Dramatic Blends
June 3, 2017 Inspirational Art
One of my personal favorite articles in the new Summer issue is the “Blended Beauty” article on creating dramatic color and light in canes, written by Meg Newberg. I have been trying to get a really good article for our caning enthusiasts but for some reason, it’s been a struggle getting anything submitted beyond specific cane patterns. Which are cool, yes, but not quite in line with the technique driven and skill building objective of The Polymer Arts.
This article, however, is amazing. Meg gives concise and clear instruction on how to create the type of clay blends that give her canes that beautiful inner glow and dramatic color. But these ingenious Skinner type blends are for more than just caners, as you’ll see when you read it.
Meg’s focus on canes has allowed her deep and intense exploration into what can be done with canes. If you want to work on your caning skills or just want to create more interesting and colorful Skinner blends, read the article but also consider signing up for Meg’s monthly tutorial subscription (the mandala cane you see on the bottom here is this month’s tutorial) or buy one of her tutorials posted in her Etsy shop.
Weekly Inspiration Challenge: Let’s recharge this weekend! Sit back with a favorite beverage and take in your latest copy of The Polymer Arts or another magazine or book and let you mind process the art and ideas you find. Keep a sketchbook nearby to record any “ah-ha!” moments and if you feel charged up when done, go to the studio and have some casual play time, exploring what inspired you.
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Loveless Animals
May 11, 2017 Inspirational Art
Let us allow Jon Stuart Anderson’s cover piece dictate the theme this week … animals full of color and pattern. Although, unlike Jon’s bull on the cover of the upcoming Summer 2017 issue (due out end of May) is a three-dimensional sculpture, this piece is a wall mosaic by Mary Anne Loveless who just so happens to be gracing our pages as well in the gallery section of that same issue.
Even though this is a two-dimensional approach to using canes to create the shape and flow of an animal’s likeness, the mind-set is probably not dissimilar when the artists sit down to work out where the canes will go. What canes and where would they best serve the image of this animal they want to convey? Mary Anne is using mosaic and pointillism to create the form of the seahorse here while Jon uses a three-dimensional form. Does seem pretty different from that aspect but the patterns are what form the details of these animals in both cases.
I really enjoy picking out the individual canes in both cases. I am enthralled by Mary Anne’s choice of color juxtaposition in this. The aqua next to the reds and the beige and peach being the color the blues fade off to like in the chest area. It’s just beautiful.
Mary Anne really likes seahorses, as you will find upon opening her Flickr page which as of this post, is pretty much all seahorses. But she also likes fish and flowers and faeries! But mostly she loves, and is very good at, pattern and color which you can see in full evidence on her Flickr pages and her Etsy shop.
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Canes Gone Wild
October 10, 2016 Inspirational Art
While researching the translucent canes last week, I came across a lot of amazing cane pieces. Some were delicately beautiful, some extraordinarily skilled and some were just wild. This vase is a case in point.
To be honest, I am not sure what Olga Perova did to this but it completely sucked me in because the details are tremendous. I believe the work is a combination of extruder caning and extruder mokume with micro beads and maybe some post cure carving going on. Not absolutely sure but what a lot of work this must have been. A part of me wants to see the form itself more controlled–straighter upper edges and cleaner openings in the body–but then I am not sure that the feeling of complete abandon would be quite as strong and that could diminish it overall. Maybe my eyes and mind just need a place to rest that is simple and ordinary while looking at this. Of course, bedlam and a riot of color and texture may very well be Olga’s intention. In which case, she certainly did that.
To really appreciate the detail and intensity of this piece, you need to pop over to Olga’s Flickr photostream and see all the shots. Then look through the rest of what she has. You’ll see that most of her work is very well controlled but she doesn’t shy away from being experimental either.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Create chaos. Work completely intuitively for at least 15 minutes. Let chaos rules the work that comes from your hands. If you are itching to put order to your chaos after 15 minutes, do so. Otherwise keep at it and see what comes of pure intuition.
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Never Boxed In
September 23, 2016 Inspirational Art
Here is another artist that is pushing the boundaries of his usual forms. Not that Jon Stuart Anderson has ever keep strictly within a certain form although he is widely known for his intricately patterned animals. He has also put his cane work to guitars, shoes, vessels and sculptures but all have had some reflection of his flowing forms and repeated patterns.
These box lamps seems like a huge departure for Jon but one that definitely suits his love of pattern. They are copper boxes just shy of 7″ (18cm) square, with translucent patterned ‘lenses’ as he call them. One would assume the lenses are canes but I suspect there is a bit more going on. It’s just really hard to tell. Maybe a layering of canes or something related to some transferring techniques he had been working on. Not that it matters too much. They are just lovely.
But back to the main point … they are some rather simplified patterns for Jon–a matter of relativity being that they aren’t simple in and of themselves. The difference is that these forms have no lines of repeated canes working their way expertly around the form to create another pattern from their arrangement. Instead, one beautifully patterned convex circle shows off Jon’s sense of balance in both symmetry and color. Some have different patterns on the lenses of a box while other’s are the same on every side. You can sense the exploration as you examine one box after the other. See what I mean by looking through his first images of this series on his July 8th postings on Facebook.
