Splitting the Difference

April 21, 2019

Happy Easter or Chag Sameach or simply happy Sunday to you! I wasn’t sure I was going to get this one out between holidays and family and wrapping up the latest issue of The Polymer Studio (there has been a slight delay with the printer so we still have time to get you on the list for the first shipment from the printer if you subscribe or pre-order before Monday night  … go here to get yours) and picking out shower and floor tile (yes, there is a tad more drama at Tenth Muse headquarters, a.k.a. home, which I will expound upon at the end for those of you find it humorous to see what craziness I’m steeped in.)

So, have you ever been in the middle of a busy, stressful, crazy, chaotic day and then all of a sudden you just are coming up with new art projects from out of nowhere? Well, yesterday I was in this ginormous tile shop, putting white tiles against dark tiles and smooth stone surfaces next to busy mosaics trying to see what works and, of course, being so design focused, when it didn’t work I would ask myself why, and when it did, I asked myself why as well. (My mind is like a three-year-old… Why this? Why that? Why…?) This led to considering how I pair up surfaces in my own artwork. The fact is, I don’t do a ton of it, but I do really like it.

I think this also came to mind because I had the pleasure of online chatting with Kimberly Arden, a potential contributor for a future issue, and she showed me some of her pendants and earrings which are often a split canvas – one side is busy with canes or extruder veneers and one side is a lightly textured black with a flower or other form laid on it in using just a few canes, like the one you see opening this post. So, I’m there comparing tiles and thinking about her pendants which got me thinking about how often we pair up surfaces in art and next thing you know, I’m writing you this post with all this in mind. That’s how these themes happen!

So, let’s just ponder the idea of having two different surfaces next to each other on the same canvas or form. How is this done to in a way that still creates a cohesive piece and what are the different ways this can be applied?

 

Splitting the Canvas

Two or more different surfaces on the same canvas or form is a great method for creating contrast but like any other element, two surfaces that are not alike do have to have some kind of connection to make them work together in a piece. Yes, that connection is there physically when the surfaces are within the same framework in or attached to a singular object, but that is not usually enough. The best way to ensure a connection is to have at least one design element that is the same or very similar.

For instance, both sides could be the same color but very different textures. Olga Bulat does this in this necklace. Making it monochromatic keeps us focused on that texture and that difference which creates the energy in the piece.

 

Now, Olga could have had two different colors in the above piece but the colors themselves would have had to have some commonality. For example, both sides could be pastel, or both might be similarly bright. They could even be next to each other or completely opposite each other on the color wheel (because complete opposites also connect in our mind as being related but in an opposing fashion, if that makes sense. Think how much green and red there is at Christmas time. It works, color wise, right?)

Below is an example of using different colors but with the same texture so that there is commonality in the texture, but at the same time, the colors are also completely opposite (a dark, rich, warm brown versus a light, colorless, cool gray). These opposites are paired in our mind the way good and evil, young and old, and night and day are paired conceptually.

This is the genius of Meisha Barbee who also puts the canvas split on the horizontal (notice how many of the examples I show you today are split vertically – vertical has a lot of energy but it doesn’t mean that vertical is right for every piece.) Just changing the color however does not give the work a ton of energy so she adds a band of multicolored spots. I added a few more examples below the first pendant so you can see the various ways she pairs up the competing sides of the canvas. She uses large bands to separate when the surface pattern is subtle but goes for a simple slim line on the one with a bottom half already busy and full of extruded canes slices.

 

And speaking of changing up directions, you can also change up the point at which they meet. It doesn’t have to be a straight line or a simple curve Here is a simple design, actually done in terra-cotta, offered by a website called Tradenimbo. The zigzag line splits up the two sides with enough energy to carry the simple graphic look. Note how the pendant is the stronger design between it and the earrings, with the dots being a place of focus and rest for the eye as it jumps back and forth between the two sides.

 

Juxtaposing two different surface designs doesn’t mean it needs to be on the same canvas facing the viewer in the same direction. It could be on something three-dimensional so that the viewer has to walk around to compare. Or take it a step further and have a different surface on the front and back or get really ingenious and make it a curved surface so you can see both sides at the same time as Arden Bardol does with these whimsical earrings of hers.

 

You can also contrast different surfaces by creating one surface on the outside and another on the inside. Martina Buriánová did that here with two surfaces contrasted in pattern and treatment, yet with similar or highly contrasting colors which make a strong connection between them.

