Beautifully Strung Along
October 3, 2018
Inspirational Art
There has been a wonderful variety of wall art popping up lately, using a number of interesting techniques, many involving inventive mosaic applications and a kind of polymer marquetry. Although they all stand out for one reason or another, I don’t think they jump out at you the way the unique look of Joe Barbaccia’s work does.
Joe developed an illustrative technique based on using tapered strings of polymer clay. He wrote a wonderful article in the Winter 2014 issue of The Polymer Arts about his technique including step-by-step details on how he creates his pieces. It takes planning and patience but the result is a gorgeous, vibrant texture that flows and moves throughout the change in value and form of the images.
He has quite a number of really stunning new pieces, many showcasing newer polymer applications for him including the marquetry-like background behind this beautifully composed fox. The large swatches of color really make the texture and movement of the fox stand out. Joe also has a wonderful eye for the juxtaposition of color, creating high contrast as well as subtle gradations in such a way as to make the work come alive with a sense of light and form that his limited palette and choice of application might make difficult but for his well-trained eye.
Joe has been stretching his techniques as well as his market in what looks to be a very successful series of endeavors. Just take a look at his website gallery to to see what he has been up to.
A Painterly Cane
June 1, 2018
Inspirational Art
Here’s one last example for this week of these incredible illustrative image canes we are seeing these days. This one uses the more familiar and common imagery of flowers which so many cane makers are inspired by. However, the way Jayne Dwyer creates her flower here makes it look like a painting, with color variation and details that are not very common in polymer clay flower canes.
Jayne employees outlining, which we saw at work in Claire’s piece on Monday, but here it is quite a bit more dramatic with its black and white outlines. The soft gradation of color plays a contrast to the hard black-and-white delineation around the flower. It makes it really pop. She also created a painterly background for the flower within the cane itself. The streaks of color are varied but create radiating lines that give an energized, dimensional feel to the petals.
And then she has these spots of color that pop up within those gradations. It’s very detailed and interesting to look at closely and imagine all the decisions she made to come up with this image. I don’t suppose the decisions are much different than one would make when painting, but in polymer, each decision takes some serious confidence and dedication to the image since how it will look is not going to be wholly apparent until after reduction.
Take a close-up look for yourself at the image in this cane or go to a bigger image on Facebook. You can also see more of the work Jayne does on her website.
A Fascinating Process
May 30, 2018
Inspirational Art
I know a lot of you have probably already seen this but it’s too amazing not to comment on. Julie Eakes has been creating her incredible pointillism canes for quite a while, although it has been a couple of years since she created one, but her process and the finished canes never fail to fascinate.
This one, “Soul of the Rose” cane, is the most recent addition to her fabulous cane imagery portfolio. If you go to her Facebook page and go back to April 5 and scroll up to recent posts, you can see her process throughout the weeks that it took her to put this together. She mixed 77 colors for this, extruding each with a square and painstakingly put them together into 56 block canes. The complete cane before reduction was 6.5” x 8” x 2” and weighed 5 pounds. She then reduced it by sections and took a few slices off as she went so she’ll have cane images at different sizes which is what you’re seeing here.
Her cane reduction is probably not quite what you would think either. She uses a few different methods and shares her process of reduction in a video that you can find here. Don’t forget to drop by her Facebook page or Instagram account for the full story of this piece.
A Few Touches
May 28, 2018
Inspirational Art
Have you seen what crazy, amazing illustrative cane work people have been doing lately? This work has been absolutely amazing the way the canes take on a painterly look beneath the skillful hands of these particular artists.
The Kingfisher bird in this brooch is a cane by Claire Wallis. Mind-blowing isn’t it? She applied it to a painted background but she didn’t just leave it as a cane blended into a background layer. She was very thoughtful about how it would appear and applied a thin layer of translucent clay to give the edges a soft focus.
