Through a Glass Prettily
July 16, 2018 Inspirational Art
Apparently, I’m a bit of a wreck. I’m only telling you this because you are probably going to see a bit of a slowdown in our publications coming out and maybe a little less research here on the blog. As many of you know, I’m the only full-time person who works on The Polymer Arts projects and I’m dealing with two injuries that occurred earlier this year and arthritis in my neck, none of which are happy with how much I work. So, doctor’s orders, I have to cut my computer time down the next few months while I focus on healing. It’s going to be hard to slow down, workaholic that I am, but I’m counting on you all to hold me to it!
So to minimize my research time, I’m going to be pulling things to share from my stash on my Pinterest boards and favorites on Instagram and Flickr and such for a while. We will, therefore, be seeing a fair amount of older work, but there’s so much really inspirational and timeless work to share.
This week’s first piece is from Adrianne Jeswiet whose work I discovered not too long ago. Her shop on Etsy is called “Kissing Glass” and it is filled with various glass vessels covered in detailed imagery. This piece includes tiny dragonflies, water lilies, irises and cattails applied to a recycled glass vase colored with glass paint. Take a close look to see the myriad of tiny details that are sure to make this a conversation piece wherever it finds its new home.
Pop over to Adrianne’s Etsy shop to see the full range of what she does.
To Be Inspired By
July 6, 2018 Inspirational Art
Guest Blog Post by Kathleen Nowak Tucci
Inspiration: a feeling of enthusiasm you get from someone or something that gives you new and creative ideas.
When I saw the photo of a fiery-throated hummingbird by Jess Findlay, inspiration struck. On my worktable, there were corrugated recycled aluminum Nespresso coffee capsules in the shape of fans and I finally knew what I would do with them. The idea percolated for months and it wasn’t until I was participating in a residency in Mexico that I had time to work on the idea. In Mexico, I had a full month to experiment and refine a necklace that was inspired by the photo of the hummingbird and a year later I made an entire dress and headpiece using the same inspiration.
Interestingly, another person taken by the same photo recreated it in colored pencils. A different medium was used but it was virtually identical. This was not inspired but rather, everything about it, the color, composition, and position of the image, had been copied. It is not enough to change mediums for it to not be a copy!
So how can you be inspired by another artist’s creations but not copy them? Be inspired by the combination of color, by their balance of color, their arrangement of objects, their use of textures, etc. Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook have made it very easy to collect images of art but resist the urge to collect images made in the same category that you work. Don’t have a photo of another artist’s work in front of you or study another artist’s work so thoroughly that you reproduce their style or aesthetic. Take your own photos and use them for inspiration. Use a word or feeling and not an image for your next creation. Be inspired!
Copy: to make a similar or identical version of; reproduce.
Kathleen Nowak Tucci’s multimedium jewelry using polymer and recycled materials will be featured on Season 5 of Netflix’s Grace and Frankie. Follow Kathleen on Instagram and Facebook.
Hummingbird dress photo by East Hill Photo.
The Paper and Polymer Advantage
March 11, 2016 Inspirational Art, The Polymer Arts magazine news
My little contribution to the Spring issue of The Polymer Arts is an article on ways to combine paper with polymer. I did a lot of research to see if there was anything else I could share with readers beyond what I had done in the past with paper casting and collage style techniques and … wow! There are tons of ways paper can be used to kick up your work. It offers ways to make production less expensive and pieces lighter for castings and as cores for large beads, it can add interesting textures both tactile and visual, and, because it can go in the oven at polymer clay curing temperatures, it can be used over, under, inside of, and just about any way you want it with your raw clay and it all can go into the oven together.
My foray into paper and polymer came initially from looking for less expensive and less noxious ways to cast sculpted pieces I had created in polymer and wanted to duplicate. I went on to use the material as a substrate, to make light sculptural and bead cores and to make hollow beads. But the things they are doing with paper in the craft world is amazing, and looks a lot like polymer sometimes. From mokume-like carved stacks of paper to rolled beads to textured, stamped, and molded paper–the work is beautiful and a very direct source of inspiration for polymer artists. If you haven’t seen what I am talking about just google something like “paper jewelry” or “paper craft” on Google, Pinterest, Etsy or Flickr. It’s fascinating.
The other super cool thing about paper craft is that much of it is being made from recycled and upcycled paper sources. I do all my paper casting using junk mail and old newspapers and my collage work is from magazines I would otherwise just throw away. But those are not the only sources of paper we can recycle and combine with polymer pieces. This necklace by Izabela Nowak is a beautiful example of where using a paper source rather than polymer has a distinct advantage.
All those discs are cut from milk and juice cartons. Creating something like that with polymer would be intensely time-consuming and curing extremely thin polymer and keeping it flat takes a few tricks. I am not saying its impossible–I’ve done it myself–but why do that if you can get a similar effect while keeping more trash out of a landfill? And … it’s cheap or free! You gotta love that.
