Fun and Colorful Memories
August 30, 2017
Inspirational Art
Here is another post that was very popular when I was posting art just on my Facebook page. It is from March 1st, 2012:
After a long day of car shopping (ended up with a ‘wasabi’ colored Subie–I’ve been calling car colors by their Premo equivalent! Such a polymer nerd!) I got on the ‘net looking for something light and fun–found it! The colors in this are fantastic and the shape of the necklace is inspired!
The piece is by Olimpia Corvino. Find more of her work on Facebook.
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Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
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Trilateral Glow
July 14, 2017
Inspirational Art
While I was deciding on a final soft triangle example for this week, I spotted this piece and, when seen as a small image, it looked like it could be polymer but on closer inspection, it obviously is some serious seed beading. Still, what an inspiration this could be for an avid caner who likes to create glowing, blended canes!
The piece was created by Anastasia Ilyashevich who seems to create in all kinds of materials, not just, or even primarily, beads. But even though she is not a wholly devoted beader, this is certainly a well conceived and skillfully accomplished piece. In her blog post about it, Anastasia admits she really didn’t like it until the end. I can’t imagine doing all that and not liking it at least halfway through. But we can see how perseverance can pay off.
I have to acknowledge that a large part of the impact of this image is that it is shot on a black background, making the glow pop even more. But still, this is all triangles, creating pattern as well as being the basis for the focal shapes with those severe straight-edged triangles, giving it a very powerful visual feel. It is also huge–the lowest triangle hits somewhere around the waistline, as you can see in this blog post where it is modeled.
By the way, you can brush up on the kind of canes and color combinations that would work really well for this kind of thing in the article by Meg Newberg we published in the present Summer issue of The Polymer Arts. Get your copy on the website, or drop in on my Etsy site and get that and a few other print edition issues you might be wanting. Our HUGE MOVING SALE ends tomorrow, July 15th.
Weekly Inspiration Challenge: Look at your work. What shapes do you most commonly use? Pick just one and play with what you can do with it, changing it up and creating new shapes through little tweaks. Do the new shapes inspire you? Create something using the new shape you made up.
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
_________________________________________
Sophisticated Form
April 29, 2016
Inspirational Art
Last, but certainly not least, in this two week tour of our “best of” chosen artists for the Polymer Journeys 2016 book, we have Melanie Muir who is our sole representative of Scotland in the book. I think the draw Melanie’s work has is in its clean sophistication. She is so precise and has honed her particular set of techniques to absolute perfection.
Her mokume, although organic and flowing, has a feel of precision as well. The clean lines in her mokume come from a stamp or texture impression technique like the one you’ll find in the tutorial by Angela Barenholtz in our Winter 2015 issue of The Polymer Arts magazine.
Her large necklaces are lovely, of course, but I am partial to her pendants where the focus is on the mokume design, framed and centered so that the intricacies of the pattern grab your attention all by themselves. I love the color choices in this one, a bit autumnal using white to set up the saturation of the color. I found this little beauty while wandering around Melanie’s Facebook page.
Her precise shapes also generally come from a set of tools–her own shape templates. Because, like so many of our amazing polymer artists, Melanie applies her talents in more than one area, in this case, the creation of textures and templates. If you haven’t seen her offerings, you can find them on her site here and you can also purchase them on Etsy.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Focus on perfection. Create a small piece using a technique you’ve worked with before but maybe have not been doing for very long, and try to create the most perfect version of it. This may take a little forethought and patience to figure out how best to handle the material so it is not marred or defaced with finger prints to finish it well. You might want to take such additional steps as multiple curings or refrigerating to let the work rest between manipulations. See what you learn from examining and changing up the way you work. Can you develop more careful steps in your process or do you even want to?
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
_________________________________________
Here is another post that was very popular when I was posting art just on my Facebook page. It is from March 1st, 2012:
After a long day of car shopping (ended up with a ‘wasabi’ colored Subie–I’ve been calling car colors by their Premo equivalent! Such a polymer nerd!) I got on the ‘net looking for something light and fun–found it! The colors in this are fantastic and the shape of the necklace is inspired!
The piece is by Olimpia Corvino. Find more of her work on Facebook.
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
_________________________________________
Read MoreWhile I was deciding on a final soft triangle example for this week, I spotted this piece and, when seen as a small image, it looked like it could be polymer but on closer inspection, it obviously is some serious seed beading. Still, what an inspiration this could be for an avid caner who likes to create glowing, blended canes!
The piece was created by Anastasia Ilyashevich who seems to create in all kinds of materials, not just, or even primarily, beads. But even though she is not a wholly devoted beader, this is certainly a well conceived and skillfully accomplished piece. In her blog post about it, Anastasia admits she really didn’t like it until the end. I can’t imagine doing all that and not liking it at least halfway through. But we can see how perseverance can pay off.
I have to acknowledge that a large part of the impact of this image is that it is shot on a black background, making the glow pop even more. But still, this is all triangles, creating pattern as well as being the basis for the focal shapes with those severe straight-edged triangles, giving it a very powerful visual feel. It is also huge–the lowest triangle hits somewhere around the waistline, as you can see in this blog post where it is modeled.
By the way, you can brush up on the kind of canes and color combinations that would work really well for this kind of thing in the article by Meg Newberg we published in the present Summer issue of The Polymer Arts. Get your copy on the website, or drop in on my Etsy site and get that and a few other print edition issues you might be wanting. Our HUGE MOVING SALE ends tomorrow, July 15th.
Weekly Inspiration Challenge: Look at your work. What shapes do you most commonly use? Pick just one and play with what you can do with it, changing it up and creating new shapes through little tweaks. Do the new shapes inspire you? Create something using the new shape you made up.
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
_________________________________________
Read MoreLast, but certainly not least, in this two week tour of our “best of” chosen artists for the Polymer Journeys 2016 book, we have Melanie Muir who is our sole representative of Scotland in the book. I think the draw Melanie’s work has is in its clean sophistication. She is so precise and has honed her particular set of techniques to absolute perfection.
Her mokume, although organic and flowing, has a feel of precision as well. The clean lines in her mokume come from a stamp or texture impression technique like the one you’ll find in the tutorial by Angela Barenholtz in our Winter 2015 issue of The Polymer Arts magazine.
Her large necklaces are lovely, of course, but I am partial to her pendants where the focus is on the mokume design, framed and centered so that the intricacies of the pattern grab your attention all by themselves. I love the color choices in this one, a bit autumnal using white to set up the saturation of the color. I found this little beauty while wandering around Melanie’s Facebook page.
Her precise shapes also generally come from a set of tools–her own shape templates. Because, like so many of our amazing polymer artists, Melanie applies her talents in more than one area, in this case, the creation of textures and templates. If you haven’t seen her offerings, you can find them on her site here and you can also purchase them on Etsy.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Focus on perfection. Create a small piece using a technique you’ve worked with before but maybe have not been doing for very long, and try to create the most perfect version of it. This may take a little forethought and patience to figure out how best to handle the material so it is not marred or defaced with finger prints to finish it well. You might want to take such additional steps as multiple curings or refrigerating to let the work rest between manipulations. See what you learn from examining and changing up the way you work. Can you develop more careful steps in your process or do you even want to?
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
_________________________________________
Read More