Doodling Days
April 5, 2020
Uncategorized
I’m sorry I didn’t get this out Saturday night as usual. I could have sworn yesterday was Friday. Both myself and my husband were here working away at home like it was a regular workday. Yep, life is a little out of whack for us all right now. But assuming you still have time to be inspired if you’re getting this Monday morning, here’s some ideas about a stress relieving and fun way to pass the time as well as increase your creativity.
We’ve all doodled at some point. There’s something addictive about putting pen or pencil to paper and drawing random lines, allowing them to meander until we see something in our doodles and from it create an actual image or design. I’m sure you’ve done that same kind of thing in clay, whether you equated it to doodling or not. The random, seemingly aimless lines we draw or carve or lay out with a snake of clay are suggestions of things that already exist out there in the world. Like looking for shapes in the clouds, our minds will see an object or creature or other symbol in the clay, if you give your imagination free reign to do so.
In actuality, you can find similar lines in nature for almost any line you randomly come up with. However, nature’s lines are rarely aimless. The winding path of a stream or river, the marks left by waves in the sand, or the undulating profile of a mountain range on the horizon are all lines that don’t have consistency or focal points, but are still very purposeful—they are the result of change and action and define some feature of nature. Because of this, I think we want to find purpose in lines that look random and decide what they might define.
That would be why you would look at pieces like these earrings by Lina Brusnika and see, in the layer of undulating lines a landscape, maybe hills or an ocean. Lina looks to live in Kamchatka, a peninsula in the far east of Russia. Her posted photos on LiveJournal of beaches and landscapes make me think she had these views on her mind when she created these.
If you haven’t doodled with clay, you really must give it a try. Like drawing doodles, this kind of clay play can relieve stress and help you break though design problems and uninspired studio days. The pendants that open this post are clay doodles by Jael Thorp. See just how beautiful a bit of clay doodling can be? Jael has actually done a lot of clay doodling. Even those pieces she doesn’t list as doodles, such as cane-covered ornaments and extrusion decorated hearts, have a definite doodling feel to them. They are great examples of how limitless this doodling with clay idea is. There aren’t any restrictions as to how you doodle with clay. Use extrusions, bits of clay, cane slices, hand tools on sheeted clay, or go crazy with embellishments. It’s about letting the mind and hands go and seeing where they take you.
Doodling, although often thought of as mindless work, is not, at least, pointless. It is really a translation of what is going on in your subconscious or it’s an expression of your mind’s reaction to what you see and hear around you. If you are doodling without a preconceived idea of what you are drawing, especially while otherwise occupied (such as being on hold during a phone call or listening to a lecture), the doodling can create a very telling design and set of patterns pulled from subconscious thoughts.
The doodling-related development of Zentangling which uses repeated patterns and lines to lend your doodling direction, actually includes a series of rules, such as drawing only in 3.5-inch squares, only drawing in pen so you can’t erase and only drawing abstract designs. This takes the idea of doodling up a notch, but it can still result in quite personal designs. A lot of people have expanded on the Zentangle idea, throwing many rules out the window and developing cool abstract art like the Zentangle you see here, by Shreya Srinivasan who is using quarantine time to get colorfully creative.
Doodling also allows you to let go of the planning that is so often necessary in crafting so you can get into a relaxing flow which tends to expand the imagination and creativity and, in speaking specifically of doodling, can result in patterns that you may end up using in your more planned craft work. You can use doodles or Zentangles to create patterns for hand carved rubber stamps, DIY silk screens, image transfers, and hand-tooled marks and lines as well as using traditional drawing and coloring mediums on cured clay. Here you see Fabiola Perez took her Zentagle type drawing and created pendants directly from it.
Doodling is also thought to help you problem-solve so, if you hit a creative block, stop, and listen to some music, a book on tape or podcast, and then just doodle away! The solution to your creative work may then have room and a conduit to bubble to the surface, or you may find a whole new idea there in front of you.
The other thing about doodling that has been discovered through clinical studies is that it reduces stress and can make you more aware and mindful. And right now, anything that helps reduce the stress and calms the mind is a useful if not absolutely necessary thing to have in your daily life. So, doodle for your well-being as well as for your art!
