Not Quite White
September 26, 2016 Inspirational Art
If you’ve had a chance to read through your latest Fall issue of The Polymer Arts, you may have enjoyed the Color Spotlight article on Sonya Girodon whose work also graces the cover. In the article, our writer, Lindly Haunani, brought up an interesting point about working with white. She noted that Sonya’s work is rarely pure white but is rather just a touch off from white, being mildly cool or warm in color. To illustrate this, she included an image created with pastels over a variety of lightly colored washed paper, showing how pastel colors shift depending on what off-white paper they are placed on. It brings home the idea that moving beyond pure white can add richness and change the look or mood of the colors around it and the work itself simply by choosing to go a little cool or a little warm with the white.
Here is an example of going warm. Warm means the color exists on or leans into the warm color side of the spectrum. Warm colors include red, orange and yellow (think of the colors of fire and the sun) which in an off-white include things like ecru, beige, pale pink and other whites heading towards browns. This is the palette that Australia’s Kelly Chapman chose for this particular tasseled pendant of hers. The near whites give way to a couple of variations of beige in the polymer and eventually a series of browns in the tassels. The warm whites all blend together to give the pendant a rich but serene cohesiveness.
Kelly tends to work in quieter palettes although the occasional brilliant lime green or cobalt blue shows itself but never in a loud way. I can almost imagine that she starts with the idea of white and lets the colors grow from that. I think you’ll see what I mean if you spend some time with her work in her Etsy shop.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Start with two small balls of pure white and add just a small amount of a warm color to one and a cool color (blue, green, violet, etc) to the other. Now sheet or roll snakes from each and make them the background or frame for a finished cabochon, cane, or other element you have on hand. Can you see how the slight variation changes the way the colored element works? Now try using an off-white next time you want white in a piece to see how it supports or enriches your design.
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
_________________________________________
Serenity and Simplicity … the new Fall Cover!
July 25, 2016 Inspirational Art, The Polymer Arts magazine news
I’ve had this waiting for its final tweaks for nearly a week but, like half the Eurosynergy convention goers, I have been trying to rise up from the flu that knocked so many of us out. But I am now down to maybe 4 naps a day instead of 12 and got this done over the weekend. The flu and the loss of one of my main staff has got me behind so its nose to the grindstone for me now!
Don’t you just love the simple beauty of this neck-piece by Sonya Girodon? She is the featured artist interviewed by polymer pioneer Lindly Haunani for the Color Spotlight section of the Fall issue of The Polymer Arts. As you might know, Maggie Maggio has been the interviewer and conductor of that section of The Polymer Arts for nearly three years but now that her focus is shifting to expanding color education in grade schools, she has passed the torch onto the gracious Lindly. Lindly has taken it up with much gusto and has for you an absolutely entrancing article, highlighting Sonya’s color choices and philosophy.
Of course that is but one reason to be sure you have your copy of the next issue when it comes out at the end of August. Dan Cormier has written an absolute treasure of an article highlighting all the ways you can use scrap for easier, distortion free canes, mokume and other sliced veneer techniques along with other priceless tips and tricks from this master. Tory Hughes will help you access your creativity, Anke Humpert will show you how to make a variety of mandalas for a truly zen art experience, Julie Cleveland has all the basics on bangles for you, and I will reveal the secrets to creating great simplicity in design with exercises included to hone your skills. There is much more but we’ll chat about that later. Enjoy the sneak peek of the cover!
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Challenge your use of color. Find an artist whose work you admire but whose color palette is quite different from what you usually use. Borrow one of their color palettes and integrate it into a piece with your more commonly used techniques and forms. How does the color change the way your work appears? Does working with different colors cause you to create differently as well?
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
_________________________________________
A Bit of a Faux Mix
September 21, 2015 Inspirational Art
I’ve had mixed media on my mind a lot lately, so my more recent perusals online and within my collection of links have included quite a bit of polymer work integrating other mediums. Using other mediums with polymer or integrating polymer into work primarily of other mediums rather helps the work transcend its narrow category based on the material used, and it helps us as artists stretch our skill and creativity.