 

 

Splitting up is Not Hard to Do

If you find these contrasting surfaces interesting, click on any of the above artist names to see additional pieces for further inspiration. Then get to work trying your own!

Here is a simple series of steps you can try right now … A Cane Split Canvas:

  1. Choose a cane (or a few canes that go together) and pick a base clay in a complementary color.
  2. Roll a thick sheet of the solid color and apply canes to just one section, trimming or lining them up to create a boundary between a cane side and a solid clay color side.
  3. Burnish the canes into the clay sheet so the surface is smooth.
  4. Then, texturize a similar sized section next to the canes. You can use something as simple as sandpaper or add lots of tiny dots with a hand tool or stripes or lines or whatever you like, but I think you will find it more successful if the texture is very different from the canes. So, for instance, if you applied a series of flower canes with dots in the center, don’t texturize with dots but rather create something quite unlike anything in the flowers, such as a lot of orderly vertical lines or go for the randomness of a filter sponge texture. The cool thing about applying texture here is that if you don’t like it you can burnish it away and try something else.
  5. Once you have a texture that you like, use a cookie cutter, first as a frame to find the section to cut that includes the two sides– it doesn’t have to be half canes and half texture. In fact, 1/3 to 2/3 will probably look nicer in many cases. Move your cookie cutter around to see what you like.
  6. Once you find the section you like, cover it with plastic wrap and cut with your cutter.
  7. Your new split canvas form can be used as the beginning of a more complex piece or punch a hole at the top and you have a pendant or the first of a pair of earrings.

Now, if you want to splice together two different sheets of clay onto the same piece, you might want to check out this tutorial by Samantha Burroughs.

You may also want to take a look at the first issue of The Polymer Studio for the great tutorial by Julie Picarello who has a beautifully simple way to splice together a mokume gane slice and simple textured clay.

Got any great split canvases of your own? Share it with us by leaving a comment or a link at the end of the post!

 

Now for the Great Tile Adventure

Story time! For those entertained by the little dramas of my little life.

So, as you might have read in previous posts, we have been forced to do a kitchen renovation earlier than planned, in part because of a drain that collapsed under the slab on the kitchen side. The bad news came when the plumbers came out to plan the job and determined that the drain in the master bath was about to go as well so in addition to the kitchen, we have to tear out the shower in the bathroom. Oh, joy!

Actually, we were kind of happy about this because we really dislike that shower. It’s like a tiny tile covered phone booth, which is great for singing in but, not big enough for even a tiny mobile recording studio to make that worthwhile, it’s otherwise rather claustrophobic feeling. This is not to say that the news and the added cost to the budget didn’t give me a few more gray hairs, but I won’t be sad to see that go.

So, after spending two hours in a tile shop yesterday, mostly searching for just the right basic white but still subtly veined tile (veins in a cool, not a warm gray on a cool but not bright white – we are both artists so the color conversations have been quite intense) to go with our more dramatic accent choices and coming home and putting every tile sample we bought up against the wall, and not finding any to be quite right, I went into my studio for something and there in my stack of tiles on my studio table was the exact pattern of tile we were looking for. And I’ve been curing clay on it for the last six years! Now we just have to see if we can find eight full boxes of it somewhere!

Here I am giving my better half the not so great news that our ideal tile came from my studio stash and I don’t remember where I got it. But at least we know what we like!

I’m also, by the way, designing and making our kitchen backsplash which will, of course, have polymer in it somehow. So that should be exciting. Especially the part where I have to figure out how to carve out the time to do actually make that happen. But I will!

So, with my head full of tile images, I say goodbye to you for now. Have a wonderful rest of your holiday weekend and a great coming week.

Mix and Match Stone

August 22, 2018

As I’ve said many times, you can have all types of contrast as long as there is some commonality in some aspect that will create a relationship between the disparate parts. Olga Ledneva is quite adept at this as you’re certain to see in this piece here.

What Olga had done to bring all these disparate pieces together was create a variety of faux stone and other natural and inherently solid-looking faux materials, all finished with a smooth surface and in relatively geometric shapes. That tied most of the bead elements together. But then there’s this flower, a delicate object with an uneven shape and a rippling surface. It’s completely different from everything else but it works, doesn’t it? Why would that be?

