New book! Polymer Art Projects—Coming October 20th
September 10, 2018 Inspirational Art, Polymer community news, The Polymer Arts magazine news
This week is going to be a series of announcements but I promise, they will all be very exciting, they will all be polymer, and they will all give you something you can look forward to as we move into fall and winter (or spring and summer if you’re down under.)
First up… I can finally announce and show off the cover of the first in an upcoming series of books, Polymer Art Projects. This series arose from your consistent request for more projects and a desire to support and promote our great artists, so, after many conversations, I came up with this cooperative book project. All contributing artists in the book will be part of a promotion and profit sharing team. That means they are highly motivated to provide you with some truly fantastic material on top of looking forward to sharing their love of polymer art.
For less than a couple of dollars each, you get 16 tutorials that will expand your abilities under the guidance of some of the polymer community’s best instructors. The skill level of these tutorials range from the experienced novice to the intermediate artisan, with tips and ideas for polymer crafters of all levels. The tutorials are very detailed, each showing off a variety of techniques, expert construction, and lists of ideas for variation so you can create your own unique pieces from what you learn.
The first in the series, Polymer Art Projects—Organic, includes tutorials by Donna Greenberg, Christi Friesen, Eva Haskova, Anke Humpert, Debbie Crothers, Kim Cavender, Stephanie Kilgast, Chris Kapono, Stacy Louise Smith, Nevenka Sabo, Adriana Allen, Dani Rapinett, Fabiola Ajates, Rebecca Thickbroom, Klavdija Kurent, and little ol’ me. Projects include a variety of jewelry as well as home decor, all inspired by mother nature.
Check out the cover for a sampling of what you can look forward to. The cover price for the print edition of this book will be $23.95 but for the next month, you can preorder for $16.75 – that’s 30% off the cover price. Or maybe you’d like a digital edition which will list for $15.95 – you can preorder the digital edition for just $11.95. These preorder prices are good through October 10th.
Don’t forget the last issue of The Polymer Arts comes out September 22. Preorder this last historic copy on The Polymer Arts website.
Summer 2018 is here! The Big Picture
May 21, 2018 Inspirational Art
Yesterday, the “Summer 2018 – Everything in Its Place” issue of The Polymer Arts was released digitally and the print issues were at the post office getting sorted on Friday. If you are expecting a digital edition, look in your inbox (check spam/junk mail folders if it’s not there) and print editions will start popping up in mailboxes soon (allow up to four weeks if you are on the east or southeast end of the United States or are overseas.)
Here is a collage of some of the first pages of articles if you haven’t seen the issue yet. Click on the image to get a bigger picture.
In the meantime, let’s look at some items that didn’t make it into this packed issue.
The piece you see here is actually in the issue but it’s small and there’s so much detail it seemed a shame not to provide a larger image. (You can click on the image of the tiles to get a bigger, more detailed photo.)
This nine square inches scene was created by Chris Kapono as an example of how to use her tiny tiles methods to create a series of tiles that work together. She shows the construction of this type of tile in the article and has examples of how to lay out a version of your own.
This kind of project reminds me of the “tiny steps” philosophy of goal setting, where you take a big goal and break it down into small chunks. So if you have ever thought about doing wall art or larger pieces, take a tip from this composition and break it down into multiple sections. After mapping out the larger picture, you can create one section at a time and pretty soon, you will have a complete piece. Really makes large projects much more manageable when you can break them down in some fashion.
Check out more of Chris’s work and her tutorials in her Mandarin Moon Etsy shop.
The Summer Cover!
April 23, 2018 Inspirational Art, The Polymer Arts magazine news
This beautiful Monday, I’m sharing with you the latest cover for the upcoming issue of The Polymer Arts, graced by the beautifully balanced jewelry of Dorata Kaszczyszyn.
Summer is soon to be here and the Summer issue – themed “Everything in Its Place” – will be here next month to help you greet the season. You can look forward to such articles as:
- Looking for Balance with Christi Friesen (part of a new regular section by Christi, called “What Are You Looking at?”)
- The Art of Meredith Dittmar
- Remembering Tory Hughes
- Spilling the Beads: a textural tutorial with Nikolina Otrzan
- Tiny Tiles: a variation tutorial with Chris Kapono
- Design Your Own Silkscreens
- Translucent Silkscreen: a tutorial with Sage Bray
- Composing Photos for Every Occasion with syndee holt
- Making the Most of Your Time
- Lessons from Knitting with Ginger Davis Allman
- Colors Spotlight with Lorraine Vogel by Lindly Haunani
Renewal notices went out over the last couple weeks but if you’ve not had the chance to renew your subscription or subscribe, you’ll want to be sure to do so soon so you can be on that initial list to get the first copies fresh from the printer (or for digital readers, fresh from our server). We lock down the mailing lists in the first week of May. The release date for the summer issue is set for May 20th.
If you have questions about your subscription, you’re welcome to write us at connect@thepolymerarts.com or, if you get this by email, just hit reply. Sydney, my fabulous assistant and keeper of subscription lists, will get back to you shortly but be a little patient if it takes a day or so. She’s just getting back from a very exciting weekend … she just got married! Congrats and all the best to Sydney and Ben!
