Mandala Yarns

September 10, 2014

9414438194_a2df9fd7de_bToday, I pulled up this fun piece for you.

This is not, obviously, all about extrusion, but I couldn’t pass it up. This elephant is only one in a series of decorated elephant forms created by Latvian artist Kni Kni. She did one for each month of the year. This mandala elephant was created for August. She uses extruded ‘yarns’ as she calls them, to wrap around the center form, which was pressed from a handmade stamp. Her ‘yarns’ were also used to decorate the elephant’s features.

In other work, we see quite a bit of the extruded ropes wrapped in swirls and even indented to make the striated lines you see here, but it is usually used on fully covered forms. The open space on the elephant helps keep the finely and skillfully decorated piece from getting overwhelmingly busy.

You can read about how and why Kni created this particular elephant on her blog. These are actually even more amazing when you see the whole series. Go take a look at them all on her Flickr photostream.

 

 

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.

14-P3 Fall-Play cover Full sm   Blog2 -2014-02Feb-2   3d star ad  Polymania Advert 125  tpa-125x125-blog

Color Randomness Extruded

February 9, 2014

I know this artist, Anna Kokareva (aka Annie Bimur), intended this to be a mini-tutorial for open beads but this would, rather obviously, be a great way to make interesting frames for polymer cabochons, image transfers and resin (backing the open frame with polymer before pouring the resin). I know I am harkening back to last week’s theme but put the last two weeks together and you get wonderfully random colored frames!

5581588418_91e220ce76

This type of frame would be relatively easy to make with an extruder. Select the colors of clays, extrude the strips, press into molds or form by hand, and layer as desired to make your frames. It would be fun to experiment with this process and see what you can come up with.

This same Russian artist has a cute polymer picture frame and a framed lid to a box on her live journal website.

 

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.

14P1 cover Fnl   PCW blue string art cane   Blog2 -2014-02Feb-2

Outside Influence: Sugar Sheet Flowers

November 16, 2012

As you might know, there is a lot of cross over between cake decorating and pastry art and polymer art. We use many of the same tools. In fact the D.R.E.A.M. machine you find at Polymer Clay Express is being used by fondant artists along with those great big extruders PCE sells. We form and shape in simliar manners when it comes to sheets of our chosen material. But there are restrictions in cake decorating that we don’t have. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Limitations make one creative in other ways.

Like knowing when to keep things simple.

This simple flower of black sugar sheets and white wafer (edible) paper by cake artist Deborah Stauch is just such an example. Here you get drama and sophistication without using any visual texture or surface treatments. Just the white accenting the black, repeated to bring on a sense of texture and richness of form. Nice.

If you are so inclined, you can even learn to make one of these on Deborah Stauch’s blog here.

One thing I am thankful for … no one is likely to eat your creation. I can’t imagine making something so pretty knowing it will be consumed. How depressing to think of that. I think I should go have some cake now to keep me from getting any sadder.

Mandala Yarns

September 10, 2014
Posted in

9414438194_a2df9fd7de_bToday, I pulled up this fun piece for you.

This is not, obviously, all about extrusion, but I couldn’t pass it up. This elephant is only one in a series of decorated elephant forms created by Latvian artist Kni Kni. She did one for each month of the year. This mandala elephant was created for August. She uses extruded ‘yarns’ as she calls them, to wrap around the center form, which was pressed from a handmade stamp. Her ‘yarns’ were also used to decorate the elephant’s features.

In other work, we see quite a bit of the extruded ropes wrapped in swirls and even indented to make the striated lines you see here, but it is usually used on fully covered forms. The open space on the elephant helps keep the finely and skillfully decorated piece from getting overwhelmingly busy.

You can read about how and why Kni created this particular elephant on her blog. These are actually even more amazing when you see the whole series. Go take a look at them all on her Flickr photostream.

 

 

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.

14-P3 Fall-Play cover Full sm   Blog2 -2014-02Feb-2   3d star ad  Polymania Advert 125  tpa-125x125-blog

Read More

Color Randomness Extruded

February 9, 2014
Posted in

I know this artist, Anna Kokareva (aka Annie Bimur), intended this to be a mini-tutorial for open beads but this would, rather obviously, be a great way to make interesting frames for polymer cabochons, image transfers and resin (backing the open frame with polymer before pouring the resin). I know I am harkening back to last week’s theme but put the last two weeks together and you get wonderfully random colored frames!

5581588418_91e220ce76

This type of frame would be relatively easy to make with an extruder. Select the colors of clays, extrude the strips, press into molds or form by hand, and layer as desired to make your frames. It would be fun to experiment with this process and see what you can come up with.

This same Russian artist has a cute polymer picture frame and a framed lid to a box on her live journal website.

 

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.

14P1 cover Fnl   PCW blue string art cane   Blog2 -2014-02Feb-2

Read More

Outside Influence: Sugar Sheet Flowers

November 16, 2012
Posted in

As you might know, there is a lot of cross over between cake decorating and pastry art and polymer art. We use many of the same tools. In fact the D.R.E.A.M. machine you find at Polymer Clay Express is being used by fondant artists along with those great big extruders PCE sells. We form and shape in simliar manners when it comes to sheets of our chosen material. But there are restrictions in cake decorating that we don’t have. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Limitations make one creative in other ways.

Like knowing when to keep things simple.

This simple flower of black sugar sheets and white wafer (edible) paper by cake artist Deborah Stauch is just such an example. Here you get drama and sophistication without using any visual texture or surface treatments. Just the white accenting the black, repeated to bring on a sense of texture and richness of form. Nice.

If you are so inclined, you can even learn to make one of these on Deborah Stauch’s blog here.

One thing I am thankful for … no one is likely to eat your creation. I can’t imagine making something so pretty knowing it will be consumed. How depressing to think of that. I think I should go have some cake now to keep me from getting any sadder.

Read More
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