A Few Touches
May 28, 2018
Inspirational Art
Have you seen what crazy, amazing illustrative cane work people have been doing lately? This work has been absolutely amazing the way the canes take on a painterly look beneath the skillful hands of these particular artists.
The Kingfisher bird in this brooch is a cane by Claire Wallis. Mind-blowing isn’t it? She applied it to a painted background but she didn’t just leave it as a cane blended into a background layer. She was very thoughtful about how it would appear and applied a thin layer of translucent clay to give the edges a soft focus.
She also scratched in a pale border along the edges of the beak and some of the feathers to further blend the cane’s edge. This has the added effect of making the bird image sit on a more definite foreground plane as well as separating the abundance of cool colors in the background and bird feathers which would otherwise visually meld, making the edge of the bird’s head a bit nebulous. These little touches have really made the difference between it just being an amazing cane and creating an overall amazing image and brooch.
Claire’s cane work keeps getting better and better, even when you don’t think it could. You can check out her polymer journey on her Facebook page and Flickr site, and see her finished items in her Etsy shop.
Newly Striking
April 4, 2018
Inspirational Art
This new work by Monika Duchowicz is not so much shiny, like Monday’s post, but it is certainly striking.
You may have had your first in-depth introduction to Monika’s work in our Summer 2017 ‘Color’ issue. Her tutorial on painting with polymer for journal covers is truly amazing. She is still painting polymer covers but this piece moves out in a somewhat new direction being that this is more constructed than painted.
She also found a beautiful journal to put it on. It is a very Gothic and dreamlike combination of her composition and the journal cover’s spine and back. She describes the bird as a Phoenix although she notes that this is not a typical Phoenix with the all-white plumage and only fiery colors inserted into the background. And why not? We can make our own versions of any myth.
She posted several different views of this journal which you can see on her Instagram page. Also take a look at her work in her Etsy shop.
A Past Controversy
September 1, 2017
Inspirational Art
Here is a post with some food for thought as you go through your weekend. This post was one of my most active. The discussion in the comments revolved around whether to consider this polymer art because although it is mostly polymer, the focus and all the color is painted on. I found it very interesting to hear people’s thoughts on defining polymer art and the idea of polymer purity. You can return to the original post here. There was also a follow-up post a little later that revived the conversation a bit, which you can read here.
If you want to put in your two cents, just comment at the bottom of this post at the post’s page (click the header above to be sure you are on the page) or look for the most recent post on our Facebook page.
The original post was from February 17, 2012:
I fell for the colors when I saw this brooch, then I looked at the bezel. Then at her gallery and all her really creative bezels … and the pretty colors. Artist is Susan Waddington of Polydogz.
You can find more of her work on Flickr and Etsy.
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Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
_________________________________________
Have you seen what crazy, amazing illustrative cane work people have been doing lately? This work has been absolutely amazing the way the canes take on a painterly look beneath the skillful hands of these particular artists.
The Kingfisher bird in this brooch is a cane by Claire Wallis. Mind-blowing isn’t it? She applied it to a painted background but she didn’t just leave it as a cane blended into a background layer. She was very thoughtful about how it would appear and applied a thin layer of translucent clay to give the edges a soft focus.
She also scratched in a pale border along the edges of the beak and some of the feathers to further blend the cane’s edge. This has the added effect of making the bird image sit on a more definite foreground plane as well as separating the abundance of cool colors in the background and bird feathers which would otherwise visually meld, making the edge of the bird’s head a bit nebulous. These little touches have really made the difference between it just being an amazing cane and creating an overall amazing image and brooch.
Claire’s cane work keeps getting better and better, even when you don’t think it could. You can check out her polymer journey on her Facebook page and Flickr site, and see her finished items in her Etsy shop.
Read MoreThis new work by Monika Duchowicz is not so much shiny, like Monday’s post, but it is certainly striking.
You may have had your first in-depth introduction to Monika’s work in our Summer 2017 ‘Color’ issue. Her tutorial on painting with polymer for journal covers is truly amazing. She is still painting polymer covers but this piece moves out in a somewhat new direction being that this is more constructed than painted.
She also found a beautiful journal to put it on. It is a very Gothic and dreamlike combination of her composition and the journal cover’s spine and back. She describes the bird as a Phoenix although she notes that this is not a typical Phoenix with the all-white plumage and only fiery colors inserted into the background. And why not? We can make our own versions of any myth.
She posted several different views of this journal which you can see on her Instagram page. Also take a look at her work in her Etsy shop.
Read More
Here is a post with some food for thought as you go through your weekend. This post was one of my most active. The discussion in the comments revolved around whether to consider this polymer art because although it is mostly polymer, the focus and all the color is painted on. I found it very interesting to hear people’s thoughts on defining polymer art and the idea of polymer purity. You can return to the original post here. There was also a follow-up post a little later that revived the conversation a bit, which you can read here.
If you want to put in your two cents, just comment at the bottom of this post at the post’s page (click the header above to be sure you are on the page) or look for the most recent post on our Facebook page.
The original post was from February 17, 2012:
I fell for the colors when I saw this brooch, then I looked at the bezel. Then at her gallery and all her really creative bezels … and the pretty colors. Artist is Susan Waddington of Polydogz.
You can find more of her work on Flickr and Etsy.
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
_________________________________________
Read More