Subdued Passion
February 10, 2016
Inspirational Art
I know it will be hard to top Monday’s piece. The energy in that sculpture was unreal. But intensity of that kind is not the only thing that visually defines passion. How about that low but long burning fire many of us have? It may be a passion for art or for our family or friends. It might be how we feel getting out in nature or the desire for adventure. It is not crazy but it is always there and that kind of passion, that persistent, ever present emotion, is sustaining and keeps us focused on the things that are good in our lives and good for ourselves.
So, to represent that slow burning passion, I picked this mellow yet fiery caned earring and pendant set. There is not the chaos of movement we saw Monday but you can still feel the energy. The Czech Republic’s Kejka creates the energy through both the purely warm color palette and the tapered but parallel and highly directional lines. The gradation from dark on the outside to light in the middle on the pendant also gives it a glow.
Kejka made a series of these flame-like canes in various colors. Take a look at the purple and blue one as well on her Facebook page.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Create or sketch in a completely warm color palette. That means from reds to oranges to yellows. Try either creating a subdued feel with your design for these highly energetic colors or see how insanely energetic you can make it.
___________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
___________________________________________
Making Your Own Fire
January 10, 2015
Inspirational Art
Especially for those of you who are still dealing with those extremely low temperatures and tons of snow, how about ending this week of warm creations with a warm creation of your own? I looked around at canes of flames and found this lovely version. This tutorial is by Russia’s Viktoria, who goes by Nika on Livemaster.
The translator says she calls it barbed wire, which could have been her intention, but you only see that effect when the cane is set back to back, as in the bracelet and necklace set below. Then it kind of resembles Melanie West’s cephalopod eye canes, which might have been her inspiration, but definitely with more of an edgy flame construction.
It’s not a difficult cane. However, when it’s used in consciously chosen compositions, it makes for some complex textures and patterning, as you see in her application here. And changing up the color combinations, as you’ll see at the end of her tutorial, creates some pretty cool results as well.
So go have fun and stay warm!
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
Outside Inspiration: A Clay-Fire Connection
January 9, 2015
Inspirational Art
Raku pottery is so fascinating. There are a myriad of variations and techniques, so much so that it’s rather hard to define. The only real commonalities between them all seem to be the low-firing temperature and pulling the pottery out of the kiln while still red hot. The Western method includes introducing red hot clay to a combustible material to halt the chemical reaction in glazes and introducing the black smoke that works its way into the cracked glaze, creating those characteristic black crazing patterns. But it has been the intense color that can be achieved with raku that has drawn it into such favor in recent decades.
I had a chance to build a few of my own raku pots back in art school and found myself drawn not only to the color and crazing but to the direct relationship the pottery had with fire and earth. We would bury our hot pots in a sawdust-filled hole in the ground, watch it smolder and then cover the hole with a heavy metal lid to let the pottery sit and take it in. There was this primal, raw feeling that the earth itself was assisting in creating this art. It was so unusual, to be outside, letting the fire, smoke and earth create the texture and design of my pieces, and I can’t say I’ve had quite that kind of experience since then.
I think it is that uncontrollable outcome in the surface design of raku that also draws people to this kind of work. That happenstance texture is dominant in the work of ceramicist Chris Hawkins. Yes, he works up some really brilliant colors, but it is his collaboration with the fire elements, allowing the heat, flame and smoke to choose the patterning, that makes it so breathtakingly beautiful.
You can find a gallery of Chris’s work on his website and a bit of insight into how and why he creates these pieces on his blog.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
Out of the Fire
January 7, 2015
Inspirational Art
We’re going to head to the orange and yellow side of the warm spectrum today, with a beautiful sculpture by Canadian artist Ellen Jewett. The warmth in this piece feels more like the warmth of sunlight with the white and yellows and coppery oranges. We see that sense of glow here as well, from the gradation of the colors, although most of the color change seems to be between the laid out elements and not in the clay. Mica clays also help to radiate a sense of bright light. This is to show that the visual illusion doesn’t come just from the soft change in color, as in a Skinner blend, but in the way we visualize the play of light. Light changes quality as it hits different surfaces, which, in this case, are the feathers of this dragon-like phoenix. The variety of the surface gives it a liveliness not unlike a dancing fire.
Ellen creates all kinds of very fantastical creatures with very dynamic forms and proportions. I suspect either her educational pursuits in biological anthropology and anthrozoology contribute to these amazing pieces or the same artistic drive to create pushed her to pursue her unusual combination of studies. It is quite worth taking a break to spend some time in her Etsy shop and her website.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
Hot Juxtaposition
January 6, 2015
Inspirational Art
There is nothing like a rich, brilliant red to heat things up. The reds in this necklace by Cecilia Botton really pop. The red gradient in the disk and under the peek-a-boo cut-out of the focal bead give those pieces a visual glow, but I think it’s the black that pushes the feel of warmth and the idea of fire. The matte blacks are not unlike charcoal or lava rock; so, when they’re juxtaposed with the glow of red, what else would come to mind but something heated and fiery.
