona Grigoryan.  She did a lovely series of polymer and resin pieces inspired by the Barcelona cathedrals and stained-glass windows she sees where she lives.

 

And of course, we have to consider the work of the Georg Dinkel who is inspired by architecture and machinery to the extent that even when he decides to create some creatures, they too look mechanical. He is also, apparently, inspired by literature and humor, as this Don Quixote scene he set up with two of his mechanized creatures hints at.

 

And, when talking mechanical, we certainly can’t ignore the influence of the mechanical from movements like steampunk. From jewelry to sculpture to journals and phone cases, this style is everywhere but it’s hard to say whether polymer found steampunk or steampunk found polymer first. The steampunk monster heart that opened this post is a sculpture by Kimberly Hart who posts under MonsterKookies on Etsy.

Carol Blackburn, whose work is so colorful and graphic, often cites fashion styles and movements as her source of inspiration. I think these fall under her “Missoni” fashion inspired line.

 

Another artist who seems quite enamored of fabric but also of metal and other man-made textures is Nikolina Otrzan. Mostly, she’s just a texture fiend but you’ll notice that her textures generally have a certain uniformity to them that automatically makes them feel that they would be man-made in origin, whether they were intended to or not. Even her shapes, like these tube pieces, reflect a penchant for uniformity that is beautifully balanced with her choice of rough or edge softening surface treatments.

 

So has this got you pondering the possibilities of man-made forms and textures as a source of inspiration for you? I know I’ve been looking at the shapes in my house, the walls in the neighborhood, and the forms on the buildings I pass with new eyes.

Going for Man-made

Freebies

If you want to try a few man-made inspired textures or forms, there are quite a few out there although the quick and free were a bit more scarce. Nonetheless, here are a few pages with related free tutorials. You’ll want to pop the last two URLs into Google translate if it doesn’t automatically translate for you:

Tutorial Shops

Your best sources of tutorial with man-made inspiration are going to cost a couple of bucks, but are well worth it. Here are some of my favorite shops for this:

 

A Bit o’ News

And now for a few tidbits about things going on in the polymer community you might want to know about:

Vote for the 2018 International Polymer Clay Awards!

The International Polymer Clay Association member voting is now open through March 8. Active members should have received an email with a link for your ballot. If your membership has expired please renew at www.theipca.org before March 8, 2019 so that you may vote for your favorites.

Dan Cormier and Tracy Holmes Online Courses

Dan and Tracy have recently announced the lineup for their 2019 online Master Classes. Check out the present information and sign up for future announcements on their website here.

Polymer Journeys 2019 has been released!
  • Our latest publication, the second installment of the Polymer Journeys retrospective series was released this morning in digital format for those who purchased early or otherwise supported the project. (It was noon PST time if you need to search your inbox or your spam folder if not there.)
  • Print Pre-orders (ordered prior to Feb 27th) will go into the mail a little later than we had hoped but will be shipped directly from the printer on March 6. Our shipment should be our doorstep March 8, so newer orders will ship out as soon as we have them in our hot little hands. Buy yours here if you haven’t yet. (We’ve already sold half our print run so don’t wait too long!)
  • BOGO Half Off! We’ve added special package pricing for the new book … Purchase both the 2016 and 2019 edition of Polymer Journeys with half off the 2016 book, or get both the print and digital edition of the new 2019 book with half off the digital. No promo code needed. Packages available here when you click on the Polymer Journeys book cover here.
  • The Polymer Arts Collection on sale for HALF off! Purchases the whole collection of The Polymer Arts and get HALF off  the entire package – all 29 Digital issues or the 23 Print issues we still have available. If you want to collect them, now would be the time!

Until next week, have an inspired and creative Sunday and upcoming week!

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Ring Riot

February 17, 2019
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Have you ever made a polymer ring? It’s not one of the most popular jewelry forms in the medium which seems a little strange because they’re fairly easy to make. Maybe it’s a durability question – will the polymer ring stand up to the knocking and scraping rings have to go through? I’m not sure how they would fare if worn day in and day out but I, myself, have several polymer rings which still look as good today as the day I made them and the unusual and fantastic things you can do with polymer make them a really eye-catching piece of adornment that you’ll get lots of questions about an attention for.

There are so many different types of polymer rings you can make. You can wrap clay onto a form such as small glass bottles, sockets (for socket wrenches), and short bits of metal pipe (try pipe connectors.) You can skip the ring construction and just apply polymer to a metal ring blank. They come as bands with open channels that you can put canes and veneers in, or with a blank bezel for cabochons or sculptural elements. You can also simply create a block of clay that you punch a hole into for the finger to go through. Alternately, you can free-form the ring by hand, cure it, and then carve it into the shape and size you need. There are so many ways to make rings!

