One Element at a Time
February 3, 2019
Inspirational Art
I don’t know if you have ever considered, or found important, the fact that most polymer art is a collection of elements constructed into a single piece. Yes, I know I am stating the obvious here but consider the fact that most polymer art is put together in such a way as to make the individual elements blend into a cohesiveness whole. Have you ever considered that maybe each element can be its own little piece of art, even if it’s to be a part of something bigger?
If you make the work about each individual elements and not the single composition they are part of, you should be able to give yourself more freedom in the creative process. The idea would be to just focus on the single component in front of you without regard for the other parts it may eventually be joined with. Since you don’t have to consider any other elements you should be able to just let your mind and hands go play. You could, in fact, just create tons of individual pieces and then pull together the ones that you find relate and from that create a finished piece. There would be no pressure to make things work together or fit. Does that sound intriguing?
Elemental Artists
There are a lot of artists that do this almost exclusively. When Debbie Crothers creates, a finished piece is usually the last thing on her mind. She is in love with seeing what the material will do and spends most of her time playing and exploring. Once her stock builds up, or just whenever the bug bites her, then she will create finished pieces of wearable art.
Recently she has also been incorporating her love of found objects as you can see in the image above. This is just a part of a very long necklace of Debbie’s. (The whole of which I’ve not seen her posted anywhere but will be featured in the upcoming Polymer Journeys 2019 book. Look for pre-sale announcements this coming week.) Each individual component definitely stands on its own here since each individual polymer and found object component is framed. But you can also see, if you look at her work on Facebook or on her website, that her pieces are almost always a variety show, one that features the results of her exploration and just having fun with the clay.
Another cool thing about this type of artwork is that the viewer will probably want to look at each and every individual component. Just the variety heightens the interest in these kinds of pieces which means the people viewing it will spend more time looking at it and more time appreciating your work. That can really help in terms of sales too because the more time someone spends looking at a piece the more likely they will be to want to buy it.
I think this kind of intrigue born of variety may be the primary draw when it comes to the jewelry of Olga Ledneva. This piece you see here is a bit more dense and has more potential movement than her newer work but I thought it was also a good example of how all these pieces, together, create a textural canvas since they are all kind of dangling on top of each other, and yet, as cohesive as it feels, you still want to look carefully at each piece in the assembly. Olga’s Facebook page and Flickr photostream are good places to look around for other assembled element ideas.
I know those two ladies make some pretty interesting and complex components but don’t think you have to go to that extent. The individual elements you create in this process can be as simple as punched out squares such as you might see in one of Laurie Mika’s mosaics. I am such a fan of this kind of free-form collage work, one that allows you to simply show off the characteristics you love about working with clay. You can assemble bits of your alcohol ink treated sheets, mokume gane, complex canes, impressed clay components, or hand sculpted forms. A mosaic or even a necklace of just simple shapes can let those treatments and colors shine, each on their own.
Of course, this approach isn’t just for polymer clay. This brilliant green assemblage necklace by an artist known only as Gebrufa is all fabric and fiber, although some components could as easily have been polymer. My guess would be that she gave herself just the restriction of a limited color palette but otherwise made all the individual pieces as whimsy led her. Should you want to know that you can have a cohesive finished piece when you are done freely creating components, this kind of approach would give you a path to that while still creating with relative freedom.
So, have I got you thinking about the individual elements of your pieces in a different way now?
Planning and meticulously designing pieces is essential in many circumstances but letting yourself just explore can also be an important part of your artistic growth as it helps to free up and expand your creativity. Letting yourself just play can be hard to do when you don’t have a lot of time and you want the time you do have to result in finished pieces. Knowing you can focus on making great little individual components which you can later put together into a fabulous necklace or wall piece might just be the thing that gives you the license to let go and doodle away with your clay.
THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO:
- Want to CLAY OUT EAST or CLAY OUT WEST? Registration for both of this multi-instructor, 4 day workshop events are open now. Clay out East is in Atlantic City, New Jersey, June 12-15th and Clay out West will be held Sept 30 – Oct 3 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Here is the link for the East event’s registration. I couldn’t scare up a link for the West event registration but you can email them at clayoutwest@aol.com to get the details.