Found Inspiration
January 8, 2016 Inspirational Art
Speaking of found objects and nostalgia (we did a bit of that on Wednesday if you missed it), here is a piece I’ve had in my folder to share for quite some time. It’s an older piece by Chris Kapono and, no, the fish is not made of polymer but rather is cloisonné while the other sea creatures are brass and the big shiny blue baubles are glass. But the rest is polymer.
I don’t know if the fish was something nostalgic for Chris, but this is a wonderful example of letting something you have held onto inspire a beautiful creation. Yes, we may call ourselves polymer artists, but that should never make us feel restricted to working with just polymer. Chris certainly could have made the fish and other items from polymer, but it would give it a different feeling even if the non-polymer objects were really closely replicated.
Yes, polymer can imitate just about anything, but that doesn’t mean it should. If you have another material that will do the job or will do it even better, don’t hesitate. Creating is not about medium loyalty, it’s about expressing yourself. In the best work, the medium almost always is secondary to the image and emotion you create. Be loyal to your self-expression first, I say.
Inspiration Challenge of the Day: Go to your junk drawer, that box of broken jewelry, or those tins of bits and bobs filled with things you felt you might use someday, and pull out an object you don’t need or use. Add it to something you haven’t finished yet. If the unfinished work is polymer or another craft medium, find a way to attach and integrate it. If you have an unfinished sketch or painting, you can draw it in. If you have nothing unfinished, take some artistic idea you haven’t explored yet and try to meld it with this object in any manner you please.
___________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
___________________________________________
Tendrils for Days
October 12, 2013 Inspirational Art
It would be hard to bring up a week of squiggly, wild lines and not post something from Chris Kapono. Being a lover and creator of tendril adorned work myself, I was just tranfixed by Chris’s Flickr page when I first found it some five years ago. She goes heavy on the dots and spots as well, but it’s the movement of the lines she creates that add that really dynamic element to her work. Here is a rather tame example of her wild lines, but I thought it would be a nice change for this week since she has several kinds of wandering lines in this diptych tile piece.
The random wandering of her lines is consistent with the random scattering of elements across the tiles. She does have some lovely directional tendrils the begin or end with curls for some consistency between them. The large hill like wave of a line unites the two tiles and and gives the pieces a grounding focus. The rough band of white at the bottom is an erratic yet fluffy feeling line that pushes us to think of clouds, and that maybe we are floating above them where the starry night sky and winds have gone wild.
More of Chris’ wild lines and tendrils can be viewed on her Etsy site, Deviant Art, and, as mentioned, Flickr.
This week is going to be a series of announcements but I promise, they will all be very exciting, they will all be polymer, and they will all give you something you can look forward to as we move into fall and winter (or spring and summer if you’re down under.)
First up… I can finally announce and show off the cover of the first in an upcoming series of books, Polymer Art Projects. This series arose from your consistent request for more projects and a desire to support and promote our great artists, so, after many conversations, I came up with this cooperative book project. All contributing artists in the book will be part of a promotion and profit sharing team. That means they are highly motivated to provide you with some truly fantastic material on top of looking forward to sharing their love of polymer art.
For less than a couple of dollars each, you get 16 tutorials that will expand your abilities under the guidance of some of the polymer community’s best instructors. The skill level of these tutorials range from the experienced novice to the intermediate artisan, with tips and ideas for polymer crafters of all levels. The tutorials are very detailed, each showing off a variety of techniques, expert construction, and lists of ideas for variation so you can create your own unique pieces from what you learn.
The first in the series, Polymer Art Projects—Organic, includes tutorials by Donna Greenberg, Christi Friesen, Eva Haskova, Anke Humpert, Debbie Crothers, Kim Cavender, Stephanie Kilgast, Chris Kapono, Stacy Louise Smith, Nevenka Sabo, Adriana Allen, Dani Rapinett, Fabiola Ajates, Rebecca Thickbroom, Klavdija Kurent, and little ol’ me. Projects include a variety of jewelry as well as home decor, all inspired by mother nature.
Check out the cover for a sampling of what you can look forward to. The cover price for the print edition of this book will be $23.95 but for the next month, you can preorder for $16.75 – that’s 30% off the cover price. Or maybe you’d like a digital edition which will list for $15.95 – you can preorder the digital edition for just $11.95. These preorder prices are good through October 10th.
Don’t forget the last issue of The Polymer Arts comes out September 22. Preorder this last historic copy on The Polymer Arts website.
Read MoreYesterday, the “Summer 2018 – Everything in Its Place” issue of The Polymer Arts was released digitally and the print issues were at the post office getting sorted on Friday. If you are expecting a digital edition, look in your inbox (check spam/junk mail folders if it’s not there) and print editions will start popping up in mailboxes soon (allow up to four weeks if you are on the east or southeast end of the United States or are overseas.)
