Spikey Blue
December 7, 2018
Inspirational Art
Even here in Southern California there is quite the nip in the air and winter is making herself known all across the US and in other parts of the world. To match this weather and season, I thought I’d go with icy blues to wind up this week of blues and what a piece we have here to contemplate.
Maud Traon has taken gem-setting far beyond the classic expectation. These marquis-cut stones are installed not so much to be admired for their beautiful icy blue color but to generate energy and a sharp boldness that verges on the dangerous. This ring could possibly double as a weapon!
All kidding aside, you can see how this unusual setting reflects a gem’s organic origin where the crystals form in a variety of directions at the behest of various geological forces. They do not sit in the Earth, cut and clear and ready to sparkle for us but are surrounded by other elements, many that are dark, dirty, gritty and swallowing them up.
These were my thoughts before I found this explanation of her approach on Maud’s website. It seems her objective has been met when viewers like us read similar sentiments in the work:
Maud’s work sits in direct contrast to the standard approach to jewellery of setting highly cut stones within a traditional fixing. The stones are set in a manner that reflects their natural structure, glitter is treated as an equal to precious stones and the object in its entirety appears to have fallen out of a natural wonderland.
If you find this work intriguing, head over to Maud’s website to look at other pieces in the series as well is the variety of approaches she takes under this organic philosophy.
Sonya Rings in the New Year
January 12, 2018
Inspirational Art
Here are a couple more interesting pieces posted in the first week of the year from the prolific Sonya Girodan. Randee Ketzel sent me this before it popped up on my Flickr stream. These rings do really grab your attention. They might also grab your knitted sweater but that is beside the point.
These are an intriguing and different use of familiar techniques. The beads were inspired by classes she had with Celine Charuau, who we looked at on Wednesday, and Christine Dumont. In both cases, her instructors generally use these techniques on elements created as pendants or brooches rather than rings. Laying the beads down in a horizontal plane makes them feel a bit more placid than they would be in the about-face position of pendants and brooches.
Sonya brings back any energy lost by the change in orientation, however, by adding thin and reaching elements beneath the beads to draw the eye out and back from the body of the rings’ designs. It may make for delicate looking pieces and not everyday rings but you have to admit, they would grab your attention.
I do wonder if this announces a new direction for Sonya as I’ve not seen anything quite like this from her. Not that Sonya taking a left turn in her work is surprising. She seems to constantly be reinventing her style. Just take a look at her body of work. Her progression can be very explosive at times and her need to explore and push design is evident everywhere. It’s an inspiring journey and you can catch it all pretty quickly by taking a visual stroll through her Flickr photostream.
Outside Inspiration: Rings and Resin
August 5, 2016
Inspirational Art
If you are one of those clayers that, like myself, sees something cool in another material and immediately asks yourself, “How can I create that in polymer?” then the rings from this group will really get your gears going. This ring is made from wood and resin. But why not polymer and resin?
Why not, indeed. The mysterious landscape and that rising gold cloud within just snares the imagination. The group, My Secret Wood, is a team of artists that create hundreds of these one of kind rings using different woods, varying inclusions and a range of tints in their resin. I imagine these are done with molds and some very refined resin skills to eliminate large bubbles but I could see this kind of thing being very do-able with polymer as the ring base. Not that I think one should just up and copy this form. Obviously not. And besides, polymer acts so differently than wood that the outcome would be a world away from this. But a resin cap would help protect surface effects and fragile forms that otherwise would be risky to have on the surface of a ring.
Do take some time today to wander through their gallery of available rings. It is sure to get your imagination going if not tempt you to buy your own.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Design or create an object of your choice in a way that shows an inner world. That could mean any number of things to you so don’t try to be literal but let the idea roll around in your mind and see what “inner world” means to you and see how you can transform that concept into a work of art.
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
_________________________________________
Challenging Rings
August 1, 2016
Inspirational Art
Can you believe it’s August already? More than halfway through the year! How have you been doing with your New Year’s resolutions? I have 2 out of 3 down pretty good. But like me, many of us have not been able to keep up with polymer challenges and studio goals and have had to adjust them. That’s okay. The real purpose of a challenge is to keep at it and see what you can discover if you push yourself. Just this week, I have finally been able to keep a steady studio schedule (a couple of hours every other day which is a 100% better than what I had managed at any time the first half of the year!)