For one, she’s made this flower element the focal point by making it so completely different. Just its hugely different look actually ties it to the rest with its high contrast. But she sneaks in one subtle characteristic that makes it work with the other beads— she makes it approximately the same size as all the center stone beads. Similarly sized objects will seem to belong together when they are surrounded by a variety of other sized objects. This can be a tricky thing to pull off well but I think Olga did it wonderfully here.

Olga’s work has grown in leaps and bounds since I last posted her work in early 2015, a post that caused little bit of a stir because she was combining elements, forms, and techniques learned in classes from master polymer artists, which I pointed out while noting the original, completely valid and successful way she applied them. Not everyone was comfortable with comments that might be perceived as anything less than glowingly positive but, as I replied in the comments then, I feel that I am a funnel for the community and our thoughts and concerns. So, I wanted to present the piece as a great example of taking what you learn and making it your own.

Some people were actually mad about what I wrote but Olga, to her credit, saw this as supportive and positive. That kind of openness to constructive commentary on one’s work is an important element in an artist’s growth. It shows a sincere desire to better one’s skills and designs and I think we really see that in Olga’s work.

You can watch her growth over time and see more of her beautiful work by looking through her photos on her Facebook page and Flickr photostream.

Finally Focused: The Fall Cover

August 17, 2018

Thank you all for your patience. The fall issue is coming together now and, as you can see, we have a lovely piece, a brooch by Helen Breil, to grace the cover.

The theme for the fall issue is “Center of Attention” which will include all types of focal, emphasis, and center point type conversations. Here are a few the articles you can look forward to seeing next month:

—The Focused Art of Helen Breil

—Six Different Fresh Faux Stone Technique tutorials

—Organic Sautori Necklace tutorial

—Designing Dynamic Focal Points

—Diversifying with Hair Adornments

—Becoming a Niche Artist

—Inspiringly Unexpected with Christi Friesen

—Creating for Yourself with Debbie Crothers

… and much more.

We hope you’re looking forward to this as much as we are! We should have the release date before the end of the month. It’ll be something to look forward to as we head into the fall (for down the southern hemisphere, spring) season!

We are setting up the website for pre-orders as I write this so if you click through to www.thepolymerarts.com and it is not there yet, it should be by Monday. I’ll remind yon on the Monday’s post. Have a wonderful and creative weekend!

Imagining Stone Bones

January 21, 2015

100076147Alright, this piece isn’t in itself particularly old-looking, but it does represent another element of time and hide a possible story in its history. Plus, I just think it’s a beautiful piece.

France’s Karine Barrera regularly creates tribal or ethnic pieces, but I don’t think there are any particular civilizations they are drawn from. Rather they seem to be an amalgamation of tribal aesthetics. This one appears to be a most interesting composition of stone, although its form is more reminiscent of bone; the gentle curves recall tusks, claws and ribs.

But if it were stone, what kind of stone would have such layers? Or is the white not supposed to be stone but a material for joining two types of stone? What kind of material is that? What kind of people would find these shapes and the combination of stones meaningful? There are so many possible stories that can be imagined for this piece.

Karine’s work is full of possible stories. Even in her explanation in the blog post, her words are translated from French to say, at one point, that these “are stories designs”. Not sure what that means exactly, but Google Translate creates some pretty wacky text sometimes. In the end, it’s not so much about the story the artist has in her head but what the viewer of the piece comes up with. If your work makes someone stop and consider and create their own little stories and worlds in their mind from what they see, you have succeeded in communicating and maybe even entertaining. And that makes for some pretty good art. See more examples of this kind of thing on Karine’s blog.

 

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.

businesscard-3.5inx2in-h-front    PolymerArts Kaleidoscope     sfxpaad

Pushing Faux Organics

September 2, 2014

13809621515_68f2694fba_oAnother article in the fall issue that could have had a lot more examples in it if we had the room was about playing with faux techniques. The ideas outlined in the article are about emulating something that you find in nature, but adjusting characteristics to create something that doesn’t exist. A number of fantastic artists contributed their versions of this with examples.

Page McNall contributed an example of faux wood. A small faux log to be exact, but that is hardly the end of her beyond-natural faux examples. She is definitely one of those exploratory artists I often talk about, never really settling into one form or style, but does gorgeous work in her variety of approaches. One of her newer explorations that I just love and would have liked to have included are these this faux semi-translucent organics. This is really pushing the idea of natural faux polymer. The pieces look like they could be something in nature, but I’m pretty sure there is nothing quite like the majority of these.

