Stack ’em Up
February 12, 2014
Inspirational Art
Stacking layers of polymer clay can be a new way of looking at this material sculpturally as well as way to combine and reveal color. Spain’s Natalia García de Leániz (known as Tatana on Flickr) makes these chunky polymer beads by stacking the sliced clay and making bold bracelets with these large design elements.
As Nataila says, “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” She works with her husband, Daniel Torres, in an “artnership” where they share ideas and yet they work in different, complementary or even opposite styles. Natalia makes all of her work in polymer clay, frequently working with textures and paint effects on clay. There are some tutorials on her website (and of CraftArtEdu) as well as a lot of additional photographs of her work. They plan to be at EuroSynergy in Malta this year, and if you want an excuse to travel to Madrid, Spain, the couple holds workshops in their studio and throughout Europe!
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
Math Art
September 27, 2013
Inspirational Art
Torolf Sauermann is an artist and a mathematician. It would be very difficult to say if he was more one than the other, but either way I do think he may be quite obsessed with what he does. Torolof creates math art–artwork that is formed by playing with mathematics. He is not the only person out there creating math art, but from the sampling I saw, no one does anything quite as intricate or nearly so much of it.
So what is math art? It is art created in mathematically based software programs using things I won’t pretend to understand like topological mesh modeling, parametric equations, and isosurfaces. In essence, these programs (to the best of my understanding) are used to manipulate mathematical models in visual forms. Torolf then has them printed using a 3D printer which, using extremely thin layers of plastic resin, builds the models from the ground up so they can then exist out in the world. One might imagine a piece developed through math might be rigid, but that is not always the case. Just look at this intriguing piece–it appears extremely organic.
I brought Torlof up today not only because he’s an artist and a guy to go with our theme this week, but because he was introduced to our community for the first time through one of our polymer guys, Dan Cormier, at Synergy 2 a few years back. And his work, which you can check out here on his website, also sometimes looks like Daniel Torres‘ hollow polymer forms. I’m sure it’s wholly coincidental, but it is kind of cool to see two very analytical guys coming up with similar forms.
Speaking of Dan Cormier and the things he brings our attention to … over at The Cutting Edge, Dan and Tracy are giving away signed copies of the issues of Ornament and The Polymer Arts that featured articles on The Broken Telephone Project. If you want to get in on that drawing, send them an EMAIL, FORWARD this news to a friend, COMMENT on our Facebook page, or SHARE their Facebook post with others.
Carving Hollow Polymer
March 4, 2013
Inspirational Art
I thought you all would really like the gourd art I posted on Friday’s but wow … I’ve never received so many emails about how blown away you were by any single thing we’ve posted. (By the way, if you really like a post and you get this by email, instead of replying to the email, click the title link to leave a message on the blog post so you can share your thoughts with everyone, not just me. Much more fun that way!) The idea of carving polymer in such a fashion has grabbed more than a few people’s imagination.
I don’t want you all to let the idea drop by the wayside either. It can and has been done in intricate detail. Perhaps you saw some of Daniel Torres’ hollow bracelets year before last as images made the rounds due to his appearance at the 2011 Clay Carnival. If you missed them, here is one of his more ‘hole’y pieces.
Now, Daniel uses a very cool but specific technique to make these. You would really need to take a class with him to do this kind of hollow form work (He is a fountain of information and a really intelligent and funny guy to boot so if you have the chance to take a class with him, don’t hesitate!) But similar work could be done by using half round forms or something else dimensional but not requiring tricky hollow form processes.
My mind is still spinning with ideas although I’m so occupied with getting ready for Synergy 3 and all the usual magazine business that I won’t be able to try anything out until later this month. I hope those of you who have expressed trying a bit of carving won’t have to wait. Go to it and please do share with me what you do.
Speaking of sharing, there are just two more days to get in work to be considered for the polymer clay show at the Flow Arts Gallery this Spring. The Polymer Clay Guild of Minnesota has organized the national show for polymer clay artists. It’s a juried exhibition with over $500 in awards. Here is the link to submit: http://www.flowartspace.com/submit-work.html Go forth and share! (And win some bucks if you can!)
