Little Flower Details
October 13, 2014
Inspirational Art
I just got back from nearly 3 weeks in California taking care of family matters and have 4 days before I am off again to the Racine Art Museum polymer symposium, so I will be looking towards the fine examples and ingenuous ideas of others this week to keep you inspired in case my words fail me. I have noticed a number of very clever tutorials and tips roaming about the online waves. Most are, after you see them, very obvious little tricks and ideas, but it’s so often only obvious after you see it!
Take this flower petal texturing method. I have seen many examples of lines in canes to create the visual look, but the actual tactile look of lines running across petals is far less common. Here is a very simple way to get those tactile lines into the petals: just scratch a series of lines into a soft but sturdy material and press your petals into the texture. I think texture was created on foam of some sort, but you could, of course, use polymer and bake it. It adds a wonderfully realistic quality to the petals. Here is the full visual tutorial.
Are there other items you tend to texture with hand tools that you could create a basic texture form to press or stamp with instead? It’d be worth a try if you think of something.
All I know about the creator of this tutorial is that he or she is going by Lufy, or did, on Livemaster.ru, but the Livemaster link for Lufy is not working, and this tutorial is spread all over on various sites without credit. Maybe we can correct that? Does anyone know who the craft artist is? Let me know if you d,o and I’ll dig up more about this clever clayer.
Note added on Oct 14th: Thanks Natalja for solving the mystery! It is not Lufy, but -Luly and the artist’s name is Julia Kotselova. Here is the link to her Livemaster shop.
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.
Extruding Beyond the Expected
September 4, 2014
Inspirational Art
Another multi-artist article in the new Fall 2014 issue tracks the growth and experience of six artists that went through the Voila! creativity classes. We were given the opportunity to see what six emerging or accomplished artists developed as they went through an intensive, nearly year-long course that focused solely on developing creativity and personal voice rather than learning techniques and particular skills. The outcomes were quite remarkable. The growth those artists have continued to have is just as, or maybe even more so, remarkable.
Angela Garrod has been making leaps and bounds in her work the last couple years, but until the article came to me, I had not realized where much of this inspiration and push came from. Many of her designs have explored what can be done with extruding, but I have to say some of the pieces she experimented with earlier this year is pushing extruding far beyond what we’ve seen from the rest of the community. I would not have thought the patterning on this neck piece had anything to do with extruding, but now my mind is working furiously to try to surmise how it might have been accomplished. Angela’s creative exploration of technique, as well as design, seems to have been buoyed by her natural instinct to experiment. All with wonderful results.
Take a look at the other recent pieces Angela has been working on her Flickr page where you can see the chronological journey of her work. Be sure to read the article as well and follow the links to each of the artists to see what else they have been up to since their classes. It’s a fascinating story told through the artwork itself.
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.
Colorful Fun
August 18, 2014
Inspirational Art
This is that one week every quarter where my brain just goes to mush. We are taking care of the last details as we get ready to release the fall issue of The Polymer Arts (if you haven’t renewed or pre-ordered your print copy, you will need to do so before the end of today in order to get on the mailing list for the first shipment out. Go here to order), so I have been working non-stop for a couple weeks now and a lack of sleep is catching up with me! I also have a little traveling to do in a few days, so it’s going to be a wacky week. We’ll see how that translates here, but I thought, since “play” (our fall issue theme) is on my mind, I would add some fun stuff to the queue. These things have not quite fit into our other themes, so we will use this week to just have fun. I will post some pretties that offer you new ideas for you to play with in your studios.
Perhaps, you’ve seen some of these great earrings and flowers Marie Segal has been posting the last week or so on Facebook. There are just gorgeous colors in her combinations of opaque and translucent canes and, in this case, it looks like a bit of Sutton slice, too. The colors are so juicy, and the disparate visual and tactile textures come together due to how sparely they are all used.
Marie, of course, is one of our pioneers. We owe a lot to her early exploration of the medium and her books. Most recently, she put out a great compendium of techniques called The Polymer Clay Artist’s Guide: A Directory of Mixes, Colors, Textures, Faux Finishes, and Surface Effects. This is a great “jumpstart” book; something you can flip through when looking for new ideas that will change up what you’re presently working on or to get you going on your own clay play day.
