From Czech with Love
May 2, 2014 Inspirational Art, Polymer community news
I have been taking a lot of shots of the art being worn by the attendees, or as we keep noting here, of people’s chests because between pins and necklaces; that is where most of the jewelry is so what choice do we have, right? It has made for some funny moments. I had a great time with a trio of gals from the Czech Republic during one of our breaks. We couldn’t stop laughing as I tried to photograph their jewelry. I was trying to compare the work and they were standing next to each other comparing, well, other things that were ending up in the shot. They were so fun.
My grandmother was from Czechoslovakia and I had learned a few words in the language when I was a child so I do have a soft spot for people from that part of the world which is probably part of the reason I chatted it up with these gals. Their fun and happy demeanor can be seen in the type of work they made and wore this week. Take a look at more of their work on these pages:
Pavla Čepelíková: www.saffron-addict.com
Dana Phamova: www.fler.cz/fruitensse
Martina Malaskova: www.lca-jewellery.com/home_en.php
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.
Naturally Faux
January 24, 2014 Inspirational Art
We’ve done non-polymer all week so I thought this Friday we’d switch that up with polymer work by an artist that doesn’t always work in polymer and if one didn’t know better, one would think she truly didn’t! Bettina Mertz’s faux polymer stones are amazing. She has a whole series of jewelry designs including bracelets, necklaces, pendants, and earrings using similarly realistic faux stone. This fall set is one of the best designs adding kinetic movement and a randomness that just adds to the organic feel of the piece.
Betinna is also intrigued by intricate bead embroidery. If she can’t find a particular bead that she wants, she makes it out of polymer clay, using this stone and other faux techniques. You can see more of her polymer and bead work on her blogspot, Mertz Bettina Schmuck Design and her Flickr pages.
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.
Beyond the Mokume Gane Reveal
June 25, 2013 Inspirational Art
When I think about how polymer revealing works, the mokume gane approach is what first comes to mind. I remember layering clay and metal leaf for the first time, punching and squishing and hoping whatever was going on in the middle of my beat up block of clay would result in something useful. Then there was that first slice. That disappointing one when you realize it might take a few slice to see what is really going on. Then I hit it … that first really gorgeous slice with rings and waves of translucent clay revealing the dull shine of buried silver foil. It was like finding a hidden treasure. Oh, who are we kidding … it was a hidden treasure! It was like doing magic or mining or gold panning. It was so cool to see those patterns emerge out of this ugly mushed-up block of clay. I was hooked.
Since then I’ve experimented with the layer and slice approach to working with polymer in dozen of ways. It never gets old. The reveal is always so very exciting because the process is partly done blind, so you can’t be certain just what will pop up when you start slicing–which is why this piece on the right here was so eye-catching. The organically occurring composition of a mokume gane slice is layered over a very controlled stripe pattern in such a way as to suggest the mokume layer is revealing the striped layer … chaos giving way to order, chance revealing the control beneath. What a great metaphoric composition.
If you didn’t immediately recognize the artist, these pendants are the work of Julie Picarello, who is rather a master of mokume and other ‘revealing’ polymer techniques. Her book, Patterns in Polymer, includes quite a few of her approaches to revealing the depth that polymer clay can go. She also has a very rich gallery of work on Flickr you may want to meander through for further revelations.
A Touch of Color
May 11, 2013 Inspirational Art
I wanted to take a moment as we wind up this colorful week, to point out a simple fact about color–how you use color is just as important as what colors you choose. I feel this needs to be emphasized because with all the colorful work we’ve been looking at this week you might think you need to get more colorful or bolder. But the use of color is about how it affects the impact of your piece so you can use a lot or just a little and still have a highly impactful piece.
I think Betsy Baker fully realizes the value of color and balancing it for impact. Here is a series of pendants with barely any color visible, yet the color that is there is very dynamic visually because it is not competing with any other colors and is starkly contrasted against white.
These pendants are both calm but bold at the same time. It’s very powerful, really. So, you see it isn’t about how colorful your piece is but what you are trying to convey and how you can use color to help you make a statement or design a piece to come off just the way you intend.
Color Studies
May 6, 2013 Inspirational Art
I thought this week, we’d just look at color. Because who here doesn’t like that? For most of us it’s such a primary part of working with polymer. How can we resist with all those gorgeous colorful blocks enticing us to create something that honors our fascination with them?