The one downside about rings, especially if you are selling them, is that you will need different sizes. Making a selection to show the style but then offering custom-made rings is one way around this but the other way is to just make simple rings that you can create a lot of and only in three or four popular sizes.  This way you have those smaller inexpensive, impulse buy items to sell at your fair booth or online. And rings are easy items to sell especially at an inexpensive price point. They’re fun little bits of adornment and you don’t even really need them to match your outfits!

But if you want to create and sell one-of-a-kind rings, choose an average ring size and keep the band thickness and style wide enough to either sand down to create a larger size or add a layer of clay to create a smaller size. There are also adjustable ring blanks if you just need a base for attaching your polymer forms and elements onto.

So now that I have you thinking about rings, let’s take a look at some great polymer ring creations to further get your inspiration going.

Let’s start with one of those ring blank ideas. Here Janine Müller shows how creative you can get with a ring bezel. It doesn’t need to be a solid polymer cabochon. It can be layered or carved or hand-tooled or drilled. I’m not sure what her approach is here but the take away here is that you can try your own preferred surface treatments to create a unique ring in a bezel blank.

 

If you want to try an all polymer ring in a quick and easy but fun form, roll out those clay sheets and try a stacked set like these ingenious mix-and-match rings by Florence Minne-Khou. Clean cuts and a little sanding is about the most difficult aspect of a project like this so there’s hardly any excuse to not try it.

 

If you like getting sculptural with your work, you can go in a number of directions. Keep it simple but elegant with uncomplicated and cleanly shaped rings. Start by wrapping them around a solid form to start, and then sculpt the clay. These pieces from Angela Garrod are likely created in that fashion.

 

Or swirl them well into the third dimension with a folded form like this intriguing finger form from Sona Grigoryan.

 

Or just go completely wild and don’t worry about the functional aspect. Just make something out of this world. Perhaps this rather celestial feeling ring by Donna Greenberg will get you to push the limits of what you can do with a ring form.

 

If you are primarily a cane clayer, don’t think that rings–even sculptural rings–are not for you. Take note of Jana Roberts Benzon’s creative cane slicing and build up your own gorgeously detailed rings.

 

Oh, I could keep going with these! Just put “polymer rings” into a search on Pinterest, Instagram, Etsy or Flickr and you’ll see a ton more to get you thinking. But if you want some step by step instructions to help get you started on what could be a really addictive form, try this block cut ring tutorial from Ludmila Bakulina aka Sweety Bijou. This would be good for scraps too!

 

Okay … going to have to cut and run but I hope I have left you with some exciting possibilities. I’m on the road today but will be back next weekend with more food for thought and pretty things to ponder. Also, don’t forget to pre-order your Polymer Journeys 2019 before the 22nd. Release date is now March 2! Get yours at www.tenthmusearts.com

 

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One Element at a Time

February 3, 2019
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I don’t know if you have ever considered, or found important, the fact that most polymer art is a collection of elements constructed into a single piece. Yes, I know I am stating the obvious here but consider the fact that most polymer art is put together in such a way as to make the individual elements blend into a cohesiveness whole. Have you ever considered that maybe each element can be its own little piece of art, even if it’s to be a part of something bigger?

If you make the work about each individual elements and not the single composition they are part of, you should be able to give yourself more freedom in the creative process. The idea would be to just focus on the single component in front of you without regard for the other parts it may eventually be joined with. Since you don’t have to consider any other elements you should be able to just let your mind and hands go play. You could, in fact, just create tons of individual pieces and then pull together the ones that you find relate and from that create a finished piece. There would be no pressure to make things work together or fit. Does that sound intriguing?

 

Elemental Artists

There are a lot of artists that do this almost exclusively. When Debbie Crothers creates, a finished piece is usually the last thing on her mind. She is in love with seeing what the material will do and spends most of her time playing and exploring. Once her stock builds up, or just whenever the bug bites her, then she will create finished pieces of wearable art.

Recently she has also been incorporating her love of found objects as you can see in the image above. This is just a part of a very long necklace of Debbie’s. (The whole of which I’ve not seen her posted anywhere but will be featured in the upcoming Polymer Journeys 2019 book. Look for pre-sale announcements this coming week.) Each individual component definitely stands on its own here since each individual polymer and found object component is framed. But you can also see, if you look at her work on Facebook or on her website, that her pieces are almost always a variety show, one that features the results of her exploration and just having fun with the clay.

