Twisted Color

June 15, 2018

Here is another example of using both color and line to create fun and energetic pieces.

Izabela Nowak is well known for her folded polymer but it looks like she has taken it a step further, away from the origami-inspired and into geometry formed from spiraling layers of polymer strips. Her color combinations tend to stay on one side of the color wheel but she doesn’t need a lot of bright or varied colors to give the pieces energy when she has these busy lines twisting back and forth around themselves. The open space in these pieces adds a light and delicate nature to her forms, lending plenty of quiet space between the strands of twisting color.

See what else she has been up to with her new forms by checking out her Flickr photostream, her Facebook page or her Instagram account.

 

 

The Paper and Polymer Advantage

izabela-nowak-upcycling-collierMy little contribution to the Spring issue of The Polymer Arts is an article on ways to combine paper with polymer. I did a lot of research to see if there was anything else I could share with readers beyond what I had done in the past with paper casting and collage style techniques and … wow! There are tons of ways paper can be used to kick up your work. It offers ways to make production less expensive and pieces lighter for castings and as cores for large beads, it can add interesting textures both tactile and visual, and, because it can go in the oven at polymer clay curing temperatures, it can be used over, under, inside of, and just about any way you want it with your raw clay and it all can go into the oven together.

My foray into paper and polymer came initially from looking for less expensive and less noxious ways to cast sculpted pieces I had created in polymer and wanted to duplicate. I went on to use the material as a substrate, to make light sculptural and bead cores and to make hollow beads. But the things they are doing with paper in the craft world is amazing, and looks a lot like polymer sometimes. From mokume-like carved stacks of paper to rolled beads to textured, stamped, and molded paper–the work is beautiful and a very direct source of inspiration for polymer artists. If you haven’t seen what I am talking about just google something like “paper jewelry” or “paper craft” on Google, Pinterest, Etsy or Flickr. It’s fascinating.

The other super cool thing about paper craft is that much of it is being made from recycled and upcycled paper sources. I do all my paper casting using junk mail and old newspapers and my collage work is from magazines I would otherwise just throw away. But those are not the only sources of paper we can recycle and combine with polymer pieces. This necklace by Izabela Nowak is a beautiful example of where using a paper source rather than polymer has a distinct advantage.

All those discs are cut from milk and juice cartons. Creating something like that with polymer would be intensely time-consuming and curing extremely thin polymer and keeping it flat takes a few tricks. I am not saying its impossible–I’ve done it myself–but why do that if you can get a similar effect while keeping more trash out of a landfill? And  … it’s cheap or free! You gotta love that.

Izabela actually does a ton of work in paper and upcycled materials. She doesn’t often combine her polymer and paper but I find the pieces in which she doe, more interesting than the paper alone. The polymer adds solidity and texture the paper can’t and the paper offers crisp edges and smooth surfaces that are more difficult to do in polymer. So together, they make quite the pair!

Get your copy of the Spring 2016 issue of The Polymer Arts for this and other great article sure to get your creative juice flowing!

 

Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Search for paper craft, paper jewelry, or recycled art and find a piece you are drawn to. Don’t spend a lot of time looking. Then figure out what that one thing is that is really drawing you to that piece. Use that element … whether it’s the way the work was created (rolled, folded, molded), the form of the piece, or even the combination of colors, and use it to design or create your next piece.

_________________________________________

Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:

  

 PCTV March 2016 Blog 

___________________________________________

Summer is Coming! Peek at the Cover of the Upcoming Issue.

So, we start out the month of May with a sneak peek at the cover of the upcoming issue of The Polymer Arts, the Summer 2015 – Connections issue. On the cover, we have a fabulous variation of Izabela Nowak‘s Polymer Origami technique–and yes, she generously shares her polymer origami techniques and tips with us in this issue!