And then we condition and roll, cut and punch, form and wrestle, combine and rearrange and eventually we have this finished piece that, somehow, doesn’t quite reflect what we were after. When it comes to color, even for those of us who can often combine them intuitively, study and practice is what will bring about success in taking the designs from inside our head onto our studio tables.
There are a number of ways to study color and that, I promise, are not at all dull times. What you learn can be immediately turned into beautiful creations. These pendants by Austria’s Carina are studies in complementary and tertiary colors. Now, tell me you would have not enjoyed creating something like these?
Your own personal exploration and study of color can begin (or continue) through a number of options we have available. For polymer specific color studies, there is nothing that comes close to the depth of Lindly Huanani and Maggie Maggio’s book Polymer Clay Color Inspirations. Honestly, if there was one book I’d expect to see on every serious polymer artist’s shelf, it’s this book. It doesn’t matter where you are in your journey as a polymer artist, you will learn something new and maybe even game changing for you.
If you want a quick brush up on terms and why these concepts are important (since we’ll be talking about them all week, it might be good to refamiliarize yourself with them) you can do so on websites like this one: http://www.colormatters.com/color-and-design/basic-color-theory
I’ll also share one of my favorite color pages on all the web … this is a kind of shortcut to figuring out color combinations and it’s also a little addictive. You click on a color on the color wheel and then you can run through a range of possible color combination types. I get lost in the possibilities: http://colorschemedesigner.com/
So go play with color today, online at least if not in the studio. Getting lost in color sounds like a great way to start a week.
Bails on the Backside
February 23, 2013 Inspirational Art
If you’ve gotten your latest issue of The Polymer Arts magazine (yes, I know many of you are still waiting for it to come in the mail … they just went out this past week so give them a little time but they will be there soon!) you probably saw the article “Back Stories” which Jan Montarsi put together, soliciting a number of artists to tell why and how they treat the back sides of their work for a professional and well finished look. Jan’s penchant for doing all things well shows in his own carefully finished pieces and simple but elegant ideas such as these backside bails.
Jan has several shots of what he does with just a jump ring and a little clay on his Flickr page. Heading on over to his pages also gives you a chance to ogle his beautiful mica mush pendants (seen here) and other beauties. Don’t you just love the colors and shimmer? Jan’s Flickr pages are a treasure of color and fun pieces so hopefully you can take a little time to wander around there and check out his work.
If you haven’t received your latest issue of The Polymer Arts as a digital subscriber, check your spam/junk mail folders first as they do sometimes get shuffled off there. You can also write me at connect@thepolymerarts.com to inquire. Please be patient about print issues arriving … they are on thier way. If you need to order yourself a digital or print copy of the Spring 2013 Stories themed issue or would like a subscription, that can all be done here: http://www.thepolymerarts.com/Subscribe.html
How Do You Make Pretty Worms?
February 7, 2013 Inspirational Art
I don’t know that I have ever thought of worms as pretty. Fascinating, yes. But as a subject for a pretty piece of jewelry? Well, maybe not so much.
However, Klavdija Kurent pulled it off quite nicely. I love pieces like this. As a polymer artist, I cannot help but stop and try to figure out how she created the layered effect, especially the worms.
I don’t have it quite down yet. She does a lot of image transfer on other work but it seems more dimensional than that. It does look quite a bit like the wax impression technique we featured in The Polymer Arts magazine a while back. What do you think?
Even if one can’t figure out how an artist accomplished an effect, the exercise can be good for your creative muscle. You might even come up with an idea about how to do something with polymer you hadn’t thought of or seen before. And, besides, it’s just fun to see if you figure it out.
An Abundance of Color
December 17, 2012 Inspirational Art
My weekend was largely spent judging entries for the IPCA’s Progress & Possibilities competition. (If you are a member, you are eligible to cast votes for the Member’s Choice portion of the competition. Check your email for you invitation to vote or go to the IPCA website to request a voting token be sent to you.) The use of color this year was either very bold or completely subdued. Going subdued can be relatively easy compared to going bold and having to judge when enough is enough.
I thought this when perusing pendants created by Cathy of Dumauvobleu. Her work is a bombardment of color as well as visual texture. But, for the most part, she does keep it from getting out of control. This pendant below is, I think, pushing that boundary but it just sits on the edge of tipping over. The well dispersed use of blues manages to hold it together and the sun like image created by the cane slice and radiating lines on the bottom right create a focal point that where your eye can rest, even if it can’t do so for very long with all that is going on.