She also scratched in a pale border along the edges of the beak and some of the feathers to further blend the cane’s edge. This has the added effect of making the bird image sit on a more definite foreground plane as well as separating the abundance of cool colors in the background and bird feathers which would otherwise visually meld, making the edge of the bird’s head a bit nebulous. These little touches have really made the difference between it just being an amazing cane and creating an overall amazing image and brooch.
Claire’s cane work keeps getting better and better, even when you don’t think it could. You can check out her polymer journey on her Facebook page and Flickr site, and see her finished items in her Etsy shop.
Crisp and Clean
October 12, 2016
Inspirational Art
Some days you just want simple and bright, something uncomplicated to make you smile. I found this one bead on this foggy Wednesday morning and it gave me an immediate visual pick me up with the beautiful colors and skillfully created and applied canes.
The cane and bead artisan here is Israel’s Sagit Levi. She specializes in bright, clean, well-defined and delightful colors and graphical lines in her beads as well as creating charming illustrative wall art. She also is very attentive to her finishes, completing edges and surfaces so smoothly that her resin and glaze sealants come out flawless, letting those yummy colors shine through.
Need a bit more color pick-me-up yourself? Just jump over to Sagit’s website, Flickr photostream or Etsy site and get yourself an eye full!
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Let color rule your day. Focus on creating a few new color palettes. Start with one color that you really like then stack all kinds of colors next to it and create a new palette that surprises and delights you. If you can’t do that in the studio, you can play with this somewhat new free online color palette finder from Adobe, Color CC, or try the polymer specific ColorMixr app on your phone.
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
_________________________________________
Outside Inspiration: Burning Up and Looking Through
January 22, 2016
Inspirational Art
These little unexpected beauties are brought to us by Debbie Crothers who just dropped them onto my Facebook page last week. These were created by Armenian fashion illustrator Edgar Artis who uses common objects and scenes to take some basic fashion concepts beyond the ordinary. The matches dress illustration is so simple, but between the heavily directional lines and the ‘hot’ implication of the material, it is a rather arresting image. The cut-outs, however, are simply a fantastic way to test out color and texture. Edgar was not the first to do this, so to give credit where credit is due, you’d want to also check out Shamekh Bluwi, an architect and fashion illustrator living in Jordan, who shows off the potential for women’s dresses with his very intricate cut-outs.
But besides these just being a fun bit of illustration to admire, I was thinking the cut-out-and-view-through process could be an excellent springboard or tool set to help you work out your own polymer designs. You can take sketches you have (or make copies of them) and cut out the essential mass of the design, then hold it up to various colors and textures. I just got my pack of Tracy Holmes’ Colour Cards today and placing a cut-out over selected solid-colored cards would be so much more telling than just holding them up to a sketch. Don’t you think?
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Trace a favorite form or shape, cut it out so you have a stencil, then take it on a walk with a camera of some kind. Hold it up to various colors, textures, patterns, etc. as you go. Take photos of what you find. Go home and put those photos up on a bigger screen and save or print out the ones you really like. Now … can you create artwork from what you found in that empty space in the stencil?
___________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
___________________________________________
A Mix of Disciplines
September 28, 2015
Inspirational Art
The concept of mixing disciplines was a conversation over and over this weekend between a visit to the FIDM Museum for the Golden Globes Costume exhibit, a friend’s photography gallery exhibit opening and a wander through a rare bookstore. Some artists are inspired by the medium or technique they work in while others look for the right mediums and techniques to express their ideas.
If you read the Laurie MacIsaac article in the Summer 2015 issue of The Polymer Arts, then you probably recognize the artist here. As shown in the article through images of her sketches and her finished art work, Caroline Cornic mixes her skill as an illustrator with beautifully finished polymer jewelry. The style of her images and the brightness of her colors seemed like a perfect Monday pick-me-up, as well as an inspiration for those looking for a way to stretch out and try something new. You can use illustrative techniques by drawing directly on the polymer with polymer safe pens like Ranger’s Perfect Pearls pen or PITT artist markers, or you can draw on paper with graphite or color pencils and use a rub and bake image transfer technique to put it on your clay.