- Did you catch the “Make Your Own Silkscreens” article in the Summer 2018 issue of The Polymer Arts? It was so much fun to make these and right now, the company that made it so fun and easy, EZScreenPrint if having a 15% off sale but it ends today! Go here, and use coupon code JAN15. No minimum purchase required.
- Did you know that Poly Clay Play has a Shopping Discount Club? If you go through a lot of supplies (or just tend to get overly excited around polymer clay and tools and want to buy everything you see) this discount club could help in big ways. PCP is one of my favorite shops, especially for pastes, powders, and alcohol ink. She gets them all! Go here to check out the club deal or just shop around.
Always glad to get your feedback!
Last week we did some history, this week was about how you approach your work. Did you like the subject and did it get you thinking? Or do you thoughts on other things you’d like for me to research and write about? Just let me know. Write me in the comments below this post (click here if you are reading this in an email).
Pasteled and Fractaled
January 26, 2018
Inspirational Art
For our last day of rich color, I thought I’d take it down a notch saturation-wise. This isn’t polymer or any kind of dimensional material but it is a fabulous fractal design and what lovely colors and light it has. Fractals have been a fascination of mine and many other artists for a while now. Their intricate patterns make inspiring textures not to mention that the color choices of these designers can be a great source of ideas for polymer work.
If you are unfamiliar with fractals, these are both a natural and math-based design where one form is repeated over and over, usually getting smaller as it progresses and even forming the same shape in the way it is laid out. Found everywhere in nature, fractals have moved into the realm of art with people developing designs based on natural formations but using math as a kind of paintbrush to help create the composition.
This stunning piece is by a gentleman who goes by Troythulu online while stating that his real name is “either Troy Loy or Troy Thompson.” Not sure why he is confused but I imagine just he wants to remain mysterious, and quirky. His fractals are amazing, though. This piece, in particular, could easily be translated into pearl clay with some mica powder painting to color tips and edges. I think it’s something worth playing with, especially if you like both shiny and colorful pieces.
See more fractals by Troy whatever-his-name-is on his Tumblr page.
Bevy of Blues
July 27, 2017
Inspirational Art
In my search for popular blues, this person’s work that you see here kept popping up, only it seemed to be attached to different people all the time. As it turns out, this is an artist that sticks with making amazing beads and elements that bead artisans can then assemble rather than creating a lot of finished work herself.
Helen Backhouse is her name and her beads and elements can be found scattered throughout Etsy and on various Facebook pages. Her pieces look to be impressed clay colored primarily with mica powders and, I’d guess, some kind of patina and weathered effect techniques, perhaps dyes or paints. Her blues are straight from the back yard, reflecting the brilliant blues found in a butterfly’s or bird’s wing as well as the dusty teals and blues leaning into greens that appear in natural metal patinas. The shapes are simple, the textures organic, and the coloring coolly dramatic. That makes for really eye-catching elements.
The best place to check out her pieces is on her Facebook page where the designers that use her pieces tag her in their photos alongside the stuff she does post.
Weekly Inspiration Challenge: Explore your favorite color. Spend just a couple of minutes writing down what you like about this color, what it reminds you of, and where you notice it most often. Look back at what you wrote and see what kind of work, forms, textures or other ideas these thoughts bring up and let those guide you in the creation of new pieces.
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
_________________________________________
Looking Back for Inspiration
March 30, 2016
Inspirational Art
A quick note on the Polymer Journey 2016 book … we’ve been able to extend the introductory sale through Friday, so if you haven’t reserved your copy or were waiting for payday, this is your chance! Go to the website today before the price goes up this weekend.
T
here are timeless techniques as well as timeless art. This easy but impressive looking technique, painting with mica powders on molded clay, was posted by Lilin in 2008. This particular construction harkens back to the art deco style with the enameled look of the butterfly wings against the stylized faces. It gives them an antique air. Lilin credits Donna Kato as her inspiration although she doesn’t say if that was from a book or class. But she gives her own brief instructions and tips, enough for you to get some ideas and run with a new design of your own.