Izabela actually does a ton of work in paper and upcycled materials. She doesn’t often combine her polymer and paper but I find the pieces in which she doe, more interesting than the paper alone. The polymer adds solidity and texture the paper can’t and the paper offers crisp edges and smooth surfaces that are more difficult to do in polymer. So together, they make quite the pair!
Get your copy of the Spring 2016 issue of The Polymer Arts for this and other great article sure to get your creative juice flowing!
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Search for paper craft, paper jewelry, or recycled art and find a piece you are drawn to. Don’t spend a lot of time looking. Then figure out what that one thing is that is really drawing you to that piece. Use that element … whether it’s the way the work was created (rolled, folded, molded), the form of the piece, or even the combination of colors, and use it to design or create your next piece.
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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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Outside Inspiration: Paper Imitating Aquatic Nature
August 9, 2013 Inspirational Art
Paper is actually a wonderful sculptural art medium. It is inexpensive and accessible, and much of your material can be gleaned from the recycle bin. But it does have its limitations–for instance, you don’t want to get it wet!
I don’t know that Amy Eisenfeld Genser uses recycled paper in her stunning sculptural wall pieces, although it looks like it would be possible. These pieces are rolled colored paper, adhered to acrylic painted canvases. The very organic way the paper components are laid out is reflective of coral reefs with the colors of the sea behind them–an exotic ocean landscape made from, of all things, paper.
I think using a material to represent a natural scene the material itself couldn’t exist in is delightfully ironic–or maybe it’s just me. In our chosen art, polymer clayers constantly experience the irony of working in a material that is considered the antithesis of organic, yet can so accurately and beautifully recreate the organic; so maybe I just enjoy these kinds of ironic connections.
Aside from the ironic beauty of Amy’s work here, I thought the textures were something that might inspire any number of you who work in extruded canes or enjoy sculptural texture. The variety of color and size in the components as well as their application–crowded and overlapping in some areas, scattered in others–is an approach that could be emulated quite easily in polymer, giving you yet another textural option for playing and designing with little bits of clay and bringing the inspiration of nature to your work.
Liquid Polymer & Scrap Fabric
August 29, 2012 Technique tutorials, Tips and Tricks
Isn’t liquid polymer just wonderful as a finish for polymer? Transluscent, easy to apply, durable … Those same qualities actually allow it to work really well with a few more things beside polymer.
Genevieve Dolosor shows how she uses small bits of fabric to create colorful backgrounds using LPC to seal it and make the bit of fabric more substantial so it can be shown off as a center piece like a semi-precious stone in this tutorial.
So pull out those old ties, scraps of fabric or that dress you’ve been wanting to shorten (from hemline to art!) and snip yourself off some color and pattern to play with.
Apparently, I’m a bit of a wreck. I’m only telling you this because you are probably going to see a bit of a slowdown in our publications coming out and maybe a little less research here on the blog. As many of you know, I’m the only full-time person who works on The Polymer Arts projects and I’m dealing with two injuries that occurred earlier this year and arthritis in my neck, none of which are happy with how much I work. So, doctor’s orders, I have to cut my computer time down the next few months while I focus on healing. It’s going to be hard to slow down, workaholic that I am, but I’m counting on you all to hold me to it!
So to minimize my research time, I’m going to be pulling things to share from my stash on my Pinterest boards and favorites on Instagram and Flickr and such for a while. We will, therefore, be seeing a fair amount of older work, but there’s so much really inspirational and timeless work to share.
This week’s first piece is from Adrianne Jeswiet whose work I discovered not too long ago. Her shop on Etsy is called “Kissing Glass” and it is filled with various glass vessels covered in detailed imagery. This piece includes tiny dragonflies, water lilies, irises and cattails applied to a recycled glass vase colored with glass paint. Take a close look to see the myriad of tiny details that are sure to make this a conversation piece wherever it finds its new home.
Pop over to Adrianne’s Etsy shop to see the full range of what she does.
Read MoreGuest Blog Post by Kathleen Nowak Tucci
Inspiration: a feeling of enthusiasm you get from someone or something that gives you new and creative ideas.
When I saw the photo of a fiery-throated hummingbird by Jess Findlay, inspiration struck. On my worktable, there were corrugated recycled aluminum Nespresso coffee capsules in the shape of fans and I finally knew what I would do with them. The idea percolated for months and it wasn’t until I was participating in a residency in Mexico that I had time to work on the idea. In Mexico, I had a full month to experiment and refine a necklace that was inspired by the photo of the hummingbird and a year later I made an entire dress and headpiece using the same inspiration.
Interestingly, another person taken by the same photo recreated it in colored pencils. A different medium was used but it was virtually identical. This was not inspired but rather, everything about it, the color, composition, and position of the image, had been copied. It is not enough to change mediums for it to not be a copy!