Jon has never stopped exploring and pushing what he does, making exploration the one strong thread of consistency in his work. If you enjoy his creative meanderings, the best place to keep up with his adventures is on his Facebook page although his website is always worth a visit. He also has a great little video of his cane making which is pretty entrancing.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Break out of your usual form. But instead of just trying a form you don’t usually work with, try to expand on forms you already work with. So if you create primarily flat jewelry elements, go more dimensional with half lentil forms or free form the shapes in waves. If you create round beads much of the time, try squares or twisted oblong shapes. If you like making round bowls, what about boat shapes or cones? Where can you push your forms?
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A Stroppel Ocean
July 31, 2015 Uncategorized
I was going to share the new Fall Cover here but have a couple of bits of information we would like to confirm before we do. Creating a magazine is all details, details, details and they are never-ending! We’ll have it on here by Monday but if you’re just too curious, we’ll send it out in our newsletter tomorrow morning. (Don’t get our newsletter yet? Sign up here–it’s the box on the left of the page–for twice monthly news, tips, eye candy and other fun chatter.)
In the meantime, who would have thought that a Stroppel cane, often used in very graphical designs, would be so reminiscent of the ocean? This beautiful collar by Mara Devescovi, which is all Stroppel cane, certainly looks like the undulating water of a crystal clean ocean as you might see it on some tropical beach. Who would have thought that random cane morphing would emulate in the way the movement of the water distorts the world beneath it. It really gets one thinking about a summer escape, I must say!
Mara goes by Dev’Art60 on Flickr where her progress in polymer art over the last decade can be followed and lots of great ideas can be found along the way.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine, as well as by supporting our advertising partners.
Dots and Lines Juxtaposed
July 10, 2015 Inspirational Art
This Friday I’d like to leave you with a little something to try out this weekend. I still have a myriad of examples showing the combination of dots and lines, and we may just pull out a few more for next week, but for now, how about we just have some fun? France’s Marie-Charlotte Chaillon shares this versatile tutorial for juxtaposing dots and lines in a piece of jewelry, although it could easily be transferred to home decor or other decorative art. I like that the ‘dots’ here aren’t your basic option. The cane that will make the stacked dots is rather nice on its own for accents or mosaic work. It looks rather like an interesting twist on the pixellated retro cane. The white seems to be key as the gradation gives it a bit of an inner glow. Any color palette that appeals to you would do, but the graphic nature does show off bright contrasts quite nicely.
Marie-Charlotte is pretty generous with the cane-centric tutorials, so if that is where your creative meanderings are on right now, head over to her blog or her Pinterest board specifically dedicated to her tutorials and have yourself a blast!
A Bit of Wow Caning
May 6, 2015 Inspirational Art
How about we go from intriguing to just ‘wow!’ today? I don’t know what theme this might fall under, but I had to stop and share this regardless of theme.
I was rather floored by the sight of these beauties when they popped up on my Flickr feed yesterday. These brooches were created by Claire Wallis. Not only are they a beautiful likeness of this bird of prey, but the cane has a striking painterly quality to it. Not being a very accomplished caner myself I may be more often amazed than many by what the talented cane clayers do in our community, but even so, I can’t imagine many of you aren’t at least just a tad impressed.
She’s even given us a peek at her work in progress with this work table shot here. I brought that up on my big screen and got lost in the pattern of the chest feathers. There’s just a beautiful flow to it that would be lovely in any medium.
Claire did a wonderful rooster cane last year that was pretty amazing too, but I think this particular image really shows off her approach with amazing results. She’s been creating wonderful bird canes for a while it seems, but these last too, and this one in particular are just, wow! I can’t wait to see what else she does in canes this year.
You can see more of Claire’s canes and other beautiful creations on her Flickr site.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine, as well as by supporting our advertising partners.
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Looking over Elise Winter’s work on Monday got me thinking about pillow shapes. It’s amazing what a little dimension put into a jewelry element can do for a piece.
This pendant and earring set by Laure Steele of France is a simple but multidimensional example of a puffed-up trillion shape that has also been depressed in the center for a bit of ride along the beautifully created canes. If I understand the translations correctly, Laure learned or made these canes in a Carol Simmons master class. It’s amazing what a class can do for your skills and how it can reshape (pun intended!) the direction of your work.
See more by Laure—much which is not polymer as she also seems to enjoy working in metal and glass quite a bit—on her website and on Instagram.
Read MoreHave you seen what crazy, amazing illustrative cane work people have been doing lately? This work has been absolutely amazing the way the canes take on a painterly look beneath the skillful hands of these particular artists.
The Kingfisher bird in this brooch is a cane by Claire Wallis. Mind-blowing isn’t it? She applied it to a painted background but she didn’t just leave it as a cane blended into a background layer. She was very thoughtful about how it would appear and applied a thin layer of translucent clay to give the edges a soft focus.