A Creative’s Virtual Salon
So, I have been brewing up an idea to allow us to gather online, not for a class as there are plenty of those out there, but more of an intellectual salon. It’s something I was actually thinking about when I started the Virtual Art Box and has been discussed in a wishful way amongst many of my artistic friends. However, trying to figure out how to get everyone on a virtual gather when there is a technological curve to overcome left me a bit befuddled and, it seems, there was always some other priority I was having to chase.
Well, much has changed of late! We are now in a time when we need to reinvent the way we connect so it looks like most people have now learned to use videoconferencing or other video gathering technology as are one of the only ways we can connect somewhat face-to-face with the people that we love and care about. Suddenly the technical hurdles have been largely knocked down! So, I figured there was no time like now to take advantage of our technology and have some intriguing chats with fascinating minds. Part presentation, part interview, part coffee klatch, I am envisioning an intellectual gathering that will feed mind and imagination as well as our need to connect.
I’m still trying to work out the details. Life in this world is a bit distracting and I have more on my plate then I should (not like that’s new but it is starting to change) but if you’re interested in either attending an intellectual salon, or would like to be one of the participants presenting ideas and discussion, click here and fill out this extremely brief form to let me know.
I am still debating as to whether this will be primarily a Virtual Art Box feature in terms of being able to participate live or whether I will be able to afford to make this publicly available. Like many of you, the pandemic has thrown my previous plans as well as my financial situation into disarray. I’m having a very hard time promoting and asking for money when I know so many people are in such uncertain circumstances. But let’s see if we can make this happen first and then I will figure out how to support it!
So, for now, fill out my little 4 question questionnaire if you would like to encourage me to make this happen!
Okay, now I have to get back to polishing up the packet for all you Virtual Art Boxers. Stay safe, stay well, and stay home as much as possible. The sooner we kick this virus to the curb, the sooner we can all get back out and about!
Tile Talk
May 12, 2019
Inspirational Art
Do you ever stop to ask yourself if what you create makes you happy? It seems like a silly question since creating is usually passion driven so being able to feed that passion should make you happy, right? But have you ever found yourself creating something because you believe it is the kind of thing other people would like but later realize that you don’t enjoying making it?
I found that happened a lot when I was a selling artist. You get wrapped up in what you think the market would want, what you think will sell best at the next show, and you’d be just making things for the money and not because it’s what you want to make. Other times we think that in a particular material, like polymer clay, it is best used for certain forms such as jewelry and home decor. But as we all know, polymer can do almost anything and yet 85% of it being created and shared online is jewelry. Jewelry is pretty fun stuff to make, sure, but if you enjoy polymer, just keep in mind you don’t have to make jewelry.
I myself have been moving away from jewelry. A pendant or pair of earrings are oftentimes still the best items to create to show off a polymer technique for a magazine article or tutorial but more and more, I create objects without an end goal in mind and am really enjoying just making little objects and samples of techniques. Last year, I started to see patterns and connections between them and eventually started putting them in shadow boxes. You can see an example of one of my “specimen” boxes in the latest Polymer Journeys book, if you’re curious. I’m also trying to devise a class for doing it. It’s so much fun!
But when I have to create jewelry because I am vetting an article for the magazine or want to make a gift, I have lately found that I don’t look forward to the engineering of it – figuring out how it is going to hang, what stringing material will work best, what findings I need, as well as worrying about comfort and durability. I find I don’t want to think about those things when I create and it’s not out of some kind of laziness, it’s just not what I want to spend my mental and creative energy on, and I’m good with that. I just really want to follow creative paths that make me happy right now.
To that end (and because I’ve spent so much time in tile stores lately), I’ve decided I might just focus on tiles for a while. They are a very freeing form. A tile is just a canvas for 3D materials. You can do whatever you want on them. You can make them any size, any shape, and can attach whatever you want or attack it however you want. I think we really should all give ourselves the freedom to play with this form, to let ourselves be free to create from the heart with a material we love. At the end of a session of tile making, you may find you are really looking forward to creating necklaces or making beads or covering vases. But I am going to suggest you give a tile a try here and there to just let yourself create freely. Doing this can help with your designs in other forms.
To that end, of course, I’m going to share some tiles this weekend. I am going to share a lot of non-polymer ones because I think, if you’ve spent any time online, you’ve probably seen your share of polymer tiles these last few years, especially with the Fimo 50 year challenge a couple of years back and with the common inches exchanges (inches are just tiny tiles). So, I’ve got a quite a mix for you but it is all art that can translate to polymer even if it is in another material.