The instructions for these are on this blog post. Lilin hasn’t posted since 2009 and I couldn’t find any reference to her moving her work to somewhere else. I am always curious how an artist progresses. It’s both encouraging and fascinating to see people improve their skills and to see what directions they chose. So I am curious. If anyone knows what Lilin is up to now, let me know and I’ll post an update here.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Find a new way to apply an old technique. Look through your older project books, back issues of magazines, or your favorite tutorial sites and find something you haven’t done in a while or never tried and use it with your present forms and color palettes. What do you do differently today that you didn’t when the tutorial was published or when you first used it? It’s interesting to see how your approach has shifted.
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
___________________________________________
Inspiration Coming Down the Line
December 13, 2012
Inspirational Art
We work in a very considerate community. There is much credit given to the artists who inspire us, and on Flickr and various blogs, clayers eagerly list the artists whose techniques they are practicing or who they drew their approach from.
This pendant, by Zuzana (Verundela on Flickr) of the Czech Republic, looks to be a combination of influences as well as materials. I would not call the liberal use of mica powders, embedding watch gears and wire into clay, and topping off a piece with resin unusual, but these approaches all came from somewhere else. Or at least they do not often come to us in a moment of pure, uninfluenced flash of genius. Even when we are not aware of it, other artists bring their influence to us by creative osmosis.
Here, however, we get a glimpse of the influential creative trail. Zuzana gives credit for this piece to Sabine Spiesser of Australia for the rather celestial looking faux enamel and wire work. But if you wander off into Sabine’s Flickr pages (papagodesigns), you’ll find she credits her faux cloisonne work to Eugena Topina of Maryland here in the US. Eugena’s wire bordered faux cloisonne enamel was one of the first tutorials I ever attempted to follow back in the days when I was expanding myself beyond the basics. The technique has been around for a while, but credit is still being considerately passed on. I also really like how global this influence can be … bouncing across the globe from the US to Australia to Eastern Europe. That is the wonderful thing about being an international community and a community very big on sharing and helping each other grow.
I don’t know if you have ever considered, or found important, the fact that most polymer art is a collection of elements constructed into a single piece. Yes, I know I am stating the obvious here but consider the fact that most polymer art is put together in such a way as to make the individual elements blend into a cohesiveness whole. Have you ever considered that maybe each element can be its own little piece of art, even if it’s to be a part of something bigger?
If you make the work about each individual elements and not the single composition they are part of, you should be able to give yourself more freedom in the creative process. The idea would be to just focus on the single component in front of you without regard for the other parts it may eventually be joined with. Since you don’t have to consider any other elements you should be able to just let your mind and hands go play. You could, in fact, just create tons of individual pieces and then pull together the ones that you find relate and from that create a finished piece. There would be no pressure to make things work together or fit. Does that sound intriguing?
Elemental Artists
There are a lot of artists that do this almost exclusively. When Debbie Crothers creates, a finished piece is usually the last thing on her mind. She is in love with seeing what the material will do and spends most of her time playing and exploring. Once her stock builds up, or just whenever the bug bites her, then she will create finished pieces of wearable art.
Recently she has also been incorporating her love of found objects as you can see in the image above. This is just a part of a very long necklace of Debbie’s. (The whole of which I’ve not seen her posted anywhere but will be featured in the upcoming Polymer Journeys 2019 book. Look for pre-sale announcements this coming week.) Each individual component definitely stands on its own here since each individual polymer and found object component is framed. But you can also see, if you look at her work on Facebook or on her website, that her pieces are almost always a variety show, one that features the results of her exploration and just having fun with the clay.
Another cool thing about this type of artwork is that the viewer will probably want to look at each and every individual component. Just the variety heightens the interest in these kinds of pieces which means the people viewing it will spend more time looking at it and more time appreciating your work. That can really help in terms of sales too because the more time someone spends looking at a piece the more likely they will be to want to buy it.