If you haven’t done a lot of exploring in mixed media but would like to ‘dip a toe it’, one of the easiest ways is to create connections and jewelry hanging elements with wire, metal or fiber. I have been admiring Sonya Girodon’s interesting polymer and metal pieces the last several months as she has rolled out her new work. This is really only metal and polymer. That wood you see is faux, and some gorgeously done faux wood at that! She uses ball headed rivets to hold it together (see our article in the Summer 2015 issue on how to created riveted polymer jewelry pieces), and then repeats that subtle accent with ball ended wire that comes bounding out of the polymer constructions. The ball motif is echoed in the repeated circles in the textured polymer. It’s quite a beautiful mix of materials, or what looks like a mix of several materials with a joyous little bounce from all the repeated round accents.
The metal work done here is not so very difficult and would require just a few tools you likely already have. Books on simple metal construction jewelry, mixed media and local classes on metalsmithing jewelry can get you a start down that road if you find yourself intrigued.
You can see more of Sonya’s fabulous faux wood and mixed media pieces on her Flickr photostream.
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
Do it Again
December 13, 2014 Inspirational Art, Ponderings
The one article in the Winter 2014 issue of The Polymer Arts that seemed to greatly affect both the readers and the participants in the creation of its writing was the piece by Anke Humpert, “1,700 Pieces of Jewellery“. If you haven’t read it, you really need to. Anke developed a game based on limitation and a challenging process rather than a single challenge concept, and she invited several dozen artists to participate in her first run of it. That alone is a reason to read this; perhaps, in order to get ideas about developing more in-depth challenges for yourself or for your guild.
The thing that struck me, and I’ve had numerous comments back from readers on this and it obviously struck the artists that participated, was the step that required the participants to re-do the piece they made for the challenge. Yes … after the participating artists completed their piece, Anke asked that each of them make their piece again with changes and adjustments that came about from an evaluation of the initial piece. There was something about being given that bit of instruction, or, as I’ve been thinking of it, permission to start over and try again, that was a key illuminating moment for most of the artists. I know for myself, I plan on doing that exact thing when I get into the studio here shortly, maybe even making the same piece 3 or 4 times to see what I come up with. Many of us make just one piece, and then after that attempt move on, especially when it doesn’t work; when really, we could learn so much from trying to create a better version; to evaluate our work with a purpose; to see if we can create the improvements considered in that critique.
The image here is Sonya Girodon’s two pieces and her evaluation notes. There are more comparisons, notes and comments in the article that will get you thinking. Would you be up for challenging yourself to re-do a piece in this fashion 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.
Distracted Grays
October 8, 2014 Inspirational Art
Take a look at this pair of earrings by the very talented Sonya Girodon. What are some of your first impressions? What strikes you as most attention grabbing, or what are your eyes drawn to? As you look over the pair, does it even occur to you that there is no color here? Not to say that you don’t know that its all grays with black and white, but rather that the lack of color is completely irrelevant, to the point that it is not at all part of your first impression or the things that came to mind as you looked it over.
You know you have a successful piece when you’re limiting your options and that limitation is hardly noticed, if at all. The thing with these earrings is that the texture and forms, along with strong accent points, grabs your attention so fully you don’t miss seeing color. In fact, I think color would ruin the austerity and drama of the set. Its gray palette allows the other elements to stand front and center without the distraction of color.
This is not the first or last piece Sonya has that deals with a lack of color. Her focus on form and texture allows for a lot of wonderful exploration in this area. You can see her journey with this idea and others on her Flickr photostream.
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.
Polymer in Folded Rainbows
March 31, 2014 Inspirational Art
Folded polymer seems to be a bit of trend lately. From the popularity of Helen Breil’s folded beads and tutorial to Sonya Girodon’s faux folded paper to the folded look pin sent out as a tease for Dan Cormier’s upcoming book, we’re seeing a lot of polymer getting folded these days so this week, we’ll look at what some other artists are doing with the folded approach.
These earrings are by Hanc of the Fler.cz marketplace. First of all, this is some fantastically done gradient color–the smooth and consistent transitions through so many hues take some patience to create. And that white line down the center is a rather genius addition, giving the ruffled folds added complexity and dimension. Overall, it’s a fairly simple centered design but it’s wonderful how the folded polymer gives the piece tactile texture and movement as well as adding to the vibrant feel of the color by the repetition of the folds.
This Czech artist, who goes by the name Hanc, loves gardening and flowers, creating magical worlds full of colorful folder polymer clay. There is a lot more like this to be found in this artist’s fler.cz shop so do pop over and take in more variations on this folded approach as well as other inspired and skillfully completed designs.