Laying it All Out
The opening image of this post is a photo from a class conducted by Laurie Mika. She is well-known for her colorful and intricate collage/mosaic pieces which, by the way, she teaches at various events. This collection of student work was from a polymer clay tapestry class she taught at the SAMA (Society of American Mosaic Artists) conference in Nashville just a few of weeks ago. They are all just lovely. There is no high-end technical skill needed to put these types of things together which makes them ideal for exploring color and texture and just letting yourself go. (You can check Laurie’s workshop schedule on her website.)
Jael Thorp caught my eye some years back with her “clay doodles”, including the one below. I thought they looked like zentangles for clayers. Can you imagine the flow state she must’ve been in to create this? You can just get so completely lost in this kind of work and that is a big part of why people find tiles such a wonderful creative outlet.
Check out this post with her various doodles from some years back. She went on to refine her technique, making beautiful beads and home decor with the same type of application. You can find them on her Flickr photostream.
Let’s move from polymer to ceramics now. It is a rare thing in ceramics that can’t be replicated in some fashion in polymer so I find ceramic art quite inspiring. Here is one of my favorite tile makers in ceramics, Chris Gryder, who has gone a bit more three-dimensional of late but his tile compositions are timeless.
In this composition, each tile is its own separate piece but he’s connected them all with these lines that he creates through the grid of tiles. So, really, you can make a whole bunch of tiles without worrying about what they’re going to end up as, and then, if you want to put them together as a composition because they have a similar or complementary set of color palettes, textures, or motifs, you can use lines that flow throughout to visually connect them for a larger composite composition. This approach would allow you to just make tiles as the muse directs and then you can later make them into a larger wall piece.
If you like this piece, go browse through his website or his Instagram page for more fantastic inspiring wall compositions in tile.
Keep in mind, just because tiles start out flat, they are not two-dimensional and you can create extremely three-dimensional pieces on them. Here’s one example with some very organic forms and textures created by Lauren Blakey, another ceramic artist.
And here’s another three-dimensional example in glass by Shayna Leib.
As you can see, tile work is open to all types of materials so keep that in mind as you sit down to tile. Mix in anything that your heart and muse desires. Mix and match mediums, embed oddball trinkets you’ve kept for, as yet, unknown reasons, and just keep an open mind.
After pulling these examples for you, I realized that all the examples are squares here. You don’t have to create square tiles to play with but that is the more common form. However, if you’re not feeling square, try a free form shape or an oblong one or maybe, because today is Mother’s Day, create a big heart for all the mothers out there. Happy Mother’s Day to all you amazing women!
Here’s a heart from Tina Ruppert of Wisecrackin’ Mosaics on Etsy. Pick a favorite shape and a bunch of canes or other scraps of clay and you can do something along these lines as well.
Getting Squared Away
I’m going to leave you with these thoughts and hopefully some curiosity about playing around with a tile or two, in whatever form and techniques interest you. If you need some jumpstart tutorials, here are a few places you can go:
Sara Evans has a video about her tile making process here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FAxYwgJfLo
If you want to do something tile like but still want it to be something functional when done, maybe you would like this polymer clay tile box tutorial –
https://mermaidsden.com/blog/2015/02/12/polymer-clay-tile-box
Or have fun with one of our true masters of polymer clay tiles, Chris Kapono, with her very detailed and yet tremendously fun tile project in the Polymer Arts Projects book which you can purchase and download digitally if you need it immediately or order the print edition from our website.
I opened with a discussion about doing what makes you happy and hope it gives you some food for thought. If you want to hear a couple of transformative stories in that vein, please be sure to get your copy of The Polymer Studio Issue #2, recently released, which starts and ends with stories about finding one’s happy place with one about Christine Dumont’s studio complete with a visual tour, and the other about Donna Greenberg’s focus moving from jewelry to large wall art. Check out the Issue #2 Sampler if you haven’t seen the new issues yet.
We’re daily trying to find are happy place over here as our house has continued to be demolished more and more, beyond what we (or our contractor) expected even. Old plumbing can be a tricky thing! If it would just warm up here, it wouldn’t be so bad. A cold Southern California in May is just weird.