To see more of Caroline’s great illustrative polymer, check out her Etsy shop and her Pinterest board filled with her bright and whimsical work.
And speaking of past issues, we are presently running an offer for new and returning subscribers or for present subscribers referring new readers to us. Here are the details if you didn’t catch it in our latest newsletter:
Free Back Issues! for New, Returning & Referring Subscribers
Become a New Subscriber, Restart your old subscription or Refer a New Subscriber and get a *free back issue!
If you’ve thought about subscribing or renewing a subscription that lapsed some time ago, this is the time to do it! Subscribe now and we’ll catch you up with a *free copy of one of the other 2015 issues. Choose from: Summer 2015 – Connections or Spring 2015 – Diversity.
New & Returning Subscribers:This offer is open to anyone that has not held a subscription with us before or has only inactive subscriptions that expired before 2015.
- Click here to get in on this offer and start your new subscription.
- Choose your free issue then click over to the subscription options as indicated.
- Choose “New Subscription starting with Fall 2015”
*You’ll receive your free copy in the same format (print or digital) as your subscription. It may take up to 7 business days to mail print issues or send the free digital copy by email. Offer expires October 31st, 2015.
Referrals: If you refer a brand new subscriber, your referred subscriber can get a free back issue and you will be sent a gift credit of $10 to use towards a back issue or subscription.
Just write us at connect@thepolymerarts.com with the name and email (as sent to us) of the person you referred after they make their purchase. The referral credit offer is valid for sending new subscribers with purchases made between September 21st, 2015 to October 31st, 2015.
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
Yay for Trees!
October 1, 2013
Inspirational Art
This work is simply the kind of thing that personally draws me in. Trees and vines and tendril-y things are my weakness, and Kael Mjoy does love her trees. It’s obvious that she has a lot of fun with these “fairy trees” of hers.
The tree wall art idea came from an illustration of a spooky set of trees that Kael rendered in polymer. She enjoyed it so much, she started making her own versions of tree-inspired wall art. She has this great snowy tree and fire tree on her blog that are simpler than the one here, but are really cool images nonetheless. Just being a tree geek for the moment. Don’t mind me.
There has been a wonderful variety of wall art popping up lately, using a number of interesting techniques, many involving inventive mosaic applications and a kind of polymer marquetry. Although they all stand out for one reason or another, I don’t think they jump out at you the way the unique look of Joe Barbaccia’s work does.
Joe developed an illustrative technique based on using tapered strings of polymer clay. He wrote a wonderful article in the Winter 2014 issue of The Polymer Arts about his technique including step-by-step details on how he creates his pieces. It takes planning and patience but the result is a gorgeous, vibrant texture that flows and moves throughout the change in value and form of the images.
He has quite a number of really stunning new pieces, many showcasing newer polymer applications for him including the marquetry-like background behind this beautifully composed fox. The large swatches of color really make the texture and movement of the fox stand out. Joe also has a wonderful eye for the juxtaposition of color, creating high contrast as well as subtle gradations in such a way as to make the work come alive with a sense of light and form that his limited palette and choice of application might make difficult but for his well-trained eye.
Joe has been stretching his techniques as well as his market in what looks to be a very successful series of endeavors. Just take a look at his website gallery to to see what he has been up to.
Read More
Here’s one last example for this week of these incredible illustrative image canes we are seeing these days. This one uses the more familiar and common imagery of flowers which so many cane makers are inspired by. However, the way Jayne Dwyer creates her flower here makes it look like a painting, with color variation and details that are not very common in polymer clay flower canes.
Jayne employees outlining, which we saw at work in Claire’s piece on Monday, but here it is quite a bit more dramatic with its black and white outlines. The soft gradation of color plays a contrast to the hard black-and-white delineation around the flower. It makes it really pop. She also created a painterly background for the flower within the cane itself. The streaks of color are varied but create radiating lines that give an energized, dimensional feel to the petals.