To get a better view of the individual pieces here, as well as her rather fascinating work, visit her Flickr page. And for more ideas on how to play with and push faux techniques, well, see the latest issue of The Polymer Arts!

 

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.

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Real Faux Fun

August 19, 2014

moreni faux wavelight

Things have gone a little bonkers over here so apologies for the late posting and any errors here. Due to a family emergency and people being out of town, I do not have my  back-up people to help keep my dyslexic errors in check. Hope you can put up with it for a day! But then these fantastic faux wavelite stones by Ilenia Moreni don’t need a lot of explanation. I had not even heard of wavelite until I saw these and now I’m fascinated by the rock. But honestly–and I hope Mother Nature doesn’t hear this–I think I like Ilenia’s version even better. The visual texture with those strong radial lines so strongly draw the eye. And what’s even more exciting … she has an inexpensive Faux Wavelite tutorial so you can make these yourself! How fun.

Ilenia does a lot of faux work and is quite adept at it. She has even made up a few of her own versions of nature’s creations which is why I was on her Flickr page last week and found these. She’s contributing to the article on pushing faux effects from being realistic to being something that looks like it could exist in nature but has never been seen before. Look for the “Pushing Faux” article in the Fall issue of The Polymer Arts coming out Aug 30th for ideas on how to push your natural faux effects to create beautiful new effects all your own.

You may recall Ilenia was featured in the gallery section of our Summer 2014 issue but she’s been working away and has a ton more fun stuff to drool over. Find more of her work on her Flickr pages and her 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.

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Falling Spring

January 15, 2014

Jennifer Morris has a mixed media approach to her polymer clay work. She has a signature embroidery style that uses an ever-changing mixed-media combination of polymer clay infused with gold and silver leaf, and she often incorporates recycled papers and fabric pulp into her designs. These fringed earrings look like heavy stones, but are actually light and airy when worn.

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Let Jennifer’s work inspire you to push your materials into unexpected places, using them in fresh new ways. Try a little mixed media by adding different materials to your work or by embellishing your work with embroidery or crochet stitches. Check out this interview with Jennifer on Etsy.

 

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.

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Splitting the Difference

April 21, 2019
Posted in

Happy Easter or Chag Sameach or simply happy Sunday to you! I wasn’t sure I was going to get this one out between holidays and family and wrapping up the latest issue of The Polymer Studio (there has been a slight delay with the printer so we still have time to get you on the list for the first shipment from the printer if you subscribe or pre-order before Monday night  … go here to get yours) and picking out shower and floor tile (yes, there is a tad more drama at Tenth Muse headquarters, a.k.a. home, which I will expound upon at the end for those of you find it humorous to see what craziness I’m steeped in.)

So, have you ever been in the middle of a busy, stressful, crazy, chaotic day and then all of a sudden you just are coming up with new art projects from out of nowhere? Well, yesterday I was in this ginormous tile shop, putting white tiles against dark tiles and smooth stone surfaces next to busy mosaics trying to see what works and, of course, being so design focused, when it didn’t work I would ask myself why, and when it did, I asked myself why as well. (My mind is like a three-year-old… Why this? Why that? Why…?) This led to considering how I pair up surfaces in my own artwork. The fact is, I don’t do a ton of it, but I do really like it.

I think this also came to mind because I had the pleasure of online chatting with Kimberly Arden, a potential contributor for a future issue, and she showed me some of her pendants and earrings which are often a split canvas – one side is busy with canes or extruder veneers and one side is a lightly textured black with a flower or other form laid on it in using just a few canes, like the one you see opening this post. So, I’m there comparing tiles and thinking about her pendants which got me thinking about how often we pair up surfaces in art and next thing you know, I’m writing you this post with all this in mind. That’s how these themes happen!

So, let’s just ponder the idea of having two different surfaces next to each other on the same canvas or form. How is this done to in a way that still creates a cohesive piece and what are the different ways this can be applied?

 

Splitting the Canvas

Two or more different surfaces on the same canvas or form is a great method for creating contrast but like any other element, two surfaces that are not alike do have to have some kind of connection to make them work together in a piece. Yes, that connection is there physically when the surfaces are within the same framework in or attached to a singular object, but that is not usually enough. The best way to ensure a connection is to have at least one design element that is the same or very similar.

