Iconic Shapes
May 31, 2020
Inspirational Art
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 Bevy of Bezels
February 10, 2019
Inspirational Art
First, a quick announcement … the new Polymer Journeys 2019 book is now available for pre-orders!
As usual, we offer a HUGE discount for pre-ordering: $7 off the print edition cover price and $4 off the digital edition. So jump to our website to pre-order this great tome of beautiful polymer art with artist’s insights into their work as well as a historical retrospective that we hope will help continue to elevate how people see polymer in the art world and beyond.
Now onto a Bevy of Bezels …
What is your favorite kind of polymer bezel setting? Would you say you even have one? Let’s be honest, when it comes to bezels do most of us really give them a lot of thought? Some people really do but I think for many of us, when we do create one, it is probably not much more than a functional element we need in order to hold and maybe frame a stone or focal element. So, I thought this week we would take a look at what else you could do and where you can take the functional, and often essential, bezel.
Like any other element on your jewelry that can be seen, a bezel is a part of the piece’s design and so their form and finish should be quite consciously decided, which means, with polymer clay there’s a tremendous range of things that can be done with it. Mind you, there is nothing wrong with the bezel been simple and primarily functional, as long as it makes sense for the design.
That said, let’s get to the interesting point … there is so much you can do with bezels and bezel style settings in polymer clay! I could yammer on and on about all the things you can do but I think it’s better to just show you. Make notes and start considering what you do with the clay that holds in the focal pieces on your creations and how you can expand on it.
A World of Bezels
One of my favorite bezel-ers, Chris Kapono, has the most wide-ranging ways to hold down a stone with polymer. Her tile and home decor pieces are also a great examples of how bezels can be used for pieces other than jewelry. She has many more tricks up her sleeve in this regards as seen on her Flickr photostream and in her Etsy shop.
Susan Waddington has always been one of my favorite polymer bezel makers. Her bezels are almost always black but are formed into pretty much anything but a basic square or circle and they are textured and inset with additional embellishments to work with the focal piece. This one may be a decade old but it is still inspiring as is her entire collection shown on her Flickr page. I don’t think she does much polymer any more so you have to scroll down past her paintings although looking through them is no hardship either.
A bezel can also be made from individual bits, all lined up. As seen in this pendant by Elsie Smith. The setting around this bezel continues the radiating lines that those lined up little squares start around the gem.
A bezel does not have to be symmetrical, continuous, sit with the stone or focal point straightforward or even completely surround what it’s holding. These pendants by Switzerland’s Chandani of ChaNoJa Jewerly on Etsy give you a few examples of non-traditional bezel settings with polymer.
And don’t be afraid to consider creating, or having a metalsmith create, metal bezels to put your polymer clay creations into. Making her own custom precious metal bezel settings is standard for Grace Stokes’ beautiful jewelry as seen here.
The How-Tos of Polymer Bezeling
Now, if you’ve not created polymer bezels before, or you would like a refresher or some jump-start, hands-on ideas, there quite a number of tutorials and such that you can reference.
Here’s a super quick way to make a bezel that works especially well for small round stones and crystals.
- Roll up a ball of clay about the width of the stone you want to set
- Press the ball flat but not too thin then press the stone or crystal into it.
- Gently push the sides of the clay in towards the stone so that the clay sits up around its edges and holds it in. At this point it can be further embellished with powders.
- Then just scoop it off your work surface using a blade and place it on your piece, maybe with just a tiny touch of liquid polymer to guarantee its adhesion.
- You can embellish it further here too. Just impress dots or lines into it with a needle tool, being careful not to move the clay away from the stone’s edge and lose its grip on it.
That’s it! It’s a super quick and easy bezel. It can be used on other shapes besides round too. You just have to shape the clay to the same size and shape as the stone before you press it into the clay.
By the way, you can see this quick set bezel and how I often use them in Issue #1 of The Polymer Studio in my tutorial, “Shimmering Scenery Pendants”. That same tutorial also shows you how to make an easy polymer clay frame which can readily be used as a bezel setting in addition to the techniques use for frame setting surface treated polymer sheets. Get your issue or a subscription if you don’t have it already. Single issues are only $7.95 in print, $5.95 digital, and that’s for eight detailed tutorials plus other fantastic articles. Can’t even buy one tutorial for that!