And then she has these spots of color that pop up within those gradations. It’s very detailed and interesting to look at closely and imagine all the decisions she made to come up with this image. I don’t suppose the decisions are much different than one would make when painting, but in polymer, each decision takes some serious confidence and dedication to the image since how it will look is not going to be wholly apparent until after reduction.
Take a close-up look for yourself at the image in this cane or go to a bigger image on Facebook. You can also see more of the work Jayne does on her website.
Read More
I know a lot of you have probably already seen this but it’s too amazing not to comment on. Julie Eakes has been creating her incredible pointillism canes for quite a while, although it has been a couple of years since she created one, but her process and the finished canes never fail to fascinate.
This one, “Soul of the Rose” cane, is the most recent addition to her fabulous cane imagery portfolio. If you go to her Facebook page and go back to April 5 and scroll up to recent posts, you can see her process throughout the weeks that it took her to put this together. She mixed 77 colors for this, extruding each with a square and painstakingly put them together into 56 block canes. The complete cane before reduction was 6.5” x 8” x 2” and weighed 5 pounds. She then reduced it by sections and took a few slices off as she went so she’ll have cane images at different sizes which is what you’re seeing here.
Her cane reduction is probably not quite what you would think either. She uses a few different methods and shares her process of reduction in a video that you can find here. Don’t forget to drop by her Facebook page or Instagram account for the full story of this piece.
Read MoreHave you seen what crazy, amazing illustrative cane work people have been doing lately? This work has been absolutely amazing the way the canes take on a painterly look beneath the skillful hands of these particular artists.
The Kingfisher bird in this brooch is a cane by Claire Wallis. Mind-blowing isn’t it? She applied it to a painted background but she didn’t just leave it as a cane blended into a background layer. She was very thoughtful about how it would appear and applied a thin layer of translucent clay to give the edges a soft focus.
She also scratched in a pale border along the edges of the beak and some of the feathers to further blend the cane’s edge. This has the added effect of making the bird image sit on a more definite foreground plane as well as separating the abundance of cool colors in the background and bird feathers which would otherwise visually meld, making the edge of the bird’s head a bit nebulous. These little touches have really made the difference between it just being an amazing cane and creating an overall amazing image and brooch.
Claire’s cane work keeps getting better and better, even when you don’t think it could. You can check out her polymer journey on her Facebook page and Flickr site, and see her finished items in her Etsy shop.
Read MoreSome days you just want simple and bright, something uncomplicated to make you smile. I found this one bead on this foggy Wednesday morning and it gave me an immediate visual pick me up with the beautiful colors and skillfully created and applied canes.
The cane and bead artisan here is Israel’s Sagit Levi. She specializes in bright, clean, well-defined and delightful colors and graphical lines in her beads as well as creating charming illustrative wall art. She also is very attentive to her finishes, completing edges and surfaces so smoothly that her resin and glaze sealants come out flawless, letting those yummy colors shine through.
Need a bit more color pick-me-up yourself? Just jump over to Sagit’s website, Flickr photostream or Etsy site and get yourself an eye full!
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Let color rule your day. Focus on creating a few new color palettes. Start with one color that you really like then stack all kinds of colors next to it and create a new palette that surprises and delights you. If you can’t do that in the studio, you can play with this somewhat new free online color palette finder from Adobe, Color CC, or try the polymer specific ColorMixr app on your phone.
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
_________________________________________
Read MoreThese little unexpected beauties are brought to us by Debbie Crothers who just dropped them onto my Facebook page last week. These were created by Armenian fashion illustrator Edgar Artis who uses common objects and scenes to take some basic fashion concepts beyond the ordinary. The matches dress illustration is so simple, but between the heavily directional lines and the ‘hot’ implication of the material, it is a rather arresting image. The cut-outs, however, are simply a fantastic way to test out color and texture. Edgar was not the first to do this, so to give credit where credit is due, you’d want to also check out Shamekh Bluwi, an architect and fashion illustrator living in Jordan, who shows off the potential for women’s dresses with his very intricate cut-outs.