For instance, both sides could be the same color but very different textures. Olga Bulat does this in this necklace. Making it monochromatic keeps us focused on that texture and that difference which creates the energy in the piece.

 

Now, Olga could have had two different colors in the above piece but the colors themselves would have had to have some commonality. For example, both sides could be pastel, or both might be similarly bright. They could even be next to each other or completely opposite each other on the color wheel (because complete opposites also connect in our mind as being related but in an opposing fashion, if that makes sense. Think how much green and red there is at Christmas time. It works, color wise, right?)

Below is an example of using different colors but with the same texture so that there is commonality in the texture, but at the same time, the colors are also completely opposite (a dark, rich, warm brown versus a light, colorless, cool gray). These opposites are paired in our mind the way good and evil, young and old, and night and day are paired conceptually.

This is the genius of Meisha Barbee who also puts the canvas split on the horizontal (notice how many of the examples I show you today are split vertically – vertical has a lot of energy but it doesn’t mean that vertical is right for every piece.) Just changing the color however does not give the work a ton of energy so she adds a band of multicolored spots. I added a few more examples below the first pendant so you can see the various ways she pairs up the competing sides of the canvas. She uses large bands to separate when the surface pattern is subtle but goes for a simple slim line on the one with a bottom half already busy and full of extruded canes slices.

 

And speaking of changing up directions, you can also change up the point at which they meet. It doesn’t have to be a straight line or a simple curve Here is a simple design, actually done in terra-cotta, offered by a website called Tradenimbo. The zigzag line splits up the two sides with enough energy to carry the simple graphic look. Note how the pendant is the stronger design between it and the earrings, with the dots being a place of focus and rest for the eye as it jumps back and forth between the two sides.

 

Juxtaposing two different surface designs doesn’t mean it needs to be on the same canvas facing the viewer in the same direction. It could be on something three-dimensional so that the viewer has to walk around to compare. Or take it a step further and have a different surface on the front and back or get really ingenious and make it a curved surface so you can see both sides at the same time as Arden Bardol does with these whimsical earrings of hers.

 

You can also contrast different surfaces by creating one surface on the outside and another on the inside. Martina Buriánová did that here with two surfaces contrasted in pattern and treatment, yet with similar or highly contrasting colors which make a strong connection between them.

 

 

Splitting up is Not Hard to Do

If you find these contrasting surfaces interesting, click on any of the above artist names to see additional pieces for further inspiration. Then get to work trying your own!

Here is a simple series of steps you can try right now … A Cane Split Canvas:

  1. Choose a cane (or a few canes that go together) and pick a base clay in a complementary color.
  2. Roll a thick sheet of the solid color and apply canes to just one section, trimming or lining them up to create a boundary between a cane side and a solid clay color side.
  3. Burnish the canes into the clay sheet so the surface is smooth.
  4. Then, texturize a similar sized section next to the canes. You can use something as simple as sandpaper or add lots of tiny dots with a hand tool or stripes or lines or whatever you like, but I think you will find it more successful if the texture is very different from the canes. So, for instance, if you applied a series of flower canes with dots in the center, don’t texturize with dots but rather create something quite unlike anything in the flowers, such as a lot of orderly vertical lines or go for the randomness of a filter sponge texture. The cool thing about applying texture here is that if you don’t like it you can burnish it away and try something else.
  5. Once you have a texture that you like, use a cookie cutter, first as a frame to find the section to cut that includes the two sides– it doesn’t have to be half canes and half texture. In fact, 1/3 to 2/3 will probably look nicer in many cases. Move your cookie cutter around to see what you like.
  6. Once you find the section you like, cover it with plastic wrap and cut with your cutter.
  7. Your new split canvas form can be used as the beginning of a more complex piece or punch a hole at the top and you have a pendant or the first of a pair of earrings.

Now, if you want to splice together two different sheets of clay onto the same piece, you might want to check out this tutorial by Samantha Burroughs.

You may also want to take a look at the first issue of The Polymer Studio for the great tutorial by Julie Picarello who has a beautifully simple way to splice together a mokume gane slice and simple textured clay.

Got any great split canvases of your own? Share it with us by leaving a comment or a link at the end of the post!

 

Now for the Great Tile Adventure

Story time! For those entertained by the little dramas of my little life.