Here is a collage of some of the first pages of articles if you haven’t seen the issue yet. Click on the image to get a bigger picture.
In the meantime, let’s look at some items that didn’t make it into this packed issue.
The piece you see here is actually in the issue but it’s small and there’s so much detail it seemed a shame not to provide a larger image. (You can click on the image of the tiles to get a bigger, more detailed photo.)
This nine square inches scene was created by Chris Kapono as an example of how to use her tiny tiles methods to create a series of tiles that work together. She shows the construction of this type of tile in the article and has examples of how to lay out a version of your own.
This kind of project reminds me of the “tiny steps” philosophy of goal setting, where you take a big goal and break it down into small chunks. So if you have ever thought about doing wall art or larger pieces, take a tip from this composition and break it down into multiple sections. After mapping out the larger picture, you can create one section at a time and pretty soon, you will have a complete piece. Really makes large projects much more manageable when you can break them down in some fashion.
Check out more of Chris’s work and her tutorials in her Mandarin Moon Etsy shop.
Read MoreThis beautiful Monday, I’m sharing with you the latest cover for the upcoming issue of The Polymer Arts, graced by the beautifully balanced jewelry of Dorata Kaszczyszyn.
Summer is soon to be here and the Summer issue – themed “Everything in Its Place” – will be here next month to help you greet the season. You can look forward to such articles as:
- Looking for Balance with Christi Friesen (part of a new regular section by Christi, called “What Are You Looking at?”)
- The Art of Meredith Dittmar
- Remembering Tory Hughes
- Spilling the Beads: a textural tutorial with Nikolina Otrzan
- Tiny Tiles: a variation tutorial with Chris Kapono
- Design Your Own Silkscreens
- Translucent Silkscreen: a tutorial with Sage Bray
- Composing Photos for Every Occasion with syndee holt
- Making the Most of Your Time
- Lessons from Knitting with Ginger Davis Allman
- Colors Spotlight with Lorraine Vogel by Lindly Haunani
Renewal notices went out over the last couple weeks but if you’ve not had the chance to renew your subscription or subscribe, you’ll want to be sure to do so soon so you can be on that initial list to get the first copies fresh from the printer (or for digital readers, fresh from our server). We lock down the mailing lists in the first week of May. The release date for the summer issue is set for May 20th.
If you have questions about your subscription, you’re welcome to write us at connect@thepolymerarts.com or, if you get this by email, just hit reply. Sydney, my fabulous assistant and keeper of subscription lists, will get back to you shortly but be a little patient if it takes a day or so. She’s just getting back from a very exciting weekend … she just got married! Congrats and all the best to Sydney and Ben!
Read MoreSpeaking of found objects and nostalgia (we did a bit of that on Wednesday if you missed it), here is a piece I’ve had in my folder to share for quite some time. It’s an older piece by Chris Kapono and, no, the fish is not made of polymer but rather is cloisonné while the other sea creatures are brass and the big shiny blue baubles are glass. But the rest is polymer.
I don’t know if the fish was something nostalgic for Chris, but this is a wonderful example of letting something you have held onto inspire a beautiful creation. Yes, we may call ourselves polymer artists, but that should never make us feel restricted to working with just polymer. Chris certainly could have made the fish and other items from polymer, but it would give it a different feeling even if the non-polymer objects were really closely replicated.
Yes, polymer can imitate just about anything, but that doesn’t mean it should. If you have another material that will do the job or will do it even better, don’t hesitate. Creating is not about medium loyalty, it’s about expressing yourself. In the best work, the medium almost always is secondary to the image and emotion you create. Be loyal to your self-expression first, I say.
Inspiration Challenge of the Day: Go to your junk drawer, that box of broken jewelry, or those tins of bits and bobs filled with things you felt you might use someday, and pull out an object you don’t need or use. Add it to something you haven’t finished yet. If the unfinished work is polymer or another craft medium, find a way to attach and integrate it. If you have an unfinished sketch or painting, you can draw it in. If you have nothing unfinished, take some artistic idea you haven’t explored yet and try to meld it with this object in any manner you please.
___________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
___________________________________________
Read MoreIt would be hard to bring up a week of squiggly, wild lines and not post something from Chris Kapono. Being a lover and creator of tendril adorned work myself, I was just tranfixed by Chris’s Flickr page when I first found it some five years ago. She goes heavy on the dots and spots as well, but it’s the movement of the lines she creates that add that really dynamic element to her work. Here is a rather tame example of her wild lines, but I thought it would be a nice change for this week since she has several kinds of wandering lines in this diptych tile piece.
The random wandering of her lines is consistent with the random scattering of elements across the tiles. She does have some lovely directional tendrils the begin or end with curls for some consistency between them. The large hill like wave of a line unites the two tiles and and gives the pieces a grounding focus. The rough band of white at the bottom is an erratic yet fluffy feeling line that pushes us to think of clouds, and that maybe we are floating above them where the starry night sky and winds have gone wild.
More of Chris’ wild lines and tendrils can be viewed on her Etsy site, Deviant Art, and, as mentioned, Flickr.
Read More