Another cool thing about this type of artwork is that the viewer will probably want to look at each and every individual component. Just the variety heightens the interest in these kinds of pieces which means the people viewing it will spend more time looking at it and more time appreciating your work. That can really help in terms of sales too because the more time someone spends looking at a piece the more likely they will be to want to buy it.

I think this kind of intrigue born of variety may be the primary draw when it comes to the jewelry of Olga Ledneva. This piece you see here is a bit more dense and has more potential movement than her newer work but I thought it was also a good example of how all these pieces, together, create a textural canvas since they are all kind of dangling on top of each other, and yet, as cohesive as it feels, you still want to look carefully at each piece in the assembly. Olga’s Facebook page and Flickr photostream are good places to look around for other assembled element ideas.

I know those  two ladies make some pretty interesting and complex components but don’t think you have to go to that extent. The individual elements you create in this process can be as simple as punched out squares such as you might see in one of Laurie Mika’s mosaics. I am such a fan of this kind of free-form collage work, one that allows you to simply show off the characteristics you love about working with clay. You can assemble bits of your alcohol ink treated sheets, mokume gane, complex canes, impressed clay components, or hand sculpted forms. A mosaic or even a necklace of just simple shapes can let those treatments and colors shine, each on their own.

Of course, this approach isn’t just for polymer clay. This brilliant green assemblage necklace by an artist known only as Gebrufa is all fabric and fiber, although some components could as easily have been polymer. My guess would be that she gave herself just the restriction of a limited color palette but otherwise made all the individual pieces as whimsy led her. Should you want to know that you can have a cohesive finished piece when you are done freely creating components, this kind of approach would give you a path to that while still creating with relative freedom.

 

So, have I got you thinking about the individual elements of your pieces in a different way now?

Planning and meticulously designing pieces is essential in many circumstances but letting yourself just explore can also be an important part of your artistic growth as it helps to free up and expand your creativity. Letting yourself just play can be hard to do when you don’t have a lot of time and you want the time you do have to result in finished pieces. Knowing you can focus on making great little individual components which you can later put together into a fabulous necklace or wall piece might just be the thing that gives you the license to let go and doodle away with your clay.

 

THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO:

  • Want to CLAY OUT EAST or CLAY OUT WEST? Registration for both of this multi-instructor, 4 day workshop events are open now. Clay out East is in Atlantic City, New Jersey, June 12-15th and Clay out West will be held Sept 30 – Oct 3 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Here is the link for the East event’s registration. I couldn’t scare up a link for the West event registration but you can email them at clayoutwest@aol.com to get the details.
  • Did you catch the “Make Your Own Silkscreens” article in the Summer 2018 issue of The Polymer Arts? It was so much fun to make these and right now, the company that made it so fun and easy, EZScreenPrint if having a 15% off sale but it ends today! Go here, and use coupon code JAN15. No minimum purchase required.
  • Did you know that Poly Clay Play has a Shopping Discount Club? If you go through a lot of supplies (or just tend to get overly excited around polymer clay and tools and want to buy everything you see) this discount club could help in big ways. PCP is one of my favorite shops, especially for pastes, powders, and alcohol ink. She gets them all! Go here to check out the club deal or just shop around.

Always glad to get your feedback!

Last week we did some history, this week was about how you approach your work. Did you like the subject and did it get you thinking? Or do you thoughts on other things you’d like for me to research and write about? Just let me know. Write me in the comments below this post (click here if you are reading this in an email).

 

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Creating Uncommon Mokume

January 27, 2019
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Question for you … how much do you know about the origination of mokume gane? I’m guessing you have heard it has something to do with swords but did you know that the original metal technique was a lost art until quite recently? And did you know that what we do with polymer today has virtually nothing in common with the original technique? Mokume’s history and our adaptation of it has quite a few surprises in it, many of which could really open your eyes to its possibilities.

To understand how to create great mokume in polymer, it really does help to know a bit about where it came from, not to mention that its history is a great story of fortune, loss and redemption! Or something akin to that. Here are a few statements about its history. See if you can identify which statements are a true part of its tumultuous history and which are just fantastic claims:

  1. Mokume was a sword making technique that required folding metal over and over to give the blade’s edge a rippled appearance, like wood grain.
  2. The technique was developed for purely decorative purposes.
  3. It was originally used almost exclusively to create samurai swords to be carried around as status symbols.
  4. The technique became nearly extinct due to samurai swords becoming illegal to carry in Japan in the 19th century.
  5. The technique was resurrected by a female Japanese metalsmith when she started teaching it in the US in the 1970s.

Ok, so as you might have guessed, all these statements are true! But how does knowing this help? Well, the history may be more about appreciating it’s path to polymer but how it is created in metal can help you understand how our version of it works and what you can do with it.