You can also add a bit more fun to your Monday with a trip through time and Marie’s work on her website here.
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.
I just got back from nearly 3 weeks in California taking care of family matters and have 4 days before I am off again to the Racine Art Museum polymer symposium, so I will be looking towards the fine examples and ingenuous ideas of others this week to keep you inspired in case my words fail me. I have noticed a number of very clever tutorials and tips roaming about the online waves. Most are, after you see them, very obvious little tricks and ideas, but it’s so often only obvious after you see it!
Take this flower petal texturing method. I have seen many examples of lines in canes to create the visual look, but the actual tactile look of lines running across petals is far less common. Here is a very simple way to get those tactile lines into the petals: just scratch a series of lines into a soft but sturdy material and press your petals into the texture. I think texture was created on foam of some sort, but you could, of course, use polymer and bake it. It adds a wonderfully realistic quality to the petals. Here is the full visual tutorial.
Are there other items you tend to texture with hand tools that you could create a basic texture form to press or stamp with instead? It’d be worth a try if you think of something.
All I know about the creator of this tutorial is that he or she is going by Lufy, or did, on Livemaster.ru, but the Livemaster link for Lufy is not working, and this tutorial is spread all over on various sites without credit. Maybe we can correct that? Does anyone know who the craft artist is? Let me know if you d,o and I’ll dig up more about this clever clayer.
Note added on Oct 14th: Thanks Natalja for solving the mystery! It is not Lufy, but -Luly and the artist’s name is Julia Kotselova. Here is the link to her Livemaster shop.
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.
Another multi-artist article in the new Fall 2014 issue tracks the growth and experience of six artists that went through the Voila! creativity classes. We were given the opportunity to see what six emerging or accomplished artists developed as they went through an intensive, nearly year-long course that focused solely on developing creativity and personal voice rather than learning techniques and particular skills. The outcomes were quite remarkable. The growth those artists have continued to have is just as, or maybe even more so, remarkable.
Angela Garrod has been making leaps and bounds in her work the last couple years, but until the article came to me, I had not realized where much of this inspiration and push came from. Many of her designs have explored what can be done with extruding, but I have to say some of the pieces she experimented with earlier this year is pushing extruding far beyond what we’ve seen from the rest of the community. I would not have thought the patterning on this neck piece had anything to do with extruding, but now my mind is working furiously to try to surmise how it might have been accomplished. Angela’s creative exploration of technique, as well as design, seems to have been buoyed by her natural instinct to experiment. All with wonderful results.
Take a look at the other recent pieces Angela has been working on her Flickr page where you can see the chronological journey of her work. Be sure to read the article as well and follow the links to each of the artists to see what else they have been up to since their classes. It’s a fascinating story told through the artwork itself.
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.
This is that one week every quarter where my brain just goes to mush. We are taking care of the last details as we get ready to release the fall issue of The Polymer Arts (if you haven’t renewed or pre-ordered your print copy, you will need to do so before the end of today in order to get on the mailing list for the first shipment out. Go here to order), so I have been working non-stop for a couple weeks now and a lack of sleep is catching up with me! I also have a little traveling to do in a few days, so it’s going to be a wacky week. We’ll see how that translates here, but I thought, since “play” (our fall issue theme) is on my mind, I would add some fun stuff to the queue. These things have not quite fit into our other themes, so we will use this week to just have fun. I will post some pretties that offer you new ideas for you to play with in your studios.
Perhaps, you’ve seen some of these great earrings and flowers Marie Segal has been posting the last week or so on Facebook. There are just gorgeous colors in her combinations of opaque and translucent canes and, in this case, it looks like a bit of Sutton slice, too. The colors are so juicy, and the disparate visual and tactile textures come together due to how sparely they are all used.
Marie, of course, is one of our pioneers. We owe a lot to her early exploration of the medium and her books. Most recently, she put out a great compendium of techniques called The Polymer Clay Artist’s Guide: A Directory of Mixes, Colors, Textures, Faux Finishes, and Surface Effects. This is a great “jumpstart” book; something you can flip through when looking for new ideas that will change up what you’re presently working on or to get you going on your own clay play day.
You can also add a bit more fun to your Monday with a trip through time and Marie’s work on her website here.
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.