Experimenting with color, gradients and the juxtaposition of elements are a primary focus in Cecilia’s works. Her pieces are rarely, if ever, static or meek. Have fun looking through her varied pieces on her Flickr photostream with a hot cup of something tasty beside you. We’re enjoying a rare and sudden warm-up here for the day, but I’m going to keep with the hot theme for the week because I know this won’t last long and much of the rest of the US sure looks like it could use some heating up. Stay warm and safe out there.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
Let There Be Fire
January 5, 2015
Inspirational Art
It is cold here in Colorado. I’m having a hard time keeping warm in my basement rooms where I spend so much of my time. So this week, I just want to talk fire. The amazing colors and gradients we can make with polymer makes an illusion of fire and heat fairly easy to create, but there are a number of ways to do this. So while many of us deal with cold and snowy weather, let’s think heat.
Here we have Elsie Smith showing us a bit of fire and shimmer with foil, alcohol ink and liquid clay. The foil and inks are one of my personal favorite go-to combinations because the foil reflects light and makes reds and oranges appear to glow like firelight or burning embers. Elsie’s addition of liquid clay as a sealant works to magnify the effect by bouncing light around beneath its surface. The wave of lines, of course, doesn’t hurt to bring the idea of fire to the forefront. Elsie writes that the top of this is more pink than red, so in person this probably does seem more like a Fiery Sunset, for which it is named, but I’m happy just enjoying the warmth of the colors.
Elsie has many more fiery, graduated and interestingly textured pieces in her more recent work as you can see on her Flickr pages. Be sure to take a look at her curiously painted cabochons with their lava-like texture for more warming inspiration.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
Floral as a Geometric Motif
December 17, 2013
Inspirational Art
Here is another approach that uses what is commonly thought of as classic organic imagery but creates a graphic style using repetition.
From a distance, the repeated pattern on this necklace looks like dots, but when you look closely, you will see flowers. Lucy Struncova uses the floral cane slices to add a stylized but soft organic side to a modern, graphic look that is further enhanced by the rounded, smooth edges of the triangular forms.
As you might have noticed on the photo, this is available as a tutorial … for free even! Just go to Lucy’s blog to see this and several other tutorials you might find of interest. (Drop the URL into Google translate to get the Polish translated for you.)
Lucy’s is an amazing young artist–just a teenager!–but she is working on books and polymer products as well as her tutorials and artful pieces. Be sure to check out her work on Flickr and Pinterest 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.
I know it will be hard to top Monday’s piece. The energy in that sculpture was unreal. But intensity of that kind is not the only thing that visually defines passion. How about that low but long burning fire many of us have? It may be a passion for art or for our family or friends. It might be how we feel getting out in nature or the desire for adventure. It is not crazy but it is always there and that kind of passion, that persistent, ever present emotion, is sustaining and keeps us focused on the things that are good in our lives and good for ourselves.
So, to represent that slow burning passion, I picked this mellow yet fiery caned earring and pendant set. There is not the chaos of movement we saw Monday but you can still feel the energy. The Czech Republic’s Kejka creates the energy through both the purely warm color palette and the tapered but parallel and highly directional lines. The gradation from dark on the outside to light in the middle on the pendant also gives it a glow.
Kejka made a series of these flame-like canes in various colors. Take a look at the purple and blue one as well on her Facebook page.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Create or sketch in a completely warm color palette. That means from reds to oranges to yellows. Try either creating a subdued feel with your design for these highly energetic colors or see how insanely energetic you can make it.
___________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
___________________________________________
Read More
Especially for those of you who are still dealing with those extremely low temperatures and tons of snow, how about ending this week of warm creations with a warm creation of your own? I looked around at canes of flames and found this lovely version. This tutorial is by Russia’s Viktoria, who goes by Nika on Livemaster.
The translator says she calls it barbed wire, which could have been her intention, but you only see that effect when the cane is set back to back, as in the bracelet and necklace set below. Then it kind of resembles Melanie West’s cephalopod eye canes, which might have been her inspiration, but definitely with more of an edgy flame construction.
It’s not a difficult cane. However, when it’s used in consciously chosen compositions, it makes for some complex textures and patterning, as you see in her application here. And changing up the color combinations, as you’ll see at the end of her tutorial, creates some pretty cool results as well.
So go have fun and stay warm!
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
Raku pottery is so fascinating. There are a myriad of variations and techniques, so much so that it’s rather hard to define. The only real commonalities between them all seem to be the low-firing temperature and pulling the pottery out of the kiln while still red hot. The Western method includes introducing red hot clay to a combustible material to halt the chemical reaction in glazes and introducing the black smoke that works its way into the cracked glaze, creating those characteristic black crazing patterns. But it has been the intense color that can be achieved with raku that has drawn it into such favor in recent decades.