For a polymer bezel similar to traditional metalsmithing bezels, take a look at Tina Holden’s tutorial on her blog here. She shares her basic bezel and then some ways to embellish that are very easy to do but give the bezels a very rich look.
For a dainty frame bezel frame with filigree, there is this classic filigree tutorial here. If you stop after the first rim is placed on and cured, you have a bezel frame for cabochons or cut polymer sheets. But the filigree stuff is fun if you have the patience for it. The text’s English may sound a little wonky because it will be translated but it’s worth trying nonetheless.
If you want, or need, to create bezels quickly, you might want to look into purchasing Cabezel molds from Shades of Clay. These molds allow you to create a frame and a perfectly fitting cabochon for it in seconds. Once you have the basic frame molded you can expand on the setting in the area beyond the bezel frame or embellish the bezel itself so although it’s a mold, it has a lot of room for customization. Shades of Clay is a great resource for all kinds of unique polymer related supplies as well. (Keep in mind, this is a Canadian retailer, so the pricing is in Canadian dollars although Wendy does ship via USPS. To estimate what it will be in US dollars, deduct about 25%.)
Got Bezels?
Do you have any great bezels of your own? Or are you aware of any other great tutorials for polymer bezels? Leave links and comments in the comment section below. If you get the this by email click here to leave a comment. Myself and many a reader here would love to see more.
Pebeo Potentials
September 2, 2015
Inspirational Art
Another article I have been wanting to get done for the magazine for a while is one on the special-effects Pebeo paints that we’ve seen around on polymer art jewelry. I actually met the Pebeo folks at the National American Materials Trade Association show in Denver earlier this year, and they pointed me to Kira Slye as their polymer related designer. Kira graciously agreed to do an article showing several of their special effects paints and how to use them. The only problem was … there wasn’t enough room to show a wide variety of the effects or even all the paints Kira wanted to showcase.
So, here is a bit more on the possibilities that some Pebeo paints can accomplish. These are beads created by Elsie Smith using, I believe, just the Pebeo Prisme paints, which create a cellular look as it dries. Some of these might also employ the Pebeo Moon paint, which has an iridescent and swirly finished look. Kira also showed us the Vitrail which was created to emulate stained glass on clear surfaces like glass itself, but you can see people using it on polymer, especially with foil and metallic powders. This line just really has a lot of possibilities.
Read the article to get an idea of the potential including things like paint skins that can be applied to polymer. And jump on over to Elsie’s Flickr photostream, which is just chock full of examples of how Pebeo Prisme can be applied and mixed.
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
Let There Be Fire
January 5, 2015
Inspirational Art
It is cold here in Colorado. I’m having a hard time keeping warm in my basement rooms where I spend so much of my time. So this week, I just want to talk fire. The amazing colors and gradients we can make with polymer makes an illusion of fire and heat fairly easy to create, but there are a number of ways to do this. So while many of us deal with cold and snowy weather, let’s think heat.
Here we have Elsie Smith showing us a bit of fire and shimmer with foil, alcohol ink and liquid clay. The foil and inks are one of my personal favorite go-to combinations because the foil reflects light and makes reds and oranges appear to glow like firelight or burning embers. Elsie’s addition of liquid clay as a sealant works to magnify the effect by bouncing light around beneath its surface. The wave of lines, of course, doesn’t hurt to bring the idea of fire to the forefront. Elsie writes that the top of this is more pink than red, so in person this probably does seem more like a Fiery Sunset, for which it is named, but I’m happy just enjoying the warmth of the colors.
Elsie has many more fiery, graduated and interestingly textured pieces in her more recent work as you can see on her Flickr pages. Be sure to take a look at her curiously painted cabochons with their lava-like texture for more warming inspiration.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
Evoking with Color
August 7, 2013
Inspirational Art
Our connection to nature is so strong that a set of colors alone can represent the natural and a sense of being outdoors.
Elsie Smith does a nice job of keeping her colors simple, while still evoking a strong association with nature. The colors we identify with trees, earth, wood, and sunshine come through in the soft, brushstroke-like lines of this subtly designed pendant.
The combination of colors is what brings this sense of nature to us. But if the stripes were graphic and well-defined, or if the pendant was a square rather than a soft leaf shape, or if we had a glitzy, faceted gem instead of a water-drop-like cabochon, we’d probably lose that association almost completely. It’s a rare element in art (or in nature) that is not in some way dependent on other characteristics to carry the intention through. So although the right color palette may be key to portraying a sense of organic and natural, don’t forget that every choice you make in your artistic creations has the potential to change the message. Every choice is part of the whole.