But besides these just being a fun bit of illustration to admire, I was thinking the cut-out-and-view-through process could be an excellent springboard or tool set to help you work out your own polymer designs. You can take sketches you have (or make copies of them) and cut out the essential mass of the design, then hold it up to various colors and textures. I just got my pack of Tracy Holmes’ Colour Cards today and placing a cut-out over selected solid-colored cards would be so much more telling than just holding them up to a sketch. Don’t you think?
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Trace a favorite form or shape, cut it out so you have a stencil, then take it on a walk with a camera of some kind. Hold it up to various colors, textures, patterns, etc. as you go. Take photos of what you find. Go home and put those photos up on a bigger screen and save or print out the ones you really like. Now … can you create artwork from what you found in that empty space in the stencil?
___________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
___________________________________________
Read MoreThe concept of mixing disciplines was a conversation over and over this weekend between a visit to the FIDM Museum for the Golden Globes Costume exhibit, a friend’s photography gallery exhibit opening and a wander through a rare bookstore. Some artists are inspired by the medium or technique they work in while others look for the right mediums and techniques to express their ideas.
If you read the Laurie MacIsaac article in the Summer 2015 issue of The Polymer Arts, then you probably recognize the artist here. As shown in the article through images of her sketches and her finished art work, Caroline Cornic mixes her skill as an illustrator with beautifully finished polymer jewelry. The style of her images and the brightness of her colors seemed like a perfect Monday pick-me-up, as well as an inspiration for those looking for a way to stretch out and try something new. You can use illustrative techniques by drawing directly on the polymer with polymer safe pens like Ranger’s Perfect Pearls pen or PITT artist markers, or you can draw on paper with graphite or color pencils and use a rub and bake image transfer technique to put it on your clay.
To see more of Caroline’s great illustrative polymer, check out her Etsy shop and her Pinterest board filled with her bright and whimsical work.
And speaking of past issues, we are presently running an offer for new and returning subscribers or for present subscribers referring new readers to us. Here are the details if you didn’t catch it in our latest newsletter:
Free Back Issues! for New, Returning & Referring Subscribers
Become a New Subscriber, Restart your old subscription or Refer a New Subscriber and get a *free back issue!
If you’ve thought about subscribing or renewing a subscription that lapsed some time ago, this is the time to do it! Subscribe now and we’ll catch you up with a *free copy of one of the other 2015 issues. Choose from: Summer 2015 – Connections or Spring 2015 – Diversity.
New & Returning Subscribers:This offer is open to anyone that has not held a subscription with us before or has only inactive subscriptions that expired before 2015.
- Click here to get in on this offer and start your new subscription.
- Choose your free issue then click over to the subscription options as indicated.
- Choose “New Subscription starting with Fall 2015”
*You’ll receive your free copy in the same format (print or digital) as your subscription. It may take up to 7 business days to mail print issues or send the free digital copy by email. Offer expires October 31st, 2015.
Referrals: If you refer a brand new subscriber, your referred subscriber can get a free back issue and you will be sent a gift credit of $10 to use towards a back issue or subscription.
Just write us at connect@thepolymerarts.com with the name and email (as sent to us) of the person you referred after they make their purchase. The referral credit offer is valid for sending new subscribers with purchases made between September 21st, 2015 to October 31st, 2015.
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
This work is simply the kind of thing that personally draws me in. Trees and vines and tendril-y things are my weakness, and Kael Mjoy does love her trees. It’s obvious that she has a lot of fun with these “fairy trees” of hers.
The tree wall art idea came from an illustration of a spooky set of trees that Kael rendered in polymer. She enjoyed it so much, she started making her own versions of tree-inspired wall art. She has this great snowy tree and fire tree on her blog that are simpler than the one here, but are really cool images nonetheless. Just being a tree geek for the moment. Don’t mind me.
Read More