Hail Sale and Impressive Dots

July 18, 2015

Lisa stevens urchin pendants 2008Did you miss us yesterday? Sorry for the absence, but all kinds of wonderful things have been going on; they have just been keeping me buried until I couldn’t remember what day it was. For some reason I thought the last three days were all Thursday. Can you say sleep deprived?

Why is this? Well, for one, I was acting as my own administrative assistant, but only because our wonderful admin, Kat, has been off this week introducing her new baby girl to the world. Send lots of love and may the powers-that-be grant them both lots of rest!

The other thing that was overwhelming was the sale of dinged up back issues we started Thursday that was far more popular than we anticipated. I wanted to share it with you, my dear blog readers, and give you a chance to grab some yourself, but we nearly sold out in the first few hours. I had to wait until today to go through our unopened stock and find those inevitably imperfect copies so I had something to offer you. So here it is …

The Print Issue Hail Sale: Okay, hail didn’t damage these copies, mostly shipping, storing and traveling did the damage, but that’s a long name for a sale. These are ones with markings on the cover, rubbed off ink, creased corners and small tears that we won’t sell as new, but I do sell for a discount when out and about. However, they have been piling up, so we decided to make them available to you online at half price! So, these are just $5 (plus shipping). Quantities are very limited, so jump on over to my Etsy page where we’ve listed them. That way, sold out issues will drop off instead of sitting there teasing you when there aren’t any more left.

In my shop we are also selling all regular ‘perfect’ back issues for $8 plus shipping. If you are buying just one, it ends up being the same as buying from our website, but if you buy multiples, you will save by getting reduced shipping. So if you have been wanting to stock up on back issues in print and you don’t mind a few marks on the cover or a creased corner, this would be the time to do that!

And now some weekend art. Because we need pretties to cheer up our weekend. We’ve done all these dot pieces, but not outside polymer, so here are a few pieces by ceramicist Lisa Stevens. Wednesday’s post was also super popular, so I’m thinking a few of you who tried (or plan to try) that dotted tutorial, and these pieces made me think of a short cut way to do similar work–by just impressing with hand tools. You can use acrylic, mica powders or alcohol inks to color the holes or back fill with clay. Or brush on ink tinted liquid polymer to get a similar glazed ceramic look.

Lisa does a lot of these impression type treatments. If you want more pretty and inspiring impressed dot ideas, jump over to her Flickr pages.

If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine, as well as by supporting our advertising partners.

  TPA_McGuire_blog ad    

Dots, Lines and Tendrils

July 6, 2015

Ivana pendants

** Sorry this went up half a day late. We had an error in our scheduled time. But back to regularly scheduled postings …***

We’ve talked about using lines as design elements for direction and energy before and about dots and their use as accents and to create rhythm, but I don’t think we’ve spent much time looking at what happens when you use the two together.

There are many, many beautiful examples of using line and dots as a combined design treatment, but I think these brooches by Ivana Brozova are some truly stunning recent examples I’ve run into. In this case, dots are used to create lines. Or maybe the lines are distorted until they look like strings of dots. Either way, the effect is the same—a strong, rhythmic and directional vibrancy radiating from a center that itself is alive with slow, winding lines in the form of tendrils. It makes for rather mesmerizing work.

Ivana is rather fond of lines and dots used together. You can see more great examples in some of her older work, as well as admire Ivana’s new and rather shiny pieces on her Flickr photostream.

 

If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine, as well as by supporting our advertising partners.

 

  TPA_McGuire_blog ad    

Hail Sale and Impressive Dots

July 18, 2015
Posted in
Lisa stevens urchin pendants 2008Did you miss us yesterday? Sorry for the absence, but all kinds of wonderful things have been going on; they have just been keeping me buried until I couldn’t remember what day it was. For some reason I thought the last three days were all Thursday. Can you say sleep deprived?

Why is this? Well, for one, I was acting as my own administrative assistant, but only because our wonderful admin, Kat, has been off this week introducing her new baby girl to the world. Send lots of love and may the powers-that-be grant them both lots of rest!

The other thing that was overwhelming was the sale of dinged up back issues we started Thursday that was far more popular than we anticipated. I wanted to share it with you, my dear blog readers, and give you a chance to grab some yourself, but we nearly sold out in the first few hours. I had to wait until today to go through our unopened stock and find those inevitably imperfect copies so I had something to offer you. So here it is …

The Print Issue Hail Sale: Okay, hail didn’t damage these copies, mostly shipping, storing and traveling did the damage, but that’s a long name for a sale. These are ones with markings on the cover, rubbed off ink, creased corners and small tears that we won’t sell as new, but I do sell for a discount when out and about. However, they have been piling up, so we decided to make them available to you online at half price! So, these are just $5 (plus shipping). Quantities are very limited, so jump on over to my Etsy page where we’ve listed them. That way, sold out issues will drop off instead of sitting there teasing you when there aren’t any more left.

In my shop we are also selling all regular ‘perfect’ back issues for $8 plus shipping. If you are buying just one, it ends up being the same as buying from our website, but if you buy multiples, you will save by getting reduced shipping. So if you have been wanting to stock up on back issues in print and you don’t mind a few marks on the cover or a creased corner, this would be the time to do that!

And now some weekend art. Because we need pretties to cheer up our weekend. We’ve done all these dot pieces, but not outside polymer, so here are a few pieces by ceramicist Lisa Stevens. Wednesday’s post was also super popular, so I’m thinking a few of you who tried (or plan to try) that dotted tutorial, and these pieces made me think of a short cut way to do similar work–by just impressing with hand tools. You can use acrylic, mica powders or alcohol inks to color the holes or back fill with clay. Or brush on ink tinted liquid polymer to get a similar glazed ceramic look.

Lisa does a lot of these impression type treatments. If you want more pretty and inspiring impressed dot ideas, jump over to her Flickr pages.

If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine, as well as by supporting our advertising partners.

  TPA_McGuire_blog ad    

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Dots, Lines and Tendrils

July 6, 2015
Posted in

Ivana pendants

** Sorry this went up half a day late. We had an error in our scheduled time. But back to regularly scheduled postings …***

We’ve talked about using lines as design elements for direction and energy before and about dots and their use as accents and to create rhythm, but I don’t think we’ve spent much time looking at what happens when you use the two together.

There are many, many beautiful examples of using line and dots as a combined design treatment, but I think these brooches by Ivana Brozova are some truly stunning recent examples I’ve run into. In this case, dots are used to create lines. Or maybe the lines are distorted until they look like strings of dots. Either way, the effect is the same—a strong, rhythmic and directional vibrancy radiating from a center that itself is alive with slow, winding lines in the form of tendrils. It makes for rather mesmerizing work.

Ivana is rather fond of lines and dots used together. You can see more great examples in some of her older work, as well as admire Ivana’s new and rather shiny pieces on her Flickr photostream.

 

If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine, as well as by supporting our advertising partners.

 

  TPA_McGuire_blog ad    

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