Then there are amazing people like Wendy Jorre de St Jorre who have done this kind of thing at least a couple of years in a row. That’s dedication. Last year she did bangles and this year she’s been doing rings, one each week. She takes her amazing canes used for necklaces and bracelets as well as various decor items and works them into beautiful bands. Although some of the original canes distorts quite a bit as it is wrapped around the small domed band, because she has such great color sense and keeps an eye on the balance of contrasts, the abstract (and even not so abstract) results are just gorgeous.
To see what she has accomplished aside from this beautiful ring here, hop over to see Wendy’s adventures on her Flickr photostream.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Take an application usually used in a different kind of jewelry or decor and create a ring. Or if you do create a lot of rings, create something unusual like a hat pin or an ear cuff.
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
_________________________________________
Build a Basic Ring
April 13, 2014
Technique tutorials, Tips and Tricks
Now that we’ve been looking at rings all week, are you not excited to try your hand at this form or expand on what you’ve done in the past with rings? There are a number of online sources including classes at Craft Art Edu or the expansive article on creating rings in the Winter 2012 issue of The Polymer Arts as well as a number of online tutorials. The article in our 2012 issue has easy instructions by Donna Greenberg on how to make a polymer band for a ring base but if you’d prefer a metal wire band, check out this straight forward tutorial by Elena Samsonova, a Russian born artist living in Connecticut in the US.
To get the first half of this tutorial showing you how to build the wire wrapped ring base, go to Elena’s Flickr page and then peruse other lovely work and ideas of hers while there. For more of her tutorials as well as more of her work, visit Elena’s website as well.
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.
Outside Inspiration: Wild Colorful Metal
April 11, 2014
Inspirational Art
Rings can truly be made from any material but rings from metal are really the standard due to their durability. Some might say the downside is that we end up with rings primarily created in the limited palette of metallic colors. Granted the accent color of stones can add some amazing hues not to mention the sparkle that draws the eye. So when I found this artist who works in coloring metal, I was entranced.
Jose Marín works in titanium, gold and stones but he uses the heat reactive characteristics of titanium to create jewel tone colors, expanding the metals inherent palette. The colors, form and decorative accents in this ring would be a rather natural approach if this was polymer. This ring leads me into some extensive research on anodized metals–there’s so much gorgeous work out there and such a rich, potential source for polymer inspirations.
Jose’s inspiration comes from the natural world: “My goal is to make jewellery that, as you look at it, can convey intangible aspects of nature: smell, joy, nostalgia, sensuality …” Don’t miss seeing his other incredible jewelry including some of the breathtaking necklaces and jeweled rings you can find on his website.
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.
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.
Outside Inspiration: Scatter as Contrast
December 6, 2013
Inspirational Art
Scattered elements are the opposite of controlled and precisely aligned elements in a piece of art or craft work. If you can put the two approaches into the same piece, you can potentially have some interesting contrast.
Today’s outside inspiration is just that–a juxtaposition of precision and scattered elements. We are quite used to precision in fine jewelry so I really enjoyed seeing this departure from symmetry and exact alignment. This is the work of jewelry designer Etienne Perret.
The form of the ring is very exact–precise lines and rounded corners keep it classic but the random placement and mix of gems make for a bit more contemporary, even edgy piece. Don’t you love how the diamonds fall down the side as well?
If you like the idea of scattered elements but are a bit leery to try it, this approach of having a precision base to contrast the randomness of elements may just be the thing.
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.
Ink Aiding Texture
November 21, 2013
Inspirational Art
Inks can produce visual texture like any painting medium can. But ink can also aid in emphasizing tactile textures without changing the form or surface properties in ways acrylics and oils cannot. With ink you can add that visual texture to the tactile elements without altering the physical texture due to the fact that they stain rather than covering the clay. Ink doesn’t build a physical layer of its own or in any way changes the physical texture of what its applied to so it has the advantage of adding complexity in texture as well as color.
Sylvie Peraud‘s series of rings she did this year absolutely fascinate me. Each element looks very organic and natural but collectively these little scenes appear a bit alien. This adds to their intrigue. The coloring of these little pieces that make up the beautifully strange miniature landscapes look to be primarily ink stained as are the bands which gain their primary texture from the application of ink.