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.
Coming into One’s Own in Western Europe
September 9, 2013 Inspirational Art
This week, I thought we’d counter the theme we did on Eastern Europe a number of weeks ago by doing a sampling of Western Europe. To get a sense of this region’s tendencies, we’ll be visiting European artists from this other side of the continent, all of whom I have not yet talked about on the blog.
The Western side of the continent has a dominant edginess and a lot of experimentation with form. There wasn’t nearly so much of the floral and dominance of bright color that we saw in Eastern Europe; instead, rather subdued or limited color combinations and stylized organic or graphic forms and textures were more common in the work I sampled. I couldn’t begin to answer why this might be, but I find it interesting that although we are a very global community, certain characteristics can be found dominant in given regions.
So this week we’ll start in France with artist Sonya Girodon, a relative newcomer to polymer but an absolute natural with it. In her prior work, you could see the strong influence of other polymer artists; but the work posted most recently is really quite unique. She does credit Christine Dumont’s “Ways to Wow” course conducted on Voila for her breakthrough and Donna Greenberg’s work as her design inspiration, but the end result is all Sonya’s own.
I so love what she says in her profile text on Flickr that I decided to quote it whole here:
“My new Hobby started in November 2011 with a set of Fimo bought for my daughter. I quickly realized that polymer clay is the medium I’ve always dreamt of. What a feeling when the brain shuts down and inspiration overflows into the fingers, hours fly by in seconds, and wonder is created out of nothing.”
Very poetic. And so very, very familiar: a sense of letting go, of letting the process of creation guide the work. That state is what I always think of as the goal when getting into the studio. Not so much the making of a particular thing, but getting to that point where you are working in a flow state and the clay translates who you are and what you want to say as you work. For me, the works that comes out of those kinds of sessions are the most satisfying and true to who I am.
If you are interested on reading more about getting into that very creative state of mind, we touch on that in the Flow article in last year’s Fall 2012 issue of The Polymer Arts magazine. I also recommend a book called Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. But in the meantime, do explore more of Sonya’s work on her Flickr pages. She’s only been at this a couple years, but she has had amazing growth in her work during that time. I find it fascinating to see the progress of someone’s growing artistry and you can definitely see Sonya’s here, going from her older photos to the above piece, her latest work. It looks like she has really come into her own this past summer. She is definitely someone to watch.
If you’ve had a chance to read through your latest Fall issue of The Polymer Arts, you may have enjoyed the Color Spotlight article on Sonya Girodon whose work also graces the cover. In the article, our writer, Lindly Haunani, brought up an interesting point about working with white. She noted that Sonya’s work is rarely pure white but is rather just a touch off from white, being mildly cool or warm in color. To illustrate this, she included an image created with pastels over a variety of lightly colored washed paper, showing how pastel colors shift depending on what off-white paper they are placed on. It brings home the idea that moving beyond pure white can add richness and change the look or mood of the colors around it and the work itself simply by choosing to go a little cool or a little warm with the white.
Here is an example of going warm. Warm means the color exists on or leans into the warm color side of the spectrum. Warm colors include red, orange and yellow (think of the colors of fire and the sun) which in an off-white include things like ecru, beige, pale pink and other whites heading towards browns. This is the palette that Australia’s Kelly Chapman chose for this particular tasseled pendant of hers. The near whites give way to a couple of variations of beige in the polymer and eventually a series of browns in the tassels. The warm whites all blend together to give the pendant a rich but serene cohesiveness.
Kelly tends to work in quieter palettes although the occasional brilliant lime green or cobalt blue shows itself but never in a loud way. I can almost imagine that she starts with the idea of white and lets the colors grow from that. I think you’ll see what I mean if you spend some time with her work in her Etsy shop.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Start with two small balls of pure white and add just a small amount of a warm color to one and a cool color (blue, green, violet, etc) to the other. Now sheet or roll snakes from each and make them the background or frame for a finished cabochon, cane, or other element you have on hand. Can you see how the slight variation changes the way the colored element works? Now try using an off-white next time you want white in a piece to see how it supports or enriches your design.