As has been the recent trend, this issue is filled to the brim with new ideas, techniques, lessons and tips along with lots and lots of eye candy by some really huge and inspiring artists. You can look forward to articles such as:

–Create Polymer Origami Beads by Izabela Nowak

–Moving Magnetic Focals by Helen Breil

–Connected Color: Throwing out the Wheel by Tracy Holmes

–Connecting to Inspiration Beyond Polymer by Donna Greenberg

–Visual Unity: Designing the Big Picture

–Polymer Jeweler’s Workbench: Cold Connections

–Rivets: Attachments & Accents for Polymer

–Simple Cold Water Transfers

–Mind Mapping: Creative Visual Brainstorming

–Of Drawing, Doodles & Design: The Role of Sketching

… and much more.

The issue is due out at the end of the month. We don’t have pre-orders for individual issues up just yet, but we’ll let you know when the website is updated for that. You can, however, subscribe to be certain you’ll be getting every great new issue when it comes out. www.thepolymerarts.com/Subscribe.html

As mentioned in the blog post yesterday, we’ll be trimming down the number of posts for the month of May, and I’ll start that by taking tomorrow off from the blog to work on other needed items to get this great issue out ASAP! We will see you here on Monday, though. Have a beautiful weekend!

 

If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine, as well as by supporting our advertising partners.

     TPA_McGuire_blog ad    sfxpaad-diffuse

 

Folded Flower Rings

April 6, 2014

As we finish up our week of folded polymer inspirations, I thought this simple fold and repetition technique might inspire a few of you to jump into the studio to give folding a try. Izabela Nowak‘s uses her “folded up technique” to make rings, necklaces, and earrings. This technique was inspired by her love of Origami art, resulting in dynamic three-dimensional pieces. The three thin layers of polymer colors give it a bit of visual texture as well.

13563077963_732ef430e7_o

You can see more of her work on her Facebook page including unique beads that she made inspired by Origami Art – Kusudama – Fleurogami. If you check out her Flickr pages, you will see more examples of this Origami style along with her Techtonic and Spiral Up 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.

Blog2 -2014-02Feb-5   Millefiori eggs   14P1 cover Fnl      

Twisted Color

June 15, 2018
Posted in

Here is another example of using both color and line to create fun and energetic pieces.

Izabela Nowak is well known for her folded polymer but it looks like she has taken it a step further, away from the origami-inspired and into geometry formed from spiraling layers of polymer strips. Her color combinations tend to stay on one side of the color wheel but she doesn’t need a lot of bright or varied colors to give the pieces energy when she has these busy lines twisting back and forth around themselves. The open space in these pieces adds a light and delicate nature to her forms, lending plenty of quiet space between the strands of twisting color.

See what else she has been up to with her new forms by checking out her Flickr photostream, her Facebook page or her Instagram account.

 

 

Read More

The Paper and Polymer Advantage

March 11, 2016
Posted in ,

izabela-nowak-upcycling-collierMy little contribution to the Spring issue of The Polymer Arts is an article on ways to combine paper with polymer. I did a lot of research to see if there was anything else I could share with readers beyond what I had done in the past with paper casting and collage style techniques and … wow! There are tons of ways paper can be used to kick up your work. It offers ways to make production less expensive and pieces lighter for castings and as cores for large beads, it can add interesting textures both tactile and visual, and, because it can go in the oven at polymer clay curing temperatures, it can be used over, under, inside of, and just about any way you want it with your raw clay and it all can go into the oven together.

My foray into paper and polymer came initially from looking for less expensive and less noxious ways to cast sculpted pieces I had created in polymer and wanted to duplicate. I went on to use the material as a substrate, to make light sculptural and bead cores and to make hollow beads. But the things they are doing with paper in the craft world is amazing, and looks a lot like polymer sometimes. From mokume-like carved stacks of paper to rolled beads to textured, stamped, and molded paper–the work is beautiful and a very direct source of inspiration for polymer artists. If you haven’t seen what I am talking about just google something like “paper jewelry” or “paper craft” on Google, Pinterest, Etsy or Flickr. It’s fascinating.