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!
Read MoreFirst, a quick announcement … the new Polymer Journeys 2019 book is now available for pre-orders!
As usual, we offer a HUGE discount for pre-ordering: $7 off the print edition cover price and $4 off the digital edition. So jump to our website to pre-order this great tome of beautiful polymer art with artist’s insights into their work as well as a historical retrospective that we hope will help continue to elevate how people see polymer in the art world and beyond.
Now onto a Bevy of Bezels …
What is your favorite kind of polymer bezel setting? Would you say you even have one? Let’s be honest, when it comes to bezels do most of us really give them a lot of thought? Some people really do but I think for many of us, when we do create one, it is probably not much more than a functional element we need in order to hold and maybe frame a stone or focal element. So, I thought this week we would take a look at what else you could do and where you can take the functional, and often essential, bezel.
Like any other element on your jewelry that can be seen, a bezel is a part of the piece’s design and so their form and finish should be quite consciously decided, which means, with polymer clay there’s a tremendous range of things that can be done with it. Mind you, there is nothing wrong with the bezel been simple and primarily functional, as long as it makes sense for the design.
That said, let’s get to the interesting point … there is so much you can do with bezels and bezel style settings in polymer clay! I could yammer on and on about all the things you can do but I think it’s better to just show you. Make notes and start considering what you do with the clay that holds in the focal pieces on your creations and how you can expand on it.
A World of Bezels
One of my favorite bezel-ers, Chris Kapono, has the most wide-ranging ways to hold down a stone with polymer. Her tile and home decor pieces are also a great examples of how bezels can be used for pieces other than jewelry. She has many more tricks up her sleeve in this regards as seen on her Flickr photostream and in her Etsy shop.
Susan Waddington has always been one of my favorite polymer bezel makers. Her bezels are almost always black but are formed into pretty much anything but a basic square or circle and they are textured and inset with additional embellishments to work with the focal piece. This one may be a decade old but it is still inspiring as is her entire collection shown on her Flickr page. I don’t think she does much polymer any more so you have to scroll down past her paintings although looking through them is no hardship either.
A bezel can also be made from individual bits, all lined up. As seen in this pendant by Elsie Smith. The setting around this bezel continues the radiating lines that those lined up little squares start around the gem.
A bezel does not have to be symmetrical, continuous, sit with the stone or focal point straightforward or even completely surround what it’s holding. These pendants by Switzerland’s Chandani of ChaNoJa Jewerly on Etsy give you a few examples of non-traditional bezel settings with polymer.
And don’t be afraid to consider creating, or having a metalsmith create, metal bezels to put your polymer clay creations into. Making her own custom precious metal bezel settings is standard for Grace Stokes’ beautiful jewelry as seen here.
The How-Tos of Polymer Bezeling
Now, if you’ve not created polymer bezels before, or you would like a refresher or some jump-start, hands-on ideas, there quite a number of tutorials and such that you can reference.
Here’s a super quick way to make a bezel that works especially well for small round stones and crystals.
- Roll up a ball of clay about the width of the stone you want to set
- Press the ball flat but not too thin then press the stone or crystal into it.
- Gently push the sides of the clay in towards the stone so that the clay sits up around its edges and holds it in. At this point it can be further embellished with powders.
- Then just scoop it off your work surface using a blade and place it on your piece, maybe with just a tiny touch of liquid polymer to guarantee its adhesion.
- You can embellish it further here too. Just impress dots or lines into it with a needle tool, being careful not to move the clay away from the stone’s edge and lose its grip on it.
That’s it! It’s a super quick and easy bezel. It can be used on other shapes besides round too. You just have to shape the clay to the same size and shape as the stone before you press it into the clay.
By the way, you can see this quick set bezel and how I often use them in Issue #1 of The Polymer Studio in my tutorial, “Shimmering Scenery Pendants”. That same tutorial also shows you how to make an easy polymer clay frame which can readily be used as a bezel setting in addition to the techniques use for frame setting surface treated polymer sheets. Get your issue or a subscription if you don’t have it already. Single issues are only $7.95 in print, $5.95 digital, and that’s for eight detailed tutorials plus other fantastic articles. Can’t even buy one tutorial for that!