So, as you might have read in previous posts, we have been forced to do a kitchen renovation earlier than planned, in part because of a drain that collapsed under the slab on the kitchen side. The bad news came when the plumbers came out to plan the job and determined that the drain in the master bath was about to go as well so in addition to the kitchen, we have to tear out the shower in the bathroom. Oh, joy!

Actually, we were kind of happy about this because we really dislike that shower. It’s like a tiny tile covered phone booth, which is great for singing in but, not big enough for even a tiny mobile recording studio to make that worthwhile, it’s otherwise rather claustrophobic feeling. This is not to say that the news and the added cost to the budget didn’t give me a few more gray hairs, but I won’t be sad to see that go.

So, after spending two hours in a tile shop yesterday, mostly searching for just the right basic white but still subtly veined tile (veins in a cool, not a warm gray on a cool but not bright white – we are both artists so the color conversations have been quite intense) to go with our more dramatic accent choices and coming home and putting every tile sample we bought up against the wall, and not finding any to be quite right, I went into my studio for something and there in my stack of tiles on my studio table was the exact pattern of tile we were looking for. And I’ve been curing clay on it for the last six years! Now we just have to see if we can find eight full boxes of it somewhere!

Here I am giving my better half the not so great news that our ideal tile came from my studio stash and I don’t remember where I got it. But at least we know what we like!

I’m also, by the way, designing and making our kitchen backsplash which will, of course, have polymer in it somehow. So that should be exciting. Especially the part where I have to figure out how to carve out the time to do actually make that happen. But I will!

So, with my head full of tile images, I say goodbye to you for now. Have a wonderful rest of your holiday weekend and a great coming week.

Read More

Mix and Match Stone

August 22, 2018
Posted in

As I’ve said many times, you can have all types of contrast as long as there is some commonality in some aspect that will create a relationship between the disparate parts. Olga Ledneva is quite adept at this as you’re certain to see in this piece here.

What Olga had done to bring all these disparate pieces together was create a variety of faux stone and other natural and inherently solid-looking faux materials, all finished with a smooth surface and in relatively geometric shapes. That tied most of the bead elements together. But then there’s this flower, a delicate object with an uneven shape and a rippling surface. It’s completely different from everything else but it works, doesn’t it? Why would that be?

For one, she’s made this flower element the focal point by making it so completely different. Just its hugely different look actually ties it to the rest with its high contrast. But she sneaks in one subtle characteristic that makes it work with the other beads— she makes it approximately the same size as all the center stone beads. Similarly sized objects will seem to belong together when they are surrounded by a variety of other sized objects. This can be a tricky thing to pull off well but I think Olga did it wonderfully here.

Olga’s work has grown in leaps and bounds since I last posted her work in early 2015, a post that caused little bit of a stir because she was combining elements, forms, and techniques learned in classes from master polymer artists, which I pointed out while noting the original, completely valid and successful way she applied them. Not everyone was comfortable with comments that might be perceived as anything less than glowingly positive but, as I replied in the comments then, I feel that I am a funnel for the community and our thoughts and concerns. So, I wanted to present the piece as a great example of taking what you learn and making it your own.

Some people were actually mad about what I wrote but Olga, to her credit, saw this as supportive and positive. That kind of openness to constructive commentary on one’s work is an important element in an artist’s growth. It shows a sincere desire to better one’s skills and designs and I think we really see that in Olga’s work.

You can watch her growth over time and see more of her beautiful work by looking through her photos on her Facebook page and Flickr photostream.

Read More

Finally Focused: The Fall Cover

August 17, 2018
Posted in

Thank you all for your patience. The fall issue is coming together now and, as you can see, we have a lovely piece, a brooch by Helen Breil, to grace the cover.

The theme for the fall issue is “Center of Attention” which will include all types of focal, emphasis, and center point type conversations. Here are a few the articles you can look forward to seeing next month:

—The Focused Art of Helen Breil

—Six Different Fresh Faux Stone Technique tutorials

—Organic Sautori Necklace tutorial

—Designing Dynamic Focal Points

—Diversifying with Hair Adornments

—Becoming a Niche Artist

—Inspiringly Unexpected with Christi Friesen

—Creating for Yourself with Debbie Crothers

… and much more.

We hope you’re looking forward to this as much as we are! We should have the release date before the end of the month. It’ll be something to look forward to as we head into the fall (for down the southern hemisphere, spring) season!