I think this kind of intrigue born of variety may be the primary draw when it comes to the jewelry of Olga Ledneva. This piece you see here is a bit more dense and has more potential movement than her newer work but I thought it was also a good example of how all these pieces, together, create a textural canvas since they are all kind of dangling on top of each other, and yet, as cohesive as it feels, you still want to look carefully at each piece in the assembly. Olga’s Facebook page and Flickr photostream are good places to look around for other assembled element ideas.
I know those two ladies make some pretty interesting and complex components but don’t think you have to go to that extent. The individual elements you create in this process can be as simple as punched out squares such as you might see in one of Laurie Mika’s mosaics. I am such a fan of this kind of free-form collage work, one that allows you to simply show off the characteristics you love about working with clay. You can assemble bits of your alcohol ink treated sheets, mokume gane, complex canes, impressed clay components, or hand sculpted forms. A mosaic or even a necklace of just simple shapes can let those treatments and colors shine, each on their own.
Of course, this approach isn’t just for polymer clay. This brilliant green assemblage necklace by an artist known only as Gebrufa is all fabric and fiber, although some components could as easily have been polymer. My guess would be that she gave herself just the restriction of a limited color palette but otherwise made all the individual pieces as whimsy led her. Should you want to know that you can have a cohesive finished piece when you are done freely creating components, this kind of approach would give you a path to that while still creating with relative freedom.
So, have I got you thinking about the individual elements of your pieces in a different way now?
Planning and meticulously designing pieces is essential in many circumstances but letting yourself just explore can also be an important part of your artistic growth as it helps to free up and expand your creativity. Letting yourself just play can be hard to do when you don’t have a lot of time and you want the time you do have to result in finished pieces. Knowing you can focus on making great little individual components which you can later put together into a fabulous necklace or wall piece might just be the thing that gives you the license to let go and doodle away with your clay.
THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO:
- Want to CLAY OUT EAST or CLAY OUT WEST? Registration for both of this multi-instructor, 4 day workshop events are open now. Clay out East is in Atlantic City, New Jersey, June 12-15th and Clay out West will be held Sept 30 – Oct 3 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Here is the link for the East event’s registration. I couldn’t scare up a link for the West event registration but you can email them at clayoutwest@aol.com to get the details.
- Did you catch the “Make Your Own Silkscreens” article in the Summer 2018 issue of The Polymer Arts? It was so much fun to make these and right now, the company that made it so fun and easy, EZScreenPrint if having a 15% off sale but it ends today! Go here, and use coupon code JAN15. No minimum purchase required.
- Did you know that Poly Clay Play has a Shopping Discount Club? If you go through a lot of supplies (or just tend to get overly excited around polymer clay and tools and want to buy everything you see) this discount club could help in big ways. PCP is one of my favorite shops, especially for pastes, powders, and alcohol ink. She gets them all! Go here to check out the club deal or just shop around.
Always glad to get your feedback!
Last week we did some history, this week was about how you approach your work. Did you like the subject and did it get you thinking? Or do you thoughts on other things you’d like for me to research and write about? Just let me know. Write me in the comments below this post (click here if you are reading this in an email).
Read More
For our last day of rich color, I thought I’d take it down a notch saturation-wise. This isn’t polymer or any kind of dimensional material but it is a fabulous fractal design and what lovely colors and light it has. Fractals have been a fascination of mine and many other artists for a while now. Their intricate patterns make inspiring textures not to mention that the color choices of these designers can be a great source of ideas for polymer work.
If you are unfamiliar with fractals, these are both a natural and math-based design where one form is repeated over and over, usually getting smaller as it progresses and even forming the same shape in the way it is laid out. Found everywhere in nature, fractals have moved into the realm of art with people developing designs based on natural formations but using math as a kind of paintbrush to help create the composition.
This stunning piece is by a gentleman who goes by Troythulu online while stating that his real name is “either Troy Loy or Troy Thompson.” Not sure why he is confused but I imagine just he wants to remain mysterious, and quirky. His fractals are amazing, though. This piece, in particular, could easily be translated into pearl clay with some mica powder painting to color tips and edges. I think it’s something worth playing with, especially if you like both shiny and colorful pieces.