I’d share progress shots of the house but it’s pretty much just down to studs and busted up concrete floors. Oh… And a large trench across the whole of the front yard for a new drain line. I’m thinking about making it into a moat. Like a habitrail (if you remember those hamster houses) for our pond fish. They could just swim circles around the house! Okay, probably not but gotta have fun with all this bedlam, even if it’s just dreaming up nonsense like that!
I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday and Mother’s Day! I’m off to have mimosas with the family’s fabulous females myself! Enjoy the day and your coming week!
How To Clay Doodle
January 17, 2015
Inspirational Art
Have you started doodling yet? We talked about doodling as a drawing technique yesterday, but you know what … you can also doodle with clay! The main objective in clay doodling is to create something unplanned, to let your mind and hands work up a design that comes from unconscious ideas and to follow the patterns that emerge with your directionless play. Like drawing doodles, this kind of clay play can relieve stress and help you break though design problems and the creatives blahs.
These cabochon beads are clay doodles by Jael Thorp. See just how beautiful a bit of clay doodling can be? Jael actually does a lot of clay doodling. Even those pieces she doesn’t list as doodles, such as cane-covered ornaments and extrusions decorated hearts, have a definite doodling feel to them. They are great examples of how limitless this doodling with clay idea is. There aren’t any restrictions as to how you doodle with clay. Use extrusions, bits of clay, cane slices, sheets of clay you take hand tools to or embellishments. It’s about letting the mind and hands go and seeing where they take you.
To see more of Jael’s work, visit her Art Fire shop or her Flickr pages. You can read about her process on her award-winning blog site, “Jael’s Art Jewels 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.
Gane Cellular
May 13, 2014
Inspirational Art
As we continue our look at designs inspired by microscopic imagery, this necklace by Jael Thorp from Champaign, Illinois, brings to mind plant material under a microscope. This necklace is one of Jael’s Jewels and was made by the mokume gane method. She calls this her mini mokume gane set. They have an organic fluidity that almost vibrates with life.
Jael works with color to fit her mood. You have to wonder what kind of wonderful mood she was in here. To see more of Jael’s work, visit her Art Fire shop or her Flickr pages. You can read about her process on her award winning blog site “Jael’s Art Jewels 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.
I’m sorry I didn’t get this out Saturday night as usual. I could have sworn yesterday was Friday. Both myself and my husband were here working away at home like it was a regular workday. Yep, life is a little out of whack for us all right now. But assuming you still have time to be inspired if you’re getting this Monday morning, here’s some ideas about a stress relieving and fun way to pass the time as well as increase your creativity.
We’ve all doodled at some point. There’s something addictive about putting pen or pencil to paper and drawing random lines, allowing them to meander until we see something in our doodles and from it create an actual image or design. I’m sure you’ve done that same kind of thing in clay, whether you equated it to doodling or not. The random, seemingly aimless lines we draw or carve or lay out with a snake of clay are suggestions of things that already exist out there in the world. Like looking for shapes in the clouds, our minds will see an object or creature or other symbol in the clay, if you give your imagination free reign to do so.
In actuality, you can find similar lines in nature for almost any line you randomly come up with. However, nature’s lines are rarely aimless. The winding path of a stream or river, the marks left by waves in the sand, or the undulating profile of a mountain range on the horizon are all lines that don’t have consistency or focal points, but are still very purposeful—they are the result of change and action and define some feature of nature. Because of this, I think we want to find purpose in lines that look random and decide what they might define.
That would be why you would look at pieces like these earrings by Lina Brusnika and see, in the layer of undulating lines a landscape, maybe hills or an ocean. Lina looks to live in Kamchatka, a peninsula in the far east of Russia. Her posted photos on LiveJournal of beaches and landscapes make me think she had these views on her mind when she created these.
If you haven’t doodled with clay, you really must give it a try. Like drawing doodles, this kind of clay play can relieve stress and help you break though design problems and uninspired studio days. The pendants that open this post are clay doodles by Jael Thorp. See just how beautiful a bit of clay doodling can be? Jael has actually done a lot of clay doodling. Even those pieces she doesn’t list as doodles, such as cane-covered ornaments and extrusion decorated hearts, have a definite doodling feel to them. They are great examples of how limitless this doodling with clay idea is. There aren’t any restrictions as to how you doodle with clay. Use extrusions, bits of clay, cane slices, hand tools on sheeted clay, or go crazy with embellishments. It’s about letting the mind and hands go and seeing where they take you.