I can’t tell you how hard it was to choose which ring to share today so do jump over to her blog or Flickr photostream to see more of these unique pieces. Sylvie turns to alcohol inks quite a bit as you’ll see if you look through her webpages there and even has classes on Craft Art Edu to teach you some of her techniques with the inks including a fine crackle technique and stained glass approach.
Even here in Southern California there is quite the nip in the air and winter is making herself known all across the US and in other parts of the world. To match this weather and season, I thought I’d go with icy blues to wind up this week of blues and what a piece we have here to contemplate.
Maud Traon has taken gem-setting far beyond the classic expectation. These marquis-cut stones are installed not so much to be admired for their beautiful icy blue color but to generate energy and a sharp boldness that verges on the dangerous. This ring could possibly double as a weapon!
All kidding aside, you can see how this unusual setting reflects a gem’s organic origin where the crystals form in a variety of directions at the behest of various geological forces. They do not sit in the Earth, cut and clear and ready to sparkle for us but are surrounded by other elements, many that are dark, dirty, gritty and swallowing them up.
These were my thoughts before I found this explanation of her approach on Maud’s website. It seems her objective has been met when viewers like us read similar sentiments in the work:
Maud’s work sits in direct contrast to the standard approach to jewellery of setting highly cut stones within a traditional fixing. The stones are set in a manner that reflects their natural structure, glitter is treated as an equal to precious stones and the object in its entirety appears to have fallen out of a natural wonderland.
If you find this work intriguing, head over to Maud’s website to look at other pieces in the series as well is the variety of approaches she takes under this organic philosophy.
Read MoreHere are a couple more interesting pieces posted in the first week of the year from the prolific Sonya Girodan. Randee Ketzel sent me this before it popped up on my Flickr stream. These rings do really grab your attention. They might also grab your knitted sweater but that is beside the point.
These are an intriguing and different use of familiar techniques. The beads were inspired by classes she had with Celine Charuau, who we looked at on Wednesday, and Christine Dumont. In both cases, her instructors generally use these techniques on elements created as pendants or brooches rather than rings. Laying the beads down in a horizontal plane makes them feel a bit more placid than they would be in the about-face position of pendants and brooches.
Sonya brings back any energy lost by the change in orientation, however, by adding thin and reaching elements beneath the beads to draw the eye out and back from the body of the rings’ designs. It may make for delicate looking pieces and not everyday rings but you have to admit, they would grab your attention.
I do wonder if this announces a new direction for Sonya as I’ve not seen anything quite like this from her. Not that Sonya taking a left turn in her work is surprising. She seems to constantly be reinventing her style. Just take a look at her body of work. Her progression can be very explosive at times and her need to explore and push design is evident everywhere. It’s an inspiring journey and you can catch it all pretty quickly by taking a visual stroll through her Flickr photostream.
Read More
If you are one of those clayers that, like myself, sees something cool in another material and immediately asks yourself, “How can I create that in polymer?” then the rings from this group will really get your gears going. This ring is made from wood and resin. But why not polymer and resin?
Why not, indeed. The mysterious landscape and that rising gold cloud within just snares the imagination. The group, My Secret Wood, is a team of artists that create hundreds of these one of kind rings using different woods, varying inclusions and a range of tints in their resin. I imagine these are done with molds and some very refined resin skills to eliminate large bubbles but I could see this kind of thing being very do-able with polymer as the ring base. Not that I think one should just up and copy this form. Obviously not. And besides, polymer acts so differently than wood that the outcome would be a world away from this. But a resin cap would help protect surface effects and fragile forms that otherwise would be risky to have on the surface of a ring.
Do take some time today to wander through their gallery of available rings. It is sure to get your imagination going if not tempt you to buy your own.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Design or create an object of your choice in a way that shows an inner world. That could mean any number of things to you so don’t try to be literal but let the idea roll around in your mind and see what “inner world” means to you and see how you can transform that concept into a work of art.
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
_________________________________________
Read MoreCan you believe it’s August already? More than halfway through the year! How have you been doing with your New Year’s resolutions? I have 2 out of 3 down pretty good. But like me, many of us have not been able to keep up with polymer challenges and studio goals and have had to adjust them. That’s okay. The real purpose of a challenge is to keep at it and see what you can discover if you push yourself. Just this week, I have finally been able to keep a steady studio schedule (a couple of hours every other day which is a 100% better than what I had managed at any time the first half of the year!)