See more fractals by Troy whatever-his-name-is on his Tumblr page.
Read MoreIn my search for popular blues, this person’s work that you see here kept popping up, only it seemed to be attached to different people all the time. As it turns out, this is an artist that sticks with making amazing beads and elements that bead artisans can then assemble rather than creating a lot of finished work herself.
Helen Backhouse is her name and her beads and elements can be found scattered throughout Etsy and on various Facebook pages. Her pieces look to be impressed clay colored primarily with mica powders and, I’d guess, some kind of patina and weathered effect techniques, perhaps dyes or paints. Her blues are straight from the back yard, reflecting the brilliant blues found in a butterfly’s or bird’s wing as well as the dusty teals and blues leaning into greens that appear in natural metal patinas. The shapes are simple, the textures organic, and the coloring coolly dramatic. That makes for really eye-catching elements.
The best place to check out her pieces is on her Facebook page where the designers that use her pieces tag her in their photos alongside the stuff she does post.
Weekly Inspiration Challenge: Explore your favorite color. Spend just a couple of minutes writing down what you like about this color, what it reminds you of, and where you notice it most often. Look back at what you wrote and see what kind of work, forms, textures or other ideas these thoughts bring up and let those guide you in the creation of new pieces.
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
_________________________________________
Read MoreA quick note on the Polymer Journey 2016 book … we’ve been able to extend the introductory sale through Friday, so if you haven’t reserved your copy or were waiting for payday, this is your chance! Go to the website today before the price goes up this weekend.
There are timeless techniques as well as timeless art. This easy but impressive looking technique, painting with mica powders on molded clay, was posted by Lilin in 2008. This particular construction harkens back to the art deco style with the enameled look of the butterfly wings against the stylized faces. It gives them an antique air. Lilin credits Donna Kato as her inspiration although she doesn’t say if that was from a book or class. But she gives her own brief instructions and tips, enough for you to get some ideas and run with a new design of your own.
The instructions for these are on this blog post. Lilin hasn’t posted since 2009 and I couldn’t find any reference to her moving her work to somewhere else. I am always curious how an artist progresses. It’s both encouraging and fascinating to see people improve their skills and to see what directions they chose. So I am curious. If anyone knows what Lilin is up to now, let me know and I’ll post an update here.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Find a new way to apply an old technique. Look through your older project books, back issues of magazines, or your favorite tutorial sites and find something you haven’t done in a while or never tried and use it with your present forms and color palettes. What do you do differently today that you didn’t when the tutorial was published or when you first used it? It’s interesting to see how your approach has shifted.
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
___________________________________________
Read MoreWe work in a very considerate community. There is much credit given to the artists who inspire us, and on Flickr and various blogs, clayers eagerly list the artists whose techniques they are practicing or who they drew their approach from.
This pendant, by Zuzana (Verundela on Flickr) of the Czech Republic, looks to be a combination of influences as well as materials. I would not call the liberal use of mica powders, embedding watch gears and wire into clay, and topping off a piece with resin unusual, but these approaches all came from somewhere else. Or at least they do not often come to us in a moment of pure, uninfluenced flash of genius. Even when we are not aware of it, other artists bring their influence to us by creative osmosis.
Here, however, we get a glimpse of the influential creative trail. Zuzana gives credit for this piece to Sabine Spiesser of Australia for the rather celestial looking faux enamel and wire work. But if you wander off into Sabine’s Flickr pages (papagodesigns), you’ll find she credits her faux cloisonne work to Eugena Topina of Maryland here in the US. Eugena’s wire bordered faux cloisonne enamel was one of the first tutorials I ever attempted to follow back in the days when I was expanding myself beyond the basics. The technique has been around for a while, but credit is still being considerately passed on. I also really like how global this influence can be … bouncing across the globe from the US to Australia to Eastern Europe. That is the wonderful thing about being an international community and a community very big on sharing and helping each other grow.
Read More