Doodling, although often thought of as mindless work, is not, at least, pointless. It is really a translation of what is going on in your subconscious or it’s an expression of your mind’s reaction to what you see and hear around you. If you are doodling without a preconceived idea of what you are drawing, especially while otherwise occupied (such as being on hold during a phone call or listening to a lecture), the doodling can create a very telling design and set of patterns pulled from subconscious thoughts.
The doodling-related development of Zentangling which uses repeated patterns and lines to lend your doodling direction, actually includes a series of rules, such as drawing only in 3.5-inch squares, only drawing in pen so you can’t erase and only drawing abstract designs. This takes the idea of doodling up a notch, but it can still result in quite personal designs. A lot of people have expanded on the Zentangle idea, throwing many rules out the window and developing cool abstract art like the Zentangle you see here, by Shreya Srinivasan who is using quarantine time to get colorfully creative.
Doodling also allows you to let go of the planning that is so often necessary in crafting so you can get into a relaxing flow which tends to expand the imagination and creativity and, in speaking specifically of doodling, can result in patterns that you may end up using in your more planned craft work. You can use doodles or Zentangles to create patterns for hand carved rubber stamps, DIY silk screens, image transfers, and hand-tooled marks and lines as well as using traditional drawing and coloring mediums on cured clay. Here you see Fabiola Perez took her Zentagle type drawing and created pendants directly from it.
Doodling is also thought to help you problem-solve so, if you hit a creative block, stop, and listen to some music, a book on tape or podcast, and then just doodle away! The solution to your creative work may then have room and a conduit to bubble to the surface, or you may find a whole new idea there in front of you.
The other thing about doodling that has been discovered through clinical studies is that it reduces stress and can make you more aware and mindful. And right now, anything that helps reduce the stress and calms the mind is a useful if not absolutely necessary thing to have in your daily life. So, doodle for your well-being as well as for your art!
A Creative’s Virtual Salon
So, I have been brewing up an idea to allow us to gather online, not for a class as there are plenty of those out there, but more of an intellectual salon. It’s something I was actually thinking about when I started the Virtual Art Box and has been discussed in a wishful way amongst many of my artistic friends. However, trying to figure out how to get everyone on a virtual gather when there is a technological curve to overcome left me a bit befuddled and, it seems, there was always some other priority I was having to chase.
Well, much has changed of late! We are now in a time when we need to reinvent the way we connect so it looks like most people have now learned to use videoconferencing or other video gathering technology as are one of the only ways we can connect somewhat face-to-face with the people that we love and care about. Suddenly the technical hurdles have been largely knocked down! So, I figured there was no time like now to take advantage of our technology and have some intriguing chats with fascinating minds. Part presentation, part interview, part coffee klatch, I am envisioning an intellectual gathering that will feed mind and imagination as well as our need to connect.
I’m still trying to work out the details. Life in this world is a bit distracting and I have more on my plate then I should (not like that’s new but it is starting to change) but if you’re interested in either attending an intellectual salon, or would like to be one of the participants presenting ideas and discussion, click here and fill out this extremely brief form to let me know.
I am still debating as to whether this will be primarily a Virtual Art Box feature in terms of being able to participate live or whether I will be able to afford to make this publicly available. Like many of you, the pandemic has thrown my previous plans as well as my financial situation into disarray. I’m having a very hard time promoting and asking for money when I know so many people are in such uncertain circumstances. But let’s see if we can make this happen first and then I will figure out how to support it!
So, for now, fill out my little 4 question questionnaire if you would like to encourage me to make this happen!
Okay, now I have to get back to polishing up the packet for all you Virtual Art Boxers. Stay safe, stay well, and stay home as much as possible. The sooner we kick this virus to the curb, the sooner we can all get back out and about!
Read MoreDo you ever stop to ask yourself if what you create makes you happy? It seems like a silly question since creating is usually passion driven so being able to feed that passion should make you happy, right? But have you ever found yourself creating something because you believe it is the kind of thing other people would like but later realize that you don’t enjoying making it?