I had a chance to build a few of my own raku pots back in art school and found myself drawn not only to the color and crazing but to the direct relationship the pottery had with fire and earth. We would bury our hot pots in a sawdust-filled hole in the ground, watch it smolder and then cover the hole with a heavy metal lid to let the pottery sit and take it in. There was this primal, raw feeling that the earth itself was assisting in creating this art. It was so unusual, to be outside, letting the fire, smoke and earth create the texture and design of my pieces, and I can’t say I’ve had quite that kind of experience since then.
I think it is that uncontrollable outcome in the surface design of raku that also draws people to this kind of work. That happenstance texture is dominant in the work of ceramicist Chris Hawkins. Yes, he works up some really brilliant colors, but it is his collaboration with the fire elements, allowing the heat, flame and smoke to choose the patterning, that makes it so breathtakingly beautiful.
You can find a gallery of Chris’s work on his website and a bit of insight into how and why he creates these pieces on his blog.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
We’re going to head to the orange and yellow side of the warm spectrum today, with a beautiful sculpture by Canadian artist Ellen Jewett. The warmth in this piece feels more like the warmth of sunlight with the white and yellows and coppery oranges. We see that sense of glow here as well, from the gradation of the colors, although most of the color change seems to be between the laid out elements and not in the clay. Mica clays also help to radiate a sense of bright light. This is to show that the visual illusion doesn’t come just from the soft change in color, as in a Skinner blend, but in the way we visualize the play of light. Light changes quality as it hits different surfaces, which, in this case, are the feathers of this dragon-like phoenix. The variety of the surface gives it a liveliness not unlike a dancing fire.
Ellen creates all kinds of very fantastical creatures with very dynamic forms and proportions. I suspect either her educational pursuits in biological anthropology and anthrozoology contribute to these amazing pieces or the same artistic drive to create pushed her to pursue her unusual combination of studies. It is quite worth taking a break to spend some time in her Etsy shop and her website.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
There is nothing like a rich, brilliant red to heat things up. The reds in this necklace by Cecilia Botton really pop. The red gradient in the disk and under the peek-a-boo cut-out of the focal bead give those pieces a visual glow, but I think it’s the black that pushes the feel of warmth and the idea of fire. The matte blacks are not unlike charcoal or lava rock; so, when they’re juxtaposed with the glow of red, what else would come to mind but something heated and fiery.
Experimenting with color, gradients and the juxtaposition of elements are a primary focus in Cecilia’s works. Her pieces are rarely, if ever, static or meek. Have fun looking through her varied pieces on her Flickr photostream with a hot cup of something tasty beside you. We’re enjoying a rare and sudden warm-up here for the day, but I’m going to keep with the hot theme for the week because I know this won’t last long and much of the rest of the US sure looks like it could use some heating up. Stay warm and safe out there.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
It is cold here in Colorado. I’m having a hard time keeping warm in my basement rooms where I spend so much of my time. So this week, I just want to talk fire. The amazing colors and gradients we can make with polymer makes an illusion of fire and heat fairly easy to create, but there are a number of ways to do this. So while many of us deal with cold and snowy weather, let’s think heat.
Here we have Elsie Smith showing us a bit of fire and shimmer with foil, alcohol ink and liquid clay. The foil and inks are one of my personal favorite go-to combinations because the foil reflects light and makes reds and oranges appear to glow like firelight or burning embers. Elsie’s addition of liquid clay as a sealant works to magnify the effect by bouncing light around beneath its surface. The wave of lines, of course, doesn’t hurt to bring the idea of fire to the forefront. Elsie writes that the top of this is more pink than red, so in person this probably does seem more like a Fiery Sunset, for which it is named, but I’m happy just enjoying the warmth of the colors.
Elsie has many more fiery, graduated and interestingly textured pieces in her more recent work as you can see on her Flickr pages. Be sure to take a look at her curiously painted cabochons with their lava-like texture for more warming inspiration.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
Here is another approach that uses what is commonly thought of as classic organic imagery but creates a graphic style using repetition.
From a distance, the repeated pattern on this necklace looks like dots, but when you look closely, you will see flowers. Lucy Struncova uses the floral cane slices to add a stylized but soft organic side to a modern, graphic look that is further enhanced by the rounded, smooth edges of the triangular forms.
As you might have noticed on the photo, this is available as a tutorial … for free even! Just go to Lucy’s blog to see this and several other tutorials you might find of interest. (Drop the URL into Google translate to get the Polish translated for you.)
Lucy’s is an amazing young artist–just a teenager!–but she is working on books and polymer products as well as her tutorials and artful pieces. Be sure to check out her work on Flickr and Pinterest 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.