Stacking layers of polymer clay can be a new way of looking at this material sculpturally as well as way to combine and reveal color. Spain’s Natalia García de Leániz (known as Tatana on Flickr) makes these chunky polymer beads by stacking the sliced clay and making bold bracelets with these large design elements.
As Nataila says, “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” She works with her husband, Daniel Torres, in an “artnership” where they share ideas and yet they work in different, complementary or even opposite styles. Natalia makes all of her work in polymer clay, frequently working with textures and paint effects on clay. There are some tutorials on her website (and of CraftArtEdu) as well as a lot of additional photographs of her work. They plan to be at EuroSynergy in Malta this year, and if you want an excuse to travel to Madrid, Spain, the couple holds workshops in their studio and throughout Europe!
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
Torolf Sauermann is an artist and a mathematician. It would be very difficult to say if he was more one than the other, but either way I do think he may be quite obsessed with what he does. Torolof creates math art–artwork that is formed by playing with mathematics. He is not the only person out there creating math art, but from the sampling I saw, no one does anything quite as intricate or nearly so much of it.
So what is math art? It is art created in mathematically based software programs using things I won’t pretend to understand like topological mesh modeling, parametric equations, and isosurfaces. In essence, these programs (to the best of my understanding) are used to manipulate mathematical models in visual forms. Torolf then has them printed using a 3D printer which, using extremely thin layers of plastic resin, builds the models from the ground up so they can then exist out in the world. One might imagine a piece developed through math might be rigid, but that is not always the case. Just look at this intriguing piece–it appears extremely organic.
I brought Torlof up today not only because he’s an artist and a guy to go with our theme this week, but because he was introduced to our community for the first time through one of our polymer guys, Dan Cormier, at Synergy 2 a few years back. And his work, which you can check out here on his website, also sometimes looks like Daniel Torres‘ hollow polymer forms. I’m sure it’s wholly coincidental, but it is kind of cool to see two very analytical guys coming up with similar forms.
Speaking of Dan Cormier and the things he brings our attention to … over at The Cutting Edge, Dan and Tracy are giving away signed copies of the issues of Ornament and The Polymer Arts that featured articles on The Broken Telephone Project. If you want to get in on that drawing, send them an EMAIL, FORWARD this news to a friend, COMMENT on our Facebook page, or SHARE their Facebook post with others.
I thought you all would really like the gourd art I posted on Friday’s but wow … I’ve never received so many emails about how blown away you were by any single thing we’ve posted. (By the way, if you really like a post and you get this by email, instead of replying to the email, click the title link to leave a message on the blog post so you can share your thoughts with everyone, not just me. Much more fun that way!) The idea of carving polymer in such a fashion has grabbed more than a few people’s imagination.
I don’t want you all to let the idea drop by the wayside either. It can and has been done in intricate detail. Perhaps you saw some of Daniel Torres’ hollow bracelets year before last as images made the rounds due to his appearance at the 2011 Clay Carnival. If you missed them, here is one of his more ‘hole’y pieces.
Now, Daniel uses a very cool but specific technique to make these. You would really need to take a class with him to do this kind of hollow form work (He is a fountain of information and a really intelligent and funny guy to boot so if you have the chance to take a class with him, don’t hesitate!) But similar work could be done by using half round forms or something else dimensional but not requiring tricky hollow form processes.
My mind is still spinning with ideas although I’m so occupied with getting ready for Synergy 3 and all the usual magazine business that I won’t be able to try anything out until later this month. I hope those of you who have expressed trying a bit of carving won’t have to wait. Go to it and please do share with me what you do.
Speaking of sharing, there are just two more days to get in work to be considered for the polymer clay show at the Flow Arts Gallery this Spring. The Polymer Clay Guild of Minnesota has organized the national show for polymer clay artists. It’s a juried exhibition with over $500 in awards. Here is the link to submit: http://www.flowartspace.com/submit-work.html Go forth and share! (And win some bucks if you can!)
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