So how can you be inspired by another artist’s creations but not copy them? Be inspired by the combination of color, by their balance of color, their arrangement of objects, their use of textures, etc. Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook have made it very easy to collect images of art but resist the urge to collect images made in the same category that you work. Don’t have a photo of another artist’s work in front of you or study another artist’s work so thoroughly that you reproduce their style or aesthetic. Take your own photos and use them for inspiration. Use a word or feeling and not an image for your next creation. Be inspired!
Copy: to make a similar or identical version of; reproduce.
Kathleen Nowak Tucci’s multimedium jewelry using polymer and recycled materials will be featured on Season 5 of Netflix’s Grace and Frankie. Follow Kathleen on Instagram and Facebook.
Hummingbird dress photo by East Hill Photo.
Read More
My little contribution to the Spring issue of The Polymer Arts is an article on ways to combine paper with polymer. I did a lot of research to see if there was anything else I could share with readers beyond what I had done in the past with paper casting and collage style techniques and … wow! There are tons of ways paper can be used to kick up your work. It offers ways to make production less expensive and pieces lighter for castings and as cores for large beads, it can add interesting textures both tactile and visual, and, because it can go in the oven at polymer clay curing temperatures, it can be used over, under, inside of, and just about any way you want it with your raw clay and it all can go into the oven together.
My foray into paper and polymer came initially from looking for less expensive and less noxious ways to cast sculpted pieces I had created in polymer and wanted to duplicate. I went on to use the material as a substrate, to make light sculptural and bead cores and to make hollow beads. But the things they are doing with paper in the craft world is amazing, and looks a lot like polymer sometimes. From mokume-like carved stacks of paper to rolled beads to textured, stamped, and molded paper–the work is beautiful and a very direct source of inspiration for polymer artists. If you haven’t seen what I am talking about just google something like “paper jewelry” or “paper craft” on Google, Pinterest, Etsy or Flickr. It’s fascinating.
The other super cool thing about paper craft is that much of it is being made from recycled and upcycled paper sources. I do all my paper casting using junk mail and old newspapers and my collage work is from magazines I would otherwise just throw away. But those are not the only sources of paper we can recycle and combine with polymer pieces. This necklace by Izabela Nowak is a beautiful example of where using a paper source rather than polymer has a distinct advantage.
All those discs are cut from milk and juice cartons. Creating something like that with polymer would be intensely time-consuming and curing extremely thin polymer and keeping it flat takes a few tricks. I am not saying its impossible–I’ve done it myself–but why do that if you can get a similar effect while keeping more trash out of a landfill? And … it’s cheap or free! You gotta love that.
Izabela actually does a ton of work in paper and upcycled materials. She doesn’t often combine her polymer and paper but I find the pieces in which she doe, more interesting than the paper alone. The polymer adds solidity and texture the paper can’t and the paper offers crisp edges and smooth surfaces that are more difficult to do in polymer. So together, they make quite the pair!
Get your copy of the Spring 2016 issue of The Polymer Arts for this and other great article sure to get your creative juice flowing!
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Search for paper craft, paper jewelry, or recycled art and find a piece you are drawn to. Don’t spend a lot of time looking. Then figure out what that one thing is that is really drawing you to that piece. Use that element … whether it’s the way the work was created (rolled, folded, molded), the form of the piece, or even the combination of colors, and use it to design or create your next piece.
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
___________________________________________
Read MorePaper is actually a wonderful sculptural art medium. It is inexpensive and accessible, and much of your material can be gleaned from the recycle bin. But it does have its limitations–for instance, you don’t want to get it wet!
I don’t know that Amy Eisenfeld Genser uses recycled paper in her stunning sculptural wall pieces, although it looks like it would be possible. These pieces are rolled colored paper, adhered to acrylic painted canvases. The very organic way the paper components are laid out is reflective of coral reefs with the colors of the sea behind them–an exotic ocean landscape made from, of all things, paper.
I think using a material to represent a natural scene the material itself couldn’t exist in is delightfully ironic–or maybe it’s just me. In our chosen art, polymer clayers constantly experience the irony of working in a material that is considered the antithesis of organic, yet can so accurately and beautifully recreate the organic; so maybe I just enjoy these kinds of ironic connections.
Aside from the ironic beauty of Amy’s work here, I thought the textures were something that might inspire any number of you who work in extruded canes or enjoy sculptural texture. The variety of color and size in the components as well as their application–crowded and overlapping in some areas, scattered in others–is an approach that could be emulated quite easily in polymer, giving you yet another textural option for playing and designing with little bits of clay and bringing the inspiration of nature to your work.
Read More
Isn’t liquid polymer just wonderful as a finish for polymer? Transluscent, easy to apply, durable … Those same qualities actually allow it to work really well with a few more things beside polymer.
Genevieve Dolosor shows how she uses small bits of fabric to create colorful backgrounds using LPC to seal it and make the bit of fabric more substantial so it can be shown off as a center piece like a semi-precious stone in this tutorial.
So pull out those old ties, scraps of fabric or that dress you’ve been wanting to shorten (from hemline to art!) and snip yourself off some color and pattern to play with.
Read More