After that, the success of a piece like this comes down to skill and finish. The inlay is well done without any noticeable spaces and the edges are blended with the use of pin prick points so even if the color and texture strikes you as a bit overboard, you can still call it a well done piece.
Make note as you look around at the work of various artists, how some can pull off a great looking piece even when the attention to finishing is obviously not a priority. Then there are pieces that may not be particularly original or dramatic but you are entranced by how well finished they are. Of course, when both design choices and finish are well done, it is a work to just drool over.
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Do you feel like you have to make a finished piece or be working on a particular design when you sit down at your studio table? Sure, it feels good, and it’s very exciting to have a finished piece to show and share, but learning a craft is as much about exploration as is about creating finished work.
So, if you’re not giving yourself that exploratory time, let me give you some reasons to highly consider it. And if you do a bit of exploring already, maybe I can offer up some new ideas about ways to use and organize your exploratory bits that you might not have tried.
The Exploratory Reasoning
When you’re fairly new to a material, technique, form, or construction method, it is to your advantage to spend time just playing with it. This is especially true, I think, of texture, mark making, color mixing, new techniques, and new materials including new brands of a familiar material. Trying to make finished work before you are familiar with the technique or material can get frustrating, if not downright depressing. You can gain more success in the long run if you develop a better understanding of what it is that you’re working and hone your skills a bit before gambling your time, materials, and hopes on finished work.
It certainly can be tempting to just pick up something and see what you can make with it right out the gate. With a lot of home craft materials, polymer clay in particular, you can create a decent completed piece within a day of picking it up. However, the ease of these materials is a bit of a deception. They may be easy to get started with, but mastering them, even just a little, takes time and effort. Give yourself a gift of that time to get to know what you’re working with without the pressure of trying to finish something presentable.
Samples to Reference
Probably the best way to explore new materials and techniques is to make small samples, ones you can keep and reference as you make decisions for future finished pieces. If the color of the sample is not relevant, you can just use scrap clay. If you use clay straight out of the package, you may also have an option to transform the samples into finished work. Let’s go over all these options.
(Although I’m going to talk specifically about polymer clay, if you work primarily in another material, consider an equivalent process. Consider how you can cut out or form small samples that can be saved as references. See if this clay focused process inspires you.)
For some orderly exploration, sheet your clay and then hand cut or punch cut the sheets into whatever shapes tickle your fancy. Then you can just go crazy with whatever you’re exploring. Use as many of these pieces as you like for each process you’re exploring. Keep the ones you are pleased with, etching with a needle tool or, after curing, writing on the back with permanent marker, what you made them with. Keep cured pieces in a baggie or punch holes in them before curing so you can string them on wire or chain, making them easy to flip through.
If you are playing with textures, mark making, or any kind of tooling on polymer clay, I would suggest sheeting three different thicknesses—the thickest setting, a medium setting, and the thinnest setting on your pasta machine. Then try out each of your experiments at least once on each of the three different thicknesses. Anything that impresses or otherwise moves around the clay will be affected differently by the clay thickness, sometimes subtly but sometimes quite dramatically.
Cure the samples you like, being sure to inscribe or write a note on the back indicating what thickness the clay sheet was along with what made the impression or marks.
If you’re color mixing, sheet the finished color, then punch out a decent sized shape, one that has enough room for you to write down your proportions for that color mix. For example, if you mix a deep rich purple by combining 6 parts cobalt, 3 parts magenta, and one part black, inscribe on the back:
6X blue
3X magenta
1X black
Also include a big initial for the brand of clay (P for Premo, F for Fimo, K for Kato, etc) since colors by the same name in one brand are usually nothing like those colors in another brand.
You can also note proportions visually by punching out a circle of clay, smaller than your mixed sample, from each of the colors you used in the mix. Cut out portions, like pie slices, from each color in proportion to how much was used in the mix to re-create a single circle showing how much of each color was used in the mix. Don’t forget to inscribe your initial for the brand of clay. See the image here for an approximate example of the purple mix above.
Adhere this combination pie to the mixed color shape, punch a hole in the sample, cure, and string on a chain or wire.
(If you are confused about how to figure out the parts aspect of the color mixing, just use a small cutter to punch your unmixed colors out of sheets of the same thickness. Each piece is a part. Use these punched bits of clay to make your mix, keeping track of how many pieces/parts you use to create the color you’re making.)
