More Fun with Extruders

September 13, 2014

So after a week of extruder contemplation, have you gone into the studio to try out some new ideas yourself? Well, if not, but you’re anxious to try something out, here are a few ideas for you.

lilu-12287_320

 

A shaped cane with no background fill? Is that possible? According to Lilu of Russia, you can do this with an extruder. How is that possible? Even our brave artist here can’t say how this works, but can show us successful results. The caveat is that you lose about half your clay to scraps as the ends come out mangled. But, with so many scrap cane techniques to put those towards, that might not be the worse thing to happen.

42d9d8c2a73114b8a7a1d0d4cec3f154

 

 

For those of you who want something more straightforward and less experimental, try these extruded snake surface designs with graduated colors created by Lucy Struncova. No real mysteries here … just extrude small snakes in graduated colors (if you’ve not done that before, go here for the classic tutorial on creating rainbow snakes with an extruder), lay them side by side, use the edge of a credit card, or long thin needle tool to impress the lines perpendicular to the snakes and cut out shapes as desired. A quick easy way to get a surface design with a range of colors and complex looking texture.

Or, you can do both! Roll your scrap ends from the background-less extruded cane through the pasta machine, punch a stack of discs to put back into the extruder, extrude snakes to your heart’s content and make Lucy’s snake and line textured sheets. Then accent them with cane slices. Don’t you love how versatile polymer can be? Even using the same stack of clay through several techniques.

 

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

 

 

Outside Inspiration: Lines of Paper

September 12, 2014

yulia-1Reader Corine Lindhorst was kind enough to write and share the work of this highly talented paper artist whose work you see here. Although it’s not extruded, the use of long strips of paper is not unlike using long snakes of extruded clay to form patterns and images. The images in the case of these paper illustrations by Yulia Brodskaya are incredibly fluid and capture nuances that some pencil and paint artists with their limitless color and texture options can’t always accomplish.

yulia-1 (1)

Yulia started working as a graphic designer and illustrator until realizing her passion was in paper. Now, she says she “draws with paper instead of on it.” And very, very successfully I might add. In just the 8 years since she started experimenting in paper illustration, she has amassed a large list of huge clients from Starbucks to Godiva, Target, Sephora and The New York Times Magazine. This is one of her more colorful and fun pieces, but may not be the most amazing of them. Her portraiture has some amazingly emotional eyes and facial expressions, especially considering the limitations of the medium. Or are they limitations?

Okay, you clay extruder illustrators … get to it. There is a market for you and one with deep pockets if you’re up for the challenge!

Take a closer look at Yulila’s work on her website but for a quick and powerful overview, take a look at this post on the “This is Colossal” blog.

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

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

More Fun with Extruders

September 13, 2014
Posted in

So after a week of extruder contemplation, have you gone into the studio to try out some new ideas yourself? Well, if not, but you’re anxious to try something out, here are a few ideas for you.

lilu-12287_320

 

A shaped cane with no background fill? Is that possible? According to Lilu of Russia, you can do this with an extruder. How is that possible? Even our brave artist here can’t say how this works, but can show us successful results. The caveat is that you lose about half your clay to scraps as the ends come out mangled. But, with so many scrap cane techniques to put those towards, that might not be the worse thing to happen.

42d9d8c2a73114b8a7a1d0d4cec3f154

 

 

For those of you who want something more straightforward and less experimental, try these extruded snake surface designs with graduated colors created by Lucy Struncova. No real mysteries here … just extrude small snakes in graduated colors (if you’ve not done that before, go here for the classic tutorial on creating rainbow snakes with an extruder), lay them side by side, use the edge of a credit card, or long thin needle tool to impress the lines perpendicular to the snakes and cut out shapes as desired. A quick easy way to get a surface design with a range of colors and complex looking texture.

Or, you can do both! Roll your scrap ends from the background-less extruded cane through the pasta machine, punch a stack of discs to put back into the extruder, extrude snakes to your heart’s content and make Lucy’s snake and line textured sheets. Then accent them with cane slices. Don’t you love how versatile polymer can be? Even using the same stack of clay through several techniques.

 

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

Outside Inspiration: Lines of Paper

September 12, 2014
Posted in

yulia-1Reader Corine Lindhorst was kind enough to write and share the work of this highly talented paper artist whose work you see here. Although it’s not extruded, the use of long strips of paper is not unlike using long snakes of extruded clay to form patterns and images. The images in the case of these paper illustrations by Yulia Brodskaya are incredibly fluid and capture nuances that some pencil and paint artists with their limitless color and texture options can’t always accomplish.

yulia-1 (1)

Yulia started working as a graphic designer and illustrator until realizing her passion was in paper. Now, she says she “draws with paper instead of on it.” And very, very successfully I might add. In just the 8 years since she started experimenting in paper illustration, she has amassed a large list of huge clients from Starbucks to Godiva, Target, Sephora and The New York Times Magazine. This is one of her more colorful and fun pieces, but may not be the most amazing of them. Her portraiture has some amazingly emotional eyes and facial expressions, especially considering the limitations of the medium. Or are they limitations?

Okay, you clay extruder illustrators … get to it. There is a market for you and one with deep pockets if you’re up for the challenge!

Take a closer look at Yulila’s work on her website but for a quick and powerful overview, take a look at this post on the “This is Colossal” blog.

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

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
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