The other super cool thing about paper craft is that much of it is being made from recycled and upcycled paper sources. I do all my paper casting using junk mail and old newspapers and my collage work is from magazines I would otherwise just throw away. But those are not the only sources of paper we can recycle and combine with polymer pieces. This necklace by Izabela Nowak is a beautiful example of where using a paper source rather than polymer has a distinct advantage.

All those discs are cut from milk and juice cartons. Creating something like that with polymer would be intensely time-consuming and curing extremely thin polymer and keeping it flat takes a few tricks. I am not saying its impossible–I’ve done it myself–but why do that if you can get a similar effect while keeping more trash out of a landfill? And  … it’s cheap or free! You gotta love that.

Izabela actually does a ton of work in paper and upcycled materials. She doesn’t often combine her polymer and paper but I find the pieces in which she doe, more interesting than the paper alone. The polymer adds solidity and texture the paper can’t and the paper offers crisp edges and smooth surfaces that are more difficult to do in polymer. So together, they make quite the pair!

Get your copy of the Spring 2016 issue of The Polymer Arts for this and other great article sure to get your creative juice flowing!

 

Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Search for paper craft, paper jewelry, or recycled art and find a piece you are drawn to. Don’t spend a lot of time looking. Then figure out what that one thing is that is really drawing you to that piece. Use that element … whether it’s the way the work was created (rolled, folded, molded), the form of the piece, or even the combination of colors, and use it to design or create your next piece.

_________________________________________

Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:

  

 PCTV March 2016 Blog 

___________________________________________

Read More

Summer is Coming! Peek at the Cover of the Upcoming Issue.

May 1, 2015
Posted in ,

So, we start out the month of May with a sneak peek at the cover of the upcoming issue of The Polymer Arts, the Summer 2015 – Connections issue. On the cover, we have a fabulous variation of Izabela Nowak‘s Polymer Origami technique–and yes, she generously shares her polymer origami techniques and tips with us in this issue!

As has been the recent trend, this issue is filled to the brim with new ideas, techniques, lessons and tips along with lots and lots of eye candy by some really huge and inspiring artists. You can look forward to articles such as:

–Create Polymer Origami Beads by Izabela Nowak

–Moving Magnetic Focals by Helen Breil

–Connected Color: Throwing out the Wheel by Tracy Holmes

–Connecting to Inspiration Beyond Polymer by Donna Greenberg

–Visual Unity: Designing the Big Picture

–Polymer Jeweler’s Workbench: Cold Connections

–Rivets: Attachments & Accents for Polymer

–Simple Cold Water Transfers

–Mind Mapping: Creative Visual Brainstorming

–Of Drawing, Doodles & Design: The Role of Sketching

… and much more.

The issue is due out at the end of the month. We don’t have pre-orders for individual issues up just yet, but we’ll let you know when the website is updated for that. You can, however, subscribe to be certain you’ll be getting every great new issue when it comes out. www.thepolymerarts.com/Subscribe.html

As mentioned in the blog post yesterday, we’ll be trimming down the number of posts for the month of May, and I’ll start that by taking tomorrow off from the blog to work on other needed items to get this great issue out ASAP! We will see you here on Monday, though. Have a beautiful weekend!

 

If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine, as well as by supporting our advertising partners.

     TPA_McGuire_blog ad    sfxpaad-diffuse

 

Read More

Folded Flower Rings

April 6, 2014
Posted in

As we finish up our week of folded polymer inspirations, I thought this simple fold and repetition technique might inspire a few of you to jump into the studio to give folding a try. Izabela Nowak‘s uses her “folded up technique” to make rings, necklaces, and earrings. This technique was inspired by her love of Origami art, resulting in dynamic three-dimensional pieces. The three thin layers of polymer colors give it a bit of visual texture as well.

13563077963_732ef430e7_o

You can see more of her work on her Facebook page including unique beads that she made inspired by Origami Art – Kusudama – Fleurogami. If you check out her Flickr pages, you will see more examples of this Origami style along with her Techtonic and Spiral Up 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.

Blog2 -2014-02Feb-5   Millefiori eggs   14P1 cover Fnl      

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