If you’re playing with a surface colorant, try it on both white clay and black clay or on clay colors you use quite often. It’s a rare colorant that doesn’t allow the clay base underneath to the show through, so trying it on black and white will give you an idea of how the colorant will appear on lighter versus darker colors, not just black and white.
I punch small-ish circles out of white and black sheets of clay, then I cut them in half and put a white half with a black half. I apply the colorant to these splits chips. After curing, I glue them to the colorant’s product container so my reference sample is right on the product. You can see here how well this works for those little mica powder containers, above. I keep them in a drawer with the samples facing up so I can quickly find the color I want.
The best part about all these samples is that while you’re designing a finished piece, you can pull them out and compare them side-by-side to see what works well together. You can also hold them up to a partially finished piece to see what you might want to add. Personally, I can’t imagine working without all my exploratory samples.
Turning Discovery into Works of Art
Now, for those of you who are anxious to produce something with your time at the studio table, you can take any samples you’re not going to save for reference and create with them. You can add additional layers, reshape, or attach embellishment to your extra samples to easily create pendants, earrings, or brooches. You can also use them for collages or mosaics.
Keep cured samples, even if you’re not going to use them for reference, for further experiments where you want to play with cured clay techniques or to test new glues or sealants. This way, not only is your time not wasted, neither are any of the materials you’re playing with.
Give Yourself Permission to Explore
Whatever your inclination, the big take-away here is that in-depth exploration can, and probably should, be a regular part of your creative process. Give yourself the permission and time to do this throughout your creative journey or career, not just when you’re starting out.
Keep in mind, not only does this kind of exploratory time hone your skills, your familiarity and confidence with the processes and techniques grow stronger and faster than they would if you tried to learn just through making finished work. This is because you are willing to take more chances with these scrap samples. They just don’t have the same stakes, right?
And, you know, taking chances with this exploratory sample work should eventually translate into taking bigger risks with your finished pieces. I think, when we take the big risks, that’s when we make the biggest leaps and create the most amazing work. Well, sometimes we make absolute disasters as well, but it’s all part of the process. You’re certainly less likely to have a disaster if you do a lot of exploration first.
So, if you have not let yourself just explore and play with the materials you work with, maybe, this week, you can either set some time aside or make all of your studio time exploration time. Making many of your mistakes in the exploratory phase and not always on completed pieces will make your creative time more efficient, less stressful, and more enjoyable.
Texture Hungry?
If you’re one of those who is looking for more ideas and direction on texture, don’t forget we have an entire issue of The Polymer Arts on texture, the Fall 2017 issue. Also check out the mark making focused edition of the Virtual Art Box from March of last year. All Virtual Art Box content that was previously members only is 40% off right now.
The Last of the March Giveaways
Our month of giveaways has ended, but all your wonderful comments have given me so many ideas for upcoming posts. I thank all of you who commented so very sincerely!
I have one last giveaway winner to announce. Valerie Hall is receiving the last batch of my giveaway Polyform clay. I was very excited about this. Valerie is a very active and giving soul who has been trying to teaching through the great clay shortage of 2020 in any way she can. So it’s fantastic to aid her with this clay package. Congrats Valerie!
This was so much fun. I will try to do this here and there as I receive samples or find opportunities to gather stuff for you. So stick around for more free stuff in the not-too-distant future!
You can support this blog by buying yourself a little something at Tenth Muse Arts or, if you like…
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I don’t know what happens online but there have been long spells lately where nothing really jumps out at me as I wander through Pinterest, Flicker, Etsy, Google images, and the many blogs and art sites I keep bookmarked to look for amazing and inspiring work. Maybe it’s just me, but then, all of sudden, pieces are jumping out of the screen to charm me into digging further. This week, I want to share a few that have done that recently but for which I haven’t devised any themes to work them into and I’m just a bit too excited to wait to share them.
These pendants made me stop, not just because they are beautifully designed, but I thought certainly that these were one of the many pieces found on Pinterest that had been mistakenly marked as polymer. Looking into the artist further, I found that Katya Bo does, in fact, make these out of polymer. Only the findings they hang from and the stones embedded in them are not. I’ve done my share of raised thin lines in polymer and they are not at all easy to keep neat and even. It takes a lot of patience and a steady hand. Katya must have those in spades because, according to process photos I found, these are not stamped or cast as they might first appear to be.
Her art deco look sometimes crosses into renaissance and other times takes a whiplash swing into space age styles, but there is always that delicate design reminiscent of enamel using faux granite clay for the base. Her pieces are gorgeously conceived, beautifully detailed, and quietly balanced in design; a combination that seems fairly rare in art jewelry these days.