For a polymer bezel similar to traditional metalsmithing bezels, take a look at Tina Holden’s tutorial on her blog here. She shares her basic bezel and then some ways to embellish that are very easy to do but give the bezels a very rich look.
For a dainty frame bezel frame with filigree, there is this classic filigree tutorial here. If you stop after the first rim is placed on and cured, you have a bezel frame for cabochons or cut polymer sheets. But the filigree stuff is fun if you have the patience for it. The text’s English may sound a little wonky because it will be translated but it’s worth trying nonetheless.
If you want, or need, to create bezels quickly, you might want to look into purchasing Cabezel molds from Shades of Clay. These molds allow you to create a frame and a perfectly fitting cabochon for it in seconds. Once you have the basic frame molded you can expand on the setting in the area beyond the bezel frame or embellish the bezel itself so although it’s a mold, it has a lot of room for customization. Shades of Clay is a great resource for all kinds of unique polymer related supplies as well. (Keep in mind, this is a Canadian retailer, so the pricing is in Canadian dollars although Wendy does ship via USPS. To estimate what it will be in US dollars, deduct about 25%.)
Got Bezels?
Do you have any great bezels of your own? Or are you aware of any other great tutorials for polymer bezels? Leave links and comments in the comment section below. If you get the this by email click here to leave a comment. Myself and many a reader here would love to see more.
Read MoreAnother article I have been wanting to get done for the magazine for a while is one on the special-effects Pebeo paints that we’ve seen around on polymer art jewelry. I actually met the Pebeo folks at the National American Materials Trade Association show in Denver earlier this year, and they pointed me to Kira Slye as their polymer related designer. Kira graciously agreed to do an article showing several of their special effects paints and how to use them. The only problem was … there wasn’t enough room to show a wide variety of the effects or even all the paints Kira wanted to showcase.
So, here is a bit more on the possibilities that some Pebeo paints can accomplish. These are beads created by Elsie Smith using, I believe, just the Pebeo Prisme paints, which create a cellular look as it dries. Some of these might also employ the Pebeo Moon paint, which has an iridescent and swirly finished look. Kira also showed us the Vitrail which was created to emulate stained glass on clear surfaces like glass itself, but you can see people using it on polymer, especially with foil and metallic powders. This line just really has a lot of possibilities.
Read the article to get an idea of the potential including things like paint skins that can be applied to polymer. And jump on over to Elsie’s Flickr photostream, which is just chock full of examples of how Pebeo Prisme can be applied and mixed.
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
It is cold here in Colorado. I’m having a hard time keeping warm in my basement rooms where I spend so much of my time. So this week, I just want to talk fire. The amazing colors and gradients we can make with polymer makes an illusion of fire and heat fairly easy to create, but there are a number of ways to do this. So while many of us deal with cold and snowy weather, let’s think heat.
Here we have Elsie Smith showing us a bit of fire and shimmer with foil, alcohol ink and liquid clay. The foil and inks are one of my personal favorite go-to combinations because the foil reflects light and makes reds and oranges appear to glow like firelight or burning embers. Elsie’s addition of liquid clay as a sealant works to magnify the effect by bouncing light around beneath its surface. The wave of lines, of course, doesn’t hurt to bring the idea of fire to the forefront. Elsie writes that the top of this is more pink than red, so in person this probably does seem more like a Fiery Sunset, for which it is named, but I’m happy just enjoying the warmth of the colors.
Elsie has many more fiery, graduated and interestingly textured pieces in her more recent work as you can see on her Flickr pages. Be sure to take a look at her curiously painted cabochons with their lava-like texture for more warming inspiration.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
Our connection to nature is so strong that a set of colors alone can represent the natural and a sense of being outdoors.
Elsie Smith does a nice job of keeping her colors simple, while still evoking a strong association with nature. The colors we identify with trees, earth, wood, and sunshine come through in the soft, brushstroke-like lines of this subtly designed pendant.
The combination of colors is what brings this sense of nature to us. But if the stripes were graphic and well-defined, or if the pendant was a square rather than a soft leaf shape, or if we had a glitzy, faceted gem instead of a water-drop-like cabochon, we’d probably lose that association almost completely. It’s a rare element in art (or in nature) that is not in some way dependent on other characteristics to carry the intention through. So although the right color palette may be key to portraying a sense of organic and natural, don’t forget that every choice you make in your artistic creations has the potential to change the message. Every choice is part of the whole.