We are setting up the website for pre-orders as I write this so if you click through to www.thepolymerarts.com and it is not there yet, it should be by Monday. I’ll remind yon on the Monday’s post. Have a wonderful and creative weekend!

Read More

Imagining Stone Bones

January 21, 2015
Posted in

100076147Alright, this piece isn’t in itself particularly old-looking, but it does represent another element of time and hide a possible story in its history. Plus, I just think it’s a beautiful piece.

France’s Karine Barrera regularly creates tribal or ethnic pieces, but I don’t think there are any particular civilizations they are drawn from. Rather they seem to be an amalgamation of tribal aesthetics. This one appears to be a most interesting composition of stone, although its form is more reminiscent of bone; the gentle curves recall tusks, claws and ribs.

But if it were stone, what kind of stone would have such layers? Or is the white not supposed to be stone but a material for joining two types of stone? What kind of material is that? What kind of people would find these shapes and the combination of stones meaningful? There are so many possible stories that can be imagined for this piece.

Karine’s work is full of possible stories. Even in her explanation in the blog post, her words are translated from French to say, at one point, that these “are stories designs”. Not sure what that means exactly, but Google Translate creates some pretty wacky text sometimes. In the end, it’s not so much about the story the artist has in her head but what the viewer of the piece comes up with. If your work makes someone stop and consider and create their own little stories and worlds in their mind from what they see, you have succeeded in communicating and maybe even entertaining. And that makes for some pretty good art. See more examples of this kind of thing on Karine’s blog.

 

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Pushing Faux Organics

September 2, 2014
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13809621515_68f2694fba_oAnother article in the fall issue that could have had a lot more examples in it if we had the room was about playing with faux techniques. The ideas outlined in the article are about emulating something that you find in nature, but adjusting characteristics to create something that doesn’t exist. A number of fantastic artists contributed their versions of this with examples.

Page McNall contributed an example of faux wood. A small faux log to be exact, but that is hardly the end of her beyond-natural faux examples. She is definitely one of those exploratory artists I often talk about, never really settling into one form or style, but does gorgeous work in her variety of approaches. One of her newer explorations that I just love and would have liked to have included are these this faux semi-translucent organics. This is really pushing the idea of natural faux polymer. The pieces look like they could be something in nature, but I’m pretty sure there is nothing quite like the majority of these.

To get a better view of the individual pieces here, as well as her rather fascinating work, visit her Flickr page. And for more ideas on how to play with and push faux techniques, well, see the latest issue of The Polymer Arts!

 

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.

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Real Faux Fun

August 19, 2014
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moreni faux wavelight

Things have gone a little bonkers over here so apologies for the late posting and any errors here. Due to a family emergency and people being out of town, I do not have my  back-up people to help keep my dyslexic errors in check. Hope you can put up with it for a day! But then these fantastic faux wavelite stones by Ilenia Moreni don’t need a lot of explanation. I had not even heard of wavelite until I saw these and now I’m fascinated by the rock. But honestly–and I hope Mother Nature doesn’t hear this–I think I like Ilenia’s version even better. The visual texture with those strong radial lines so strongly draw the eye. And what’s even more exciting … she has an inexpensive Faux Wavelite tutorial so you can make these yourself! How fun.

Ilenia does a lot of faux work and is quite adept at it. She has even made up a few of her own versions of nature’s creations which is why I was on her Flickr page last week and found these. She’s contributing to the article on pushing faux effects from being realistic to being something that looks like it could exist in nature but has never been seen before. Look for the “Pushing Faux” article in the Fall issue of The Polymer Arts coming out Aug 30th for ideas on how to push your natural faux effects to create beautiful new effects all your own.

You may recall Ilenia was featured in the gallery section of our Summer 2014 issue but she’s been working away and has a ton more fun stuff to drool over. Find more of her work on her Flickr pages and her 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.

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Falling Spring

January 15, 2014
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Jennifer Morris has a mixed media approach to her polymer clay work. She has a signature embroidery style that uses an ever-changing mixed-media combination of polymer clay infused with gold and silver leaf, and she often incorporates recycled papers and fabric pulp into her designs. These fringed earrings look like heavy stones, but are actually light and airy when worn.

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Let Jennifer’s work inspire you to push your materials into unexpected places, using them in fresh new ways. Try a little mixed media by adding different materials to your work or by embellishing your work with embroidery or crochet stitches. Check out this interview with Jennifer on Etsy.

 

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.

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