I spent way more time flipping through her Flickr pages than I had when I first saw her work, then I dug deeper and found her LiveMaster shop as well as her VK.com ‘workroom’ which has the process photos that reveal that, no, those lines are not wires or formed through a more precision method, but are all formed polymer. What a lovely surprise.
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Read MoreSo, all this talk of lines and dots has you wanting to try out your own dot-line compositions, right? Well, being the cheerleader that I am, I’ve gone out and found a little something that might get you playing with some of those dots and lines regardless of how enthralled you are with the subject. Just try out this easy and rewarding application technique.
Svetlana Belova generously shares her process for creating these lovely pendants on LiveMaster. The types of patterns you can create this way are endless. It really lets you explore the possibilities without committing to a block of mokume or being limited by a stamp or texture sheet. This kind of work is very meditative and can be a fantastic way to relax or get yourself into a creative zone before working on something else.
Svetlana shares her techniques on her blog and sells her work through her LiveMaster shop where you can see other examples of this and other pretty compositions.
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Covering containers is not a new concept for clayers, but how small would you go? There are all kinds of small boxes, tubes, and cases out there that can be transformed into interesting polymer container adornments. This pendant by Cyprus’ Nicolas and Nora is just one such example I dug up. They’ve given the container a very specific purpose as well, which is just about as interesting as this charming pendant.
They label these ‘prayer box necklaces’ in their Etsy listing. They go on to describe in detail what a prayer box is and how to use it by saying these are “used by religious faithful to help them focus on their specific prayer needs and to facilitate contemplation on one’s faith … most people stuff notes of prayer items into the boxes. Think about what you truly want and write it down. Writing your desires out give them energy and increase the likelihood that your wishes will be answered.”
Not only is it a nice idea, but by giving the pendant a particular purpose is also a smart way to sell. It’s not unlike staging a house. If you can show people just what they can do with what you have for them, they are much more likely to buy because they can imagine, in a very specific way, how they themselves would use your piece. So, if you do make any kind of container adornment or house decor, display and photograph the work with possible things it could contain, not as a primary presentation, but for the purpose of selling such as you would in your online shop or at a craft show. It turns the work from just something beautiful to look at (not that this shouldn’t be enough!) into something the buyer/wearer can customize and use for a more personal and connected interaction with your work.
Nicolas and Nora don’t seem to have any more of these container-style necklaces in their shop right now, but if you like this earthy, bohemian look, or are curious what other personal approaches they use to grab the interest of their potential customers, jump on over to their Etsy shop and take a look around.
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.
Read MoreKristie Foss is definitely an explorer type of artist. Her blog is full of her exploits in polymer and the many different variations she gets from playing with a technique, surface treatment or form.
In this one post, you can see the progression of playing with shapes starting with the same clay treatment. She began with nautilus snail shapes then worked it into a leaf type of pendant and then finally into these intriguing horn shapes. Its rather neat to be able to see the progression of ideas. Makes me want to jump into the studio and see what comes of the scraps on my table!
But alas, that is not for me today. And tomorrow I am in LA for a week just checking in on family and having some time away from it all with a favorite person of mine. I’m going to get started finding items for next week’s blog as of today and my tired brain could so use some help. If any of you have any favorite pieces–of yours or of others–you think we need to share with everyone, send me a link to this fabulous work at sbray@thepolymerarts.com or message us on Facebook at The Polymer Arts. You’ll get a warm thank you mention in the post and a link to your site as well as a lot of gratitude from little ol’ me!
In the meantime, treat yourself to some downtime of your own with a cup of coffee or glass of wine and join Kristie on her blog for a bit of polymer adventuring.
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.
Read MoreSometimes the surprise found in our work comes incidentally as we create with other intentions. Una-Odd Lynn was fascinated by a collection of moonglow beads and had planned some simple cut pendants in polymer for them but ended up with something just a little different.
“I cut out a hole, not reserving the removed clay, and planned to use a moonglow bead in the middle. Experimenting with a tube to punch out the hole I discovered [the extra clay] would make a nice side bead.” And these sweet little necklaces were born!
Mrs. Lynn’s pieces and ideas are kind of all over the place but that openness to working with whatever suits a mood is often exactly what is needed to allow for new discoveries. Una-Odd blogs about all the various things she does and ponders on her entertaining blog. Jump on over and explore a little yourself.
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.
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