She also scratched in a pale border along the edges of the beak and some of the feathers to further blend the cane’s edge. This has the added effect of making the bird image sit on a more definite foreground plane as well as separating the abundance of cool colors in the background and bird feathers which would otherwise visually meld, making the edge of the bird’s head a bit nebulous. These little touches have really made the difference between it just being an amazing cane and creating an overall amazing image and brooch.
Claire’s cane work keeps getting better and better, even when you don’t think it could. You can check out her polymer journey on her Facebook page and Flickr site, and see her finished items in her Etsy shop.
Read MoreI had not planned on going off on a cane-focused week but here we are with more canes. I couldn’t resist sharing this fabulous tabletop created by the very exploratory Bridget Derc.
Primarily I wanted to share the process photo. Don’t you love peeking in on people’s studio tables? In the Creative Spaces themed Spring 2012 issue, we peeked into a handful of people’s studios. That was the quickest selling issue we’ve ever had which makes me think we need to do some more of that in the future. For now, we’ll peek in on Bridget, who shows us here how she lays out her beautifully constructed canes to cover tabletops. She also tends to the size of the tables as shown in the last photo that I couldn’t resist adding because it’s just such a beautiful pattern and color palette.
She takes process shots of that white table nearly step-by-step, and not having room enough to show that here, I posted this to entice you to jump over to her Flickr photostream where you can see it all. That table and all the process photos are on her second page of Flickr photos. The one you see the process for here is on her first page. But take some time to peruse it all. Not only are her pieces lovingly finished, but you get to see how she puts it all together. Does it give you any ideas?
If you want to peek in on a few other artists, open up your spring 2012 issue of the Polymer Arts and go to the website to download a digital version at www.ThePolymerArts.com It is only available digitally but if you’re curious, go to our website and you can get an immediate download.
Read MoreThe 100 Day Project challenge is in full swing and it is already trying the resolve of many of us. Maybe, as Cynthia Tinapple said, calling me out on my proposed challenge in her Studio Mojo newsletter this past weekend, I might be a bit ambitious, creating something in polymer and a poem every day to create a composite image for Instagram. But it’s a darn good excuse to make me create every day. Mind you, I’m usually doing it at midnight but that’s the only way I don’t find myself lost for hours at the studio table not getting magazine work done. A lot of people have been coming up with creative ways to make this challenge work for them and keep it manageable at the same time.
Planet Isis, a.k.a. Dayl Goulsbra-Jones, decided to break her challenge up by color. This first week her color was green. The bars of this Day Three collection of textured gradient green and canes are my favorite. The inner glow that this kind of gradient appears to have adds a nice bit of energy to the simple forms, while the calming effects of the green color give contrast to the busy black-and-white canes.
Dayl didn’t pick the green arbitrarily, either. She started this whole challenge by posting her “color generator” which is a bag of cute little colored beads that she dips into to pull out the color for the week. Follow her Instagram account to see her green week and her upcoming projects. You can also find more of her work on her website.
And remember, if you are doing #the100DayProject or any challenge or you just regularly post your creations, let me know. You can chime with a comment on any of our posts @thepolymerarts or on my personal page @the_sage_arts. I’d love to follow your creative journey.
Read MoreHappy Valentine’s day to you all! Here is a little Valentines from me to all of you out there who follow and read my babbling posts and keep me going with your kind words and stories.
I don’t know if you realize this, but I only get to do this because of you all, especially those who help me keep the lights on by subscribing or buying The Polymer Arts magazine. I know that not everything in the magazine is for everyone but it is THE reason I am able to spend the time scouring the web and researching the artwork I post here. The blog is wholly a labor of love so if you appreciate this, please consider supporting the magazine and/or our advertising partners you see here as their contributions cover the maintenance and service costs, without which I could not justify doing this.
So, here is a visual image of my love and dedication to all of you. I have always adored Christine Pecaut‘s cats. They always look so happy and adoring, accented with whimsically placed canes and Dustin-inspired translucent slices. But this simple faux ceramic looking pair, momma and baby kitty, just tugs at the heartstrings even if you’re not much of a cat person.
She actually has a whole gallery of her cats that you can see here. Cats are not, by far, the only thing she creates. Find more of her work in her Etsy shop, on Instagram, and on her blog.
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I know I showed you a bit of the sample “Into the Forest” installation last week, but I didn’t get in this mosaic created by Julie Eakes for the exhibition that will be installed in November. I think Julie gets the prize for the most intense and biggest piece to go into the installation. I uploaded a fairly large image of this so if you click on the photo, it should open up in a browser window and you can zoom in to see all the individual canes that make up the idyllic scene.
I wish you could zoom in on the screens you see here in the main assembly room as Ellen Prophater presented her talk on mokume gane. Oh, the secrets and the great tips and tricks she gave away during this talk! This kind of thing was happening all over and made the price of this event well worth it on that basis alone. The friendships and conversations, however, they make it priceless.
If you didn’t get to make Synergy and haven’t been to any major events lately or ever, keep them in mