The Ups and Downs of Summer
July 20, 2015
Inspirational Art
In the northern hemisphere we are in the midst of summer, but Mother Nature is showing her many sides from hot and still to muggy and stormy, from tornadoes to floods to hurricanes. Down in the southern hemisphere, summer days are a distant memory, but nonetheless, summery colors are making a surge on the pages I’ve been visiting.
Lillian de Vries created this pendant with its interesting visual and tactile texture as inspiration for a summer challenge on Craftliners.com, a blog for the European wholesale company Craftlines, for which Lillian is a designer. The colors are mostly warm but delicate with a scattering of dark speckles falling out of a cooling ceiling of blue. It strikes me as a visual interpretation of a summer memory with its up and down days scattered through the memories of hot afternoons and those thankfully cool mornings.
Lillian plays with all kinds of texture, both visual and tactile, as well as stopping to create miniature and faux foods here and there. If you’re have a gratefully cool morning hiding from the heat, or are down under dreaming of warmer days, make a temperature appropriate beverage and escape into the creative wanderings on her blog and Craftliner’s pages.
Wild Rings
April 7, 2014
Inspirational Art
While searching for items for this blog, I come across a lot of cool and wild pieces and just save them for later, hoping they will fit into theme. The one form that doesn’t find it’s way into themes quite as often as I gather them are rings, especially the really wild ones. So this week, let’s look at some wild rings.
When creating a ring you want to consider wearability and durability. Or wait … do you? There are a lot of artists out there that just create the form to suit a vision making for some less practical but quite wonderful pieces. The thing about rings is that these forms can be inspiration for pushing what is done with pendants, bracelets, earrings, pins and all kinds of decor items. So even if you don’t make rings, consider what you like about what you see and maybe try and incorporate those ideas into your own style and designs.
Here is actually a reverse example of that concept–taking something more commonly seen in other forms and trying it with rings. You are probably familiar with Melanie West’s flame like cane (she calls it a cephalopod eye cane–get the tutorial here) that she creates bracelets and other jewelry from. Well, Lillian de Vries tried out the cane using Melanie’s tutorial but went wild with a ring instead. It’s got a wild look but the form is actually somewhat standard for polymer rings these days. Still, the wild, organic nature of the cane contrasts well with the balanced, reserved form.
Lillian is an exploratory clayer, amassing all types of forms and techniques as she plays with and pushes what she is learning through other artists and discovering about her own style. Sometimes the work she posts is straight from a class or tutorial, some depart completely from the form or application learned while other pieces look to be completely her own vision. I find it interesting to watch the journey other artists’ take and Lillian’s is quite the wonderful wandering path as seen on her Flickr page and her 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.
Further Experimentation in the Netherlands
September 10, 2013
Inspirational Art
Here is another artist who, like our gal from yesterday, looks to be working out her own artistic voice through a lot of varied exploration. The progress seen in her photos on Flickr does show both a natural affinity for the material as well as the kind of growth that, at this point, hints at some of the directions she might take.
This ring, one of her latest postings, looks like the work of a long-time polymer artist. It is very well finished, and combines contrasting textures with a simple but effective color palette of subdued blues and gold accents.
In her notes on this photo, Lillian says “This is not what I had in mind when I sat down at my clay table. Needs further experimentation.” I found this statement a little surprising, since I would be immensely proud of this myself. But of course, not creating as intended means you are looking at something that falls short of your expectations in that regard. However, the unexpected is often times a good indication of where your creativity wants to flow, and it’s probably worth exploring.
You can see more of Lillian’s experimentation and progress on her Flickr page.
In the northern hemisphere we are in the midst of summer, but Mother Nature is showing her many sides from hot and still to muggy and stormy, from tornadoes to floods to hurricanes. Down in the southern hemisphere, summer days are a distant memory, but nonetheless, summery colors are making a surge on the pages I’ve been visiting.
Lillian de Vries created this pendant with its interesting visual and tactile texture as inspiration for a summer challenge on Craftliners.com, a blog for the European wholesale company Craftlines, for which Lillian is a designer. The colors are mostly warm but delicate with a scattering of dark speckles falling out of a cooling ceiling of blue. It strikes me as a visual interpretation of a summer memory with its up and down days scattered through the memories of hot afternoons and those thankfully cool mornings.
Lillian plays with all kinds of texture, both visual and tactile, as well as stopping to create miniature and faux foods here and there. If you’re have a gratefully cool morning hiding from the heat, or are down under dreaming of warmer days, make a temperature appropriate beverage and escape into the creative wanderings on her blog and Craftliner’s pages.
While searching for items for this blog, I come across a lot of cool and wild pieces and just save them for later, hoping they will fit into theme. The one form that doesn’t find it’s way into themes quite as often as I gather them are rings, especially the really wild ones. So this week, let’s look at some wild rings.
When creating a ring you want to consider wearability and durability. Or wait … do you? There are a lot of artists out there that just create the form to suit a vision making for some less practical but quite wonderful pieces. The thing about rings is that these forms can be inspiration for pushing what is done with pendants, bracelets, earrings, pins and all kinds of decor items. So even if you don’t make rings, consider what you like about what you see and maybe try and incorporate those ideas into your own style and designs.
Here is actually a reverse example of that concept–taking something more commonly seen in other forms and trying it with rings. You are probably familiar with Melanie West’s flame like cane (she calls it a cephalopod eye cane–get the tutorial here) that she creates bracelets and other jewelry from. Well, Lillian de Vries tried out the cane using Melanie’s tutorial but went wild with a ring instead. It’s got a wild look but the form is actually somewhat standard for polymer rings these days. Still, the wild, organic nature of the cane contrasts well with the balanced, reserved form.
Lillian is an exploratory clayer, amassing all types of forms and techniques as she plays with and pushes what she is learning through other artists and discovering about her own style. Sometimes the work she posts is straight from a class or tutorial, some depart completely from the form or application learned while other pieces look to be completely her own vision. I find it interesting to watch the journey other artists’ take and Lillian’s is quite the wonderful wandering path as seen on her Flickr page and her 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.
Here is another artist who, like our gal from yesterday, looks to be working out her own artistic voice through a lot of varied exploration. The progress seen in her photos on Flickr does show both a natural affinity for the material as well as the kind of growth that, at this point, hints at some of the directions she might take.
This ring, one of her latest postings, looks like the work of a long-time polymer artist. It is very well finished, and combines contrasting textures with a simple but effective color palette of subdued blues and gold accents.
In her notes on this photo, Lillian says “This is not what I had in mind when I sat down at my clay table. Needs further experimentation.” I found this statement a little surprising, since I would be immensely proud of this myself. But of course, not creating as intended means you are looking at something that falls short of your expectations in that regard. However, the unexpected is often times a good indication of where your creativity wants to flow, and it’s probably worth exploring.
You can see more of Lillian’s experimentation and progress on her Flickr page.