Then there are amazing people like Wendy Jorre de St Jorre who have done this kind of thing at least a couple of years in a row. That’s dedication. Last year she did bangles and this year she’s been doing rings, one each week. She takes her amazing canes used for necklaces and bracelets as well as various decor items and works them into beautiful bands. Although some of the original canes distorts quite a bit as it is wrapped around the small domed band, because she has such great color sense and keeps an eye on the balance of contrasts, the abstract (and even not so abstract) results are just gorgeous.
To see what she has accomplished aside from this beautiful ring here, hop over to see Wendy’s adventures on her Flickr photostream.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Take an application usually used in a different kind of jewelry or decor and create a ring. Or if you do create a lot of rings, create something unusual like a hat pin or an ear cuff.
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
_________________________________________
Read MoreNow that we’ve been looking at rings all week, are you not excited to try your hand at this form or expand on what you’ve done in the past with rings? There are a number of online sources including classes at Craft Art Edu or the expansive article on creating rings in the Winter 2012 issue of The Polymer Arts as well as a number of online tutorials. The article in our 2012 issue has easy instructions by Donna Greenberg on how to make a polymer band for a ring base but if you’d prefer a metal wire band, check out this straight forward tutorial by Elena Samsonova, a Russian born artist living in Connecticut in the US.
To get the first half of this tutorial showing you how to build the wire wrapped ring base, go to Elena’s Flickr page and then peruse other lovely work and ideas of hers while there. For more of her tutorials as well as more of her work, visit Elena’s website as well.
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.
Rings can truly be made from any material but rings from metal are really the standard due to their durability. Some might say the downside is that we end up with rings primarily created in the limited palette of metallic colors. Granted the accent color of stones can add some amazing hues not to mention the sparkle that draws the eye. So when I found this artist who works in coloring metal, I was entranced.
Jose Marín works in titanium, gold and stones but he uses the heat reactive characteristics of titanium to create jewel tone colors, expanding the metals inherent palette. The colors, form and decorative accents in this ring would be a rather natural approach if this was polymer. This ring leads me into some extensive research on anodized metals–there’s so much gorgeous work out there and such a rich, potential source for polymer inspirations.
Jose’s inspiration comes from the natural world: “My goal is to make jewellery that, as you look at it, can convey intangible aspects of nature: smell, joy, nostalgia, sensuality …” Don’t miss seeing his other incredible jewelry including some of the breathtaking necklaces and jeweled rings you can find on his website.
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.
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.
Scattered elements are the opposite of controlled and precisely aligned elements in a piece of art or craft work. If you can put the two approaches into the same piece, you can potentially have some interesting contrast.
Today’s outside inspiration is just that–a juxtaposition of precision and scattered elements. We are quite used to precision in fine jewelry so I really enjoyed seeing this departure from symmetry and exact alignment. This is the work of jewelry designer Etienne Perret.
The form of the ring is very exact–precise lines and rounded corners keep it classic but the random placement and mix of gems make for a bit more contemporary, even edgy piece. Don’t you love how the diamonds fall down the side as well?
If you like the idea of scattered elements but are a bit leery to try it, this approach of having a precision base to contrast the randomness of elements may just be the thing.
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.
Inks can produce visual texture like any painting medium can. But ink can also aid in emphasizing tactile textures without changing the form or surface properties in ways acrylics and oils cannot. With ink you can add that visual texture to the tactile elements without altering the physical texture due to the fact that they stain rather than covering the clay. Ink doesn’t build a physical layer of its own or in any way changes the physical texture of what its applied to so it has the advantage of adding complexity in texture as well as color.
Sylvie Peraud‘s series of rings she did this year absolutely fascinate me. Each element looks very organic and natural but collectively these little scenes appear a bit alien. This adds to their intrigue. The coloring of these little pieces that make up the beautifully strange miniature landscapes look to be primarily ink stained as are the bands which gain their primary texture from the application of ink.
I can’t tell you how hard it was to choose which ring to share today so do jump over to her blog or Flickr photostream to see more of these unique pieces. Sylvie turns to alcohol inks quite a bit as you’ll see if you look through her webpages there and even has classes on Craft Art Edu to teach you some of her techniques with the inks including a fine crackle technique and stained glass approach.
Read More