June 30, 2019 Inspirational Art

Monika Duchowicz’s Slavic Village polymer journal cover

Have you ever gone to a foreign country and found yourself talking like them after being there awhile? It might just be the phrasing but perhaps you take on accents or hand gestures as well. It’s natural to adopt accents and ways of speaking when you are around it a lot. That’s how you learned to talk as a baby and your brain doesn’t completely turn off that learning from what you hear around you.

This phenomenon can happen with things other than language too. As fashion and décor changes around us, we may find our tastes get tweaked along with them. When we peruse social media sites and see artwork online, we may adopt a tendency towards certain types of design, colors, and forms. This can happen over time or even over the course of a day. That means that what you see online and around you can effect what you create.

So how do you keep your own voice and your style unaltered? Well, you can’t, really. Our aesthetic is formed from our interaction with our world but we can do something about the dominance of other influences over our own unique and personal voice. But it’s like muscle memory and that takes regular practice.

Ages ago, I read a book written in 1920 (whose title and author I have shamefully forgotten) on how to be a writer. The author had one line that really struck me. After stating he explained that a writer must get up every morning and, before doing anything else including getting out of bed, he or she must write at least a page of what we would now call free-writing, because this was the only way to insure the writer would wrote with their own voice later in the day. The section ended with him saying, “If you cannot get up and write a page every morning, then you are not a writer.”

At that point, a writer was all I wanted to be, so, fearful that I would not prove up to the task and therefore, I’d never be a real writer (I was rather young and impressionable then),  I took that line to heart and I wrote every morning, no matter what, for what was probably about 10 years. Getting married and having a family kind of threw me off the habit but I do try to go back to it each time I stray.

When I don’t do this exercise, I do find that my day to day interactions find their way into my creative work. I found out early on that if I didn’t write in the morning, or tried writing fiction or poetry after a long day of reading academic books or writing training manuals, my writing would feel awkward or stilted. It just didn’t sound like me.

I think this influence of other art we see during the day can similarly affect the art we create as well. So, as part of my morning ritual now, I write for 10-15 minutes and then sketch for about the same amount of time. It is a very pleasant way to wake up and, in the process, I flex my unique voice and get my brain geared up for creative work. I don’t always have time to work in the studio but at least every day I am flexing that visual creative muscle and, I find, it makes my creative time easier to get into when I do get to go play.

Even if you aren’t able to spend productive time creating every day, I think you would find that a morning sketch, a quick “clay doodle” (just sitting at the studio table, playing with your clay for 15 minutes), or just journaling about design ideas will go a long way to concrete you personal voice. It will also show you what you are drawn to or might give you some really unique ideas for new designs. It’s something I would highly encourage.

So, would you be up for that? If you choose to write or sketch in the mornings, you can increase your motivation by creating a beautifully covered sketchbook or journal. And since polymer clay lends itself so well to decorating just about anything, why not make a beautiful cover for a blank book, and then keep it by your bedside? With a gorgeous tome to work in, you’re sure not to miss out on a very useful and fulfilling bit of creative exercise.

A Book and It’s Cover

The first person who comes to mind when talking of polymer covered journals is Aniko Kolesnikova aka Mandarin Duck. She does some of the most interesting and detailed journal covers you can find in polymer these days. And she doesn’t do just the front. She covers the back quite often, like on this one here.

If you are the sculptural type and want a ton of ideas to get you going on a cover design of your own, check out Aniko’s Flickr photostream. If you want more than just ideas, go to her Etsy page for tutorials, including one for that gorgeous peacock cover that was featured in Polymer Journeys 2019.

The other person that comes readily to mind for polymer covered books, and is one of my early influencers, is Chris Kapono, who, like Aniko, also has an affinity for the word Mandarin for some reason, her shop being Mandarin Moon. Chris’ covers are a riotous mixed-media decoration of polymer with glass cabochons, metal charms, beads, and, sometimes, hand-drawn decoration, as you see in the border of this book below.

Books are a perfect canvas for Chris’ style of decorative polymer. She shares her process as well, through tutorials on her Etsy site and in publications such as her tremendous contribution to the Polymer Art Projects – Organics book.

If you would like to create a cover with a more painterly approach, you might aspire to the work of Monika Duchowicz. Her polymer paintings are masterful but she kindly shares process shots on her Instagram account and was so kind to create a tutorial for her style of polymer painting for The Polymer Arts in the Summer 2017 issue.

Here’s another painterly polymer artist, Zhanna Bessonova, who likes to go really large. I just didn’t want you to think it had to be a small journal or sketchbook. Pick the size of the book you want to write or draw in first, then decide the cover.

I know, I know … the work of these very talented ladies might be intimidating to some people but remember, the whole idea is to make something that can help you find and/or hold onto your unique voice so you certainly don’t need to make covers like these—make them your way! Whatever you can create on a flat sheet of polymer can become a journal cover. Create a cover with a mosaic of textured squares, tons of polymer dots, rhinestones, polymer ‘embrodiery or, heck, canes will do, of course! Strangely enough, I couldn’t really find anyone doing cane covered books. I thought clayers had hit everything with cane slices! They must be out there somewhere! (If you know of some, share the links to them in the comments at the end of this post. Click the header if you are getting this by email.)

Also keep in mind, your cover doesn’t have to be complicated. And it doesn’t have to be polymer. Use whatever you like and do as much or as little as you like on it. Look at this lovely but simple book by a French crafter who goes by shop name alone – Avenuedes Fantaisies. It’s just a polymer honeycomb background and some fun rhinestone bees that were probably pins at one time, but it feels joyful.

You really can attach anything you want to your book cover. It’s for you, so if you are up for the challenge, make it yours!

New Issue of The Polymer Studio, coming late July

If you haven’t seen the new cover roaming about social media, here it is! Debbie Crothers’s acrylic on polymer beads grace the front for issue #3. We also have tutorials by Christi Friesen, Anita Long, Beatriz Cominatto, Kathy Koontz and Nika Nakit. There is also a fascinating interview with Beatriz, Brazil’s premiere polymer artist with a branded line of polymer clay, and a peek into the studio of master miniature artist, Angie Scarr. Plus much more.

Start or renew subscriptions or pre-order a copy on the website here.

Painter for a Day

I am off to paint a bathroom today then back to polishing the next issue. We might have a fully functional bathroom by the end of the day Monday but only if I can get this part done today. It’s not that the contractors couldn’t paint it but, well, I’m cheaper—I just require some yummy baked goods and a good audiobook or podcast and I’ll work away! And, honestly, I will do a better job. When it’s your place, you just take extra care with things. So, I am off. Enjoy your Sunday and have a beautiful week! I hope you get up every morning before your mind is otherwise influenced, and you write or create something just for yourself. You deserve it!