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
_________________________________________
Read MoreI’ve had this waiting for its final tweaks for nearly a week but, like half the Eurosynergy convention goers, I have been trying to rise up from the flu that knocked so many of us out. But I am now down to maybe 4 naps a day instead of 12 and got this done over the weekend. The flu and the loss of one of my main staff has got me behind so its nose to the grindstone for me now!
Don’t you just love the simple beauty of this neck-piece by Sonya Girodon? She is the featured artist interviewed by polymer pioneer Lindly Haunani for the Color Spotlight section of the Fall issue of The Polymer Arts. As you might know, Maggie Maggio has been the interviewer and conductor of that section of The Polymer Arts for nearly three years but now that her focus is shifting to expanding color education in grade schools, she has passed the torch onto the gracious Lindly. Lindly has taken it up with much gusto and has for you an absolutely entrancing article, highlighting Sonya’s color choices and philosophy.
Of course that is but one reason to be sure you have your copy of the next issue when it comes out at the end of August. Dan Cormier has written an absolute treasure of an article highlighting all the ways you can use scrap for easier, distortion free canes, mokume and other sliced veneer techniques along with other priceless tips and tricks from this master. Tory Hughes will help you access your creativity, Anke Humpert will show you how to make a variety of mandalas for a truly zen art experience, Julie Cleveland has all the basics on bangles for you, and I will reveal the secrets to creating great simplicity in design with exercises included to hone your skills. There is much more but we’ll chat about that later. Enjoy the sneak peek of the cover!
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Challenge your use of color. Find an artist whose work you admire but whose color palette is quite different from what you usually use. Borrow one of their color palettes and integrate it into a piece with your more commonly used techniques and forms. How does the color change the way your work appears? Does working with different colors cause you to create differently as well?
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
_________________________________________
Read MoreI’ve had mixed media on my mind a lot lately, so my more recent perusals online and within my collection of links have included quite a bit of polymer work integrating other mediums. Using other mediums with polymer or integrating polymer into work primarily of other mediums rather helps the work transcend its narrow category based on the material used, and it helps us as artists stretch our skill and creativity.
If you haven’t done a lot of exploring in mixed media but would like to ‘dip a toe it’, one of the easiest ways is to create connections and jewelry hanging elements with wire, metal or fiber. I have been admiring Sonya Girodon’s interesting polymer and metal pieces the last several months as she has rolled out her new work. This is really only metal and polymer. That wood you see is faux, and some gorgeously done faux wood at that! She uses ball headed rivets to hold it together (see our article in the Summer 2015 issue on how to created riveted polymer jewelry pieces), and then repeats that subtle accent with ball ended wire that comes bounding out of the polymer constructions. The ball motif is echoed in the repeated circles in the textured polymer. It’s quite a beautiful mix of materials, or what looks like a mix of several materials with a joyous little bounce from all the repeated round accents.
The metal work done here is not so very difficult and would require just a few tools you likely already have. Books on simple metal construction jewelry, mixed media and local classes on metalsmithing jewelry can get you a start down that road if you find yourself intrigued.
You can see more of Sonya’s fabulous faux wood and mixed media pieces on her Flickr photostream.
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
Read More
The one article in the Winter 2014 issue of The Polymer Arts that seemed to greatly affect both the readers and the participants in the creation of its writing was the piece by Anke Humpert, “1,700 Pieces of Jewellery“. If you haven’t read it, you really need to. Anke developed a game based on limitation and a challenging process rather than a single challenge concept, and she invited several dozen artists to participate in her first run of it. That alone is a reason to read this; perhaps, in order to get ideas about developing more in-depth challenges for yourself or for your guild.
The thing that struck me, and I’ve had numerous comments back from readers on this and it obviously struck the artists that participated, was the step that required the participants to re-do the piece they made for the challenge. Yes … after the participating artists completed their piece, Anke asked that each of them make their piece again with changes and adjustments that came about from an evaluation of the initial piece. There was something about being given that bit of instruction, or, as I’ve been thinking of it, permission to start over and try again, that was a key illuminating moment for most of the artists. I know for myself, I plan on doing that exact thing when I get into the studio here shortly, maybe even making the same piece 3 or 4 times to see what I come up with. Many of us make just one piece, and then after that attempt move on, especially when it doesn’t work; when really, we could learn so much from trying to create a better version; to evaluate our work with a purpose; to see if we can create the improvements considered in that critique.