I found that happened a lot when I was a selling artist. You get wrapped up in what you think the market would want, what you think will sell best at the next show, and you’d be just making things for the money and not because it’s what you want to make. Other times we think that in a particular material, like polymer clay, it is best used for certain forms such as jewelry and home decor. But as we all know, polymer can do almost anything and yet 85% of it being created and shared online is jewelry. Jewelry is pretty fun stuff to make, sure, but if you enjoy polymer, just keep in mind you don’t have to make jewelry.
I myself have been moving away from jewelry. A pendant or pair of earrings are oftentimes still the best items to create to show off a polymer technique for a magazine article or tutorial but more and more, I create objects without an end goal in mind and am really enjoying just making little objects and samples of techniques. Last year, I started to see patterns and connections between them and eventually started putting them in shadow boxes. You can see an example of one of my “specimen” boxes in the latest Polymer Journeys book, if you’re curious. I’m also trying to devise a class for doing it. It’s so much fun!
But when I have to create jewelry because I am vetting an article for the magazine or want to make a gift, I have lately found that I don’t look forward to the engineering of it – figuring out how it is going to hang, what stringing material will work best, what findings I need, as well as worrying about comfort and durability. I find I don’t want to think about those things when I create and it’s not out of some kind of laziness, it’s just not what I want to spend my mental and creative energy on, and I’m good with that. I just really want to follow creative paths that make me happy right now.
To that end (and because I’ve spent so much time in tile stores lately), I’ve decided I might just focus on tiles for a while. They are a very freeing form. A tile is just a canvas for 3D materials. You can do whatever you want on them. You can make them any size, any shape, and can attach whatever you want or attack it however you want. I think we really should all give ourselves the freedom to play with this form, to let ourselves be free to create from the heart with a material we love. At the end of a session of tile making, you may find you are really looking forward to creating necklaces or making beads or covering vases. But I am going to suggest you give a tile a try here and there to just let yourself create freely. Doing this can help with your designs in other forms.
To that end, of course, I’m going to share some tiles this weekend. I am going to share a lot of non-polymer ones because I think, if you’ve spent any time online, you’ve probably seen your share of polymer tiles these last few years, especially with the Fimo 50 year challenge a couple of years back and with the common inches exchanges (inches are just tiny tiles). So, I’ve got a quite a mix for you but it is all art that can translate to polymer even if it is in another material.
Laying it All Out
The opening image of this post is a photo from a class conducted by Laurie Mika. She is well-known for her colorful and intricate collage/mosaic pieces which, by the way, she teaches at various events. This collection of student work was from a polymer clay tapestry class she taught at the SAMA (Society of American Mosaic Artists) conference in Nashville just a few of weeks ago. They are all just lovely. There is no high-end technical skill needed to put these types of things together which makes them ideal for exploring color and texture and just letting yourself go. (You can check Laurie’s workshop schedule on her website.)
Jael Thorp caught my eye some years back with her “clay doodles”, including the one below. I thought they looked like zentangles for clayers. Can you imagine the flow state she must’ve been in to create this? You can just get so completely lost in this kind of work and that is a big part of why people find tiles such a wonderful creative outlet.
Check out this post with her various doodles from some years back. She went on to refine her technique, making beautiful beads and home decor with the same type of application. You can find them on her Flickr photostream.
Let’s move from polymer to ceramics now. It is a rare thing in ceramics that can’t be replicated in some fashion in polymer so I find ceramic art quite inspiring. Here is one of my favorite tile makers in ceramics, Chris Gryder, who has gone a bit more three-dimensional of late but his tile compositions are timeless.
In this composition, each tile is its own separate piece but he’s connected them all with these lines that he creates through the grid of tiles. So, really, you can make a whole bunch of tiles without worrying about what they’re going to end up as, and then, if you want to put them together as a composition because they have a similar or complementary set of color palettes, textures, or motifs, you can use lines that flow throughout to visually connect them for a larger composite composition. This approach would allow you to just make tiles as the muse directs and then you can later make them into a larger wall piece.
If you like this piece, go browse through his website or his Instagram page for more fantastic inspiring wall compositions in tile.
Keep in mind, just because tiles start out flat, they are not two-dimensional and you can create extremely three-dimensional pieces on them. Here’s one example with some very organic forms and textures created by Lauren Blakey, another ceramic artist.