Here … just take a look at one of the ways it is used in metalsmithing today. You can see in the phases of making a mokume ring, just how a mokume billet (that’s what metalsmith’s call a block of metal) is layered, twisted, pounded and bent into a ring. I never would have guessed that my mokume wedding band was created in this way considering how we approach it with polymer.

Now, what if you did the exact same thing with polymer? You could build a block, cut it, twist it, open it up and form it into a dimensional ring. Or bead. Or flattened donut. Or just a long bar bead, already patterned on all sides. Do you see how knowing the origin and how else it has been used can help you see the possibilities in polymer?

Neither the decorative sword nor the above metalsmithing approach sounds or looks anything like what we do in polymer though, does it? We don’t twist or even fold polymer mokume, it rarely looks like wood grain, and it certainly isn’t going to behave (or be as hard to work with) as steel and yet, we call it mokume. Now, how did that happen?

Like most borrowed techniques, what most of us have come to think  of as polymer mokume evolved from an attempt to emulate it so it is not just some kind of translation of the technique. Slicing polymer “billets” (it’s too cool a word not to borrow too!) emulated grinding down the metal edge of a sword to reveal the visual drama of its layers. But because polymer can be manipulated in so many other ways, and because artists are a curious and exploratory lot, the technique, along with the clay, was also manipulated. This happened over and over until we ended up with the many variations we have today and even those often have little in common but the layering and the slicing.

Creating Uncommon Mokume in Your Studio

Has this started to get you thinking a bit differently about mokume? If it hasn’t let me just nudge you a bit more.

Consider this. With polymer, versus metal, we can:

  • Work in a vast and myriad array of colors.
  • Add translucent layers.
  • Include inclusions in those layers.
  • Cover the surface of layers with metal leaf, gilder’s paste, image transfers, or paint.
  • Cut down through the billet to create lines and shapes.
  • Use mica clays to create mica shift, an effect that adds color gradations and dimension around cuts and impressions.
  • Create any kind of patterning we like, from loose and organic to very regular and controlled.

How many of these methods have you tried?

Uncommon Mokume Examples

Opening this post is a necklace by Carole Aubourg’s (aka Cacofim’) that can teach us a bit about mixing and matching patterns and letting background and foreground play together. She uses mokume in balance with the other, similarly slice-dependent techniques that appear, putting the focus on the design rather than on any one pattern or technique. Then the slices don’t always cover their beads, letting the background come through. There is a lot going on here but the variety of patterns are all brought together by a cohesive color palette that all parts partake of.

Here are some splendid green and cream dimensional beads by Eugena Topina that speak to how you can control of the slices. The mokume is created with high contrast colors and a prominent pattern that is sliced to a very even depth to keep the pattern whole. She then echos the pattern on the reverse side with carving. (And lucky us … she sells a project tutorial for this necklace here for a mere $13! Go get one if you are at all intrigued.)

I don’t want to discount what metalsmiths are doing with mokume these days  either. So, no, this stylized heart pendant is not polymer but don’t you love how fine and close the mokume marks/impressions are? And why not go dense with the patterning? I have not the faintest idea how Juha Koskela created this in silver but if metalsmiths are getting wild with color in metals, I have to at least wonder a little bit if metal techniques, which have long influenced our work, might now be getting inspiration from polymer. I do like that idea, don’t you?

So, here’s another question … are you a mokume making fan and have you pushed what you know about the technique? If you have, why not share? Send links of your work in the comments below (click here if you are reading this in an email) so we can all see your work. I know I’d love to see it!

 

THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO:

Here are a few bits of general polymer news you might find of interest!

  • This Tuesday is the near legendary half off sale at Munro Crafts. Check it out and stock up!
  • Maggie Maggio and Lindly Haunani are teaching together for a 6 day spree of creativity and color, July 8th-13th. This is also partly a celebration of their highly influential book, Color Inspirations. If you like color (and who doesn’t?) and you can squeeze this into your schedule and budget, it’s a must.
  • Deadline for submitting to the IPCA Awards is in just a few days. Apply here!

 

Do you have feedback for me?

Tell me what you think of this new format and blog. I wanted to put some more meat into it but you tell me … is it too long or did you enjoy getting lost in the history and ideas? If you liked it, just drop a quick “Works for me!” or “Keep it up” in the comments below (click here if you are reading this in an email then scroll down on the page that pops up.)

If you have ways I could change or otherwise improve the new blog format, just send a short “Shorter!” or “More pics, less text.” or “More instruction than history” or whatever in the comments below (click here if you are reading this in an email). I can’t please everyone but I really want this to be as useful and inspiring as it can be so help me make this what you want and hope for!

– Sage

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