The image here is Sonya Girodon’s two pieces and her evaluation notes. There are more comparisons, notes and comments in the article that will get you thinking. Would you be up for challenging yourself to re-do a piece in this fashion 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.
Read MoreTake a look at this pair of earrings by the very talented Sonya Girodon. What are some of your first impressions? What strikes you as most attention grabbing, or what are your eyes drawn to? As you look over the pair, does it even occur to you that there is no color here? Not to say that you don’t know that its all grays with black and white, but rather that the lack of color is completely irrelevant, to the point that it is not at all part of your first impression or the things that came to mind as you looked it over.
You know you have a successful piece when you’re limiting your options and that limitation is hardly noticed, if at all. The thing with these earrings is that the texture and forms, along with strong accent points, grabs your attention so fully you don’t miss seeing color. In fact, I think color would ruin the austerity and drama of the set. Its gray palette allows the other elements to stand front and center without the distraction of color.
This is not the first or last piece Sonya has that deals with a lack of color. Her focus on form and texture allows for a lot of wonderful exploration in this area. You can see her journey with this idea and others on her Flickr photostream.
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 MoreFolded polymer seems to be a bit of trend lately. From the popularity of Helen Breil’s folded beads and tutorial to Sonya Girodon’s faux folded paper to the folded look pin sent out as a tease for Dan Cormier’s upcoming book, we’re seeing a lot of polymer getting folded these days so this week, we’ll look at what some other artists are doing with the folded approach.
These earrings are by Hanc of the Fler.cz marketplace. First of all, this is some fantastically done gradient color–the smooth and consistent transitions through so many hues take some patience to create. And that white line down the center is a rather genius addition, giving the ruffled folds added complexity and dimension. Overall, it’s a fairly simple centered design but it’s wonderful how the folded polymer gives the piece tactile texture and movement as well as adding to the vibrant feel of the color by the repetition of the folds.
This Czech artist, who goes by the name Hanc, loves gardening and flowers, creating magical worlds full of colorful folder polymer clay. There is a lot more like this to be found in this artist’s fler.cz shop so do pop over and take in more variations on this folded approach as well as other inspired and skillfully completed designs.
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 MoreThis week, I thought we’d counter the theme we did on Eastern Europe a number of weeks ago by doing a sampling of Western Europe. To get a sense of this region’s tendencies, we’ll be visiting European artists from this other side of the continent, all of whom I have not yet talked about on the blog.
The Western side of the continent has a dominant edginess and a lot of experimentation with form. There wasn’t nearly so much of the floral and dominance of bright color that we saw in Eastern Europe; instead, rather subdued or limited color combinations and stylized organic or graphic forms and textures were more common in the work I sampled. I couldn’t begin to answer why this might be, but I find it interesting that although we are a very global community, certain characteristics can be found dominant in given regions.
So this week we’ll start in France with artist Sonya Girodon, a relative newcomer to polymer but an absolute natural with it. In her prior work, you could see the strong influence of other polymer artists; but the work posted most recently is really quite unique. She does credit Christine Dumont’s “Ways to Wow” course conducted on Voila for her breakthrough and Donna Greenberg’s work as her design inspiration, but the end result is all Sonya’s own.
I so love what she says in her profile text on Flickr that I decided to quote it whole here:
“My new Hobby started in November 2011 with a set of Fimo bought for my daughter. I quickly realized that polymer clay is the medium I’ve always dreamt of. What a feeling when the brain shuts down and inspiration overflows into the fingers, hours fly by in seconds, and wonder is created out of nothing.”
Very poetic. And so very, very familiar: a sense of letting go, of letting the process of creation guide the work. That state is what I always think of as the goal when getting into the studio. Not so much the making of a particular thing, but getting to that point where you are working in a flow state and the clay translates who you are and what you want to say as you work. For me, the works that comes out of those kinds of sessions are the most satisfying and true to who I am.
If you are interested on reading more about getting into that very creative state of mind, we touch on that in the Flow article in last year’s Fall 2012 issue of The Polymer Arts magazine. I also recommend a book called Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. But in the meantime, do explore more of Sonya’s work on her Flickr pages. She’s only been at this a couple years, but she has had amazing growth in her work during that time. I find it fascinating to see the progress of someone’s growing artistry and you can definitely see Sonya’s here, going from her older photos to the above piece, her latest work. It looks like she has really come into her own this past summer. She is definitely someone to watch.
Read More