And here’s another three-dimensional example in glass by Shayna Leib.
As you can see, tile work is open to all types of materials so keep that in mind as you sit down to tile. Mix in anything that your heart and muse desires. Mix and match mediums, embed oddball trinkets you’ve kept for, as yet, unknown reasons, and just keep an open mind.
After pulling these examples for you, I realized that all the examples are squares here. You don’t have to create square tiles to play with but that is the more common form. However, if you’re not feeling square, try a free form shape or an oblong one or maybe, because today is Mother’s Day, create a big heart for all the mothers out there. Happy Mother’s Day to all you amazing women!
Here’s a heart from Tina Ruppert of Wisecrackin’ Mosaics on Etsy. Pick a favorite shape and a bunch of canes or other scraps of clay and you can do something along these lines as well.
Getting Squared Away
I’m going to leave you with these thoughts and hopefully some curiosity about playing around with a tile or two, in whatever form and techniques interest you. If you need some jumpstart tutorials, here are a few places you can go:
Sara Evans has a video about her tile making process here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FAxYwgJfLo
If you want to do something tile like but still want it to be something functional when done, maybe you would like this polymer clay tile box tutorial –
https://mermaidsden.com/blog/2015/02/12/polymer-clay-tile-box
Or have fun with one of our true masters of polymer clay tiles, Chris Kapono, with her very detailed and yet tremendously fun tile project in the Polymer Arts Projects book which you can purchase and download digitally if you need it immediately or order the print edition from our website.
I opened with a discussion about doing what makes you happy and hope it gives you some food for thought. If you want to hear a couple of transformative stories in that vein, please be sure to get your copy of The Polymer Studio Issue #2, recently released, which starts and ends with stories about finding one’s happy place with one about Christine Dumont’s studio complete with a visual tour, and the other about Donna Greenberg’s focus moving from jewelry to large wall art. Check out the Issue #2 Sampler if you haven’t seen the new issues yet.
We’re daily trying to find are happy place over here as our house has continued to be demolished more and more, beyond what we (or our contractor) expected even. Old plumbing can be a tricky thing! If it would just warm up here, it wouldn’t be so bad. A cold Southern California in May is just weird.
I’d share progress shots of the house but it’s pretty much just down to studs and busted up concrete floors. Oh… And a large trench across the whole of the front yard for a new drain line. I’m thinking about making it into a moat. Like a habitrail (if you remember those hamster houses) for our pond fish. They could just swim circles around the house! Okay, probably not but gotta have fun with all this bedlam, even if it’s just dreaming up nonsense like that!
I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday and Mother’s Day! I’m off to have mimosas with the family’s fabulous females myself! Enjoy the day and your coming week!
Read MoreHave you started doodling yet? We talked about doodling as a drawing technique yesterday, but you know what … you can also doodle with clay! The main objective in clay doodling is to create something unplanned, to let your mind and hands work up a design that comes from unconscious ideas and to follow the patterns that emerge with your directionless play. Like drawing doodles, this kind of clay play can relieve stress and help you break though design problems and the creatives blahs.
These cabochon beads are clay doodles by Jael Thorp. See just how beautiful a bit of clay doodling can be? Jael actually does a lot of clay doodling. Even those pieces she doesn’t list as doodles, such as cane-covered ornaments and extrusions decorated hearts, have a definite doodling feel to them. They are great examples of how limitless this doodling with clay idea is. There aren’t any restrictions as to how you doodle with clay. Use extrusions, bits of clay, cane slices, sheets of clay you take hand tools to or embellishments. It’s about letting the mind and hands go and seeing where they take you.
To see more of Jael’s work, visit her Art Fire shop or her Flickr pages. You can read about her process on her award-winning blog site, “Jael’s Art Jewels 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.
As we continue our look at designs inspired by microscopic imagery, this necklace by Jael Thorp from Champaign, Illinois, brings to mind plant material under a microscope. This necklace is one of Jael’s Jewels and was made by the mokume gane method. She calls this her mini mokume gane set. They have an organic fluidity that almost vibrates with life.
Jael works with color to fit her mood. You have to wonder what kind of wonderful mood she was in here. To see more of Jael’s work, visit her Art Fire shop or her Flickr pages. You can read about her process on her award winning blog site “Jael’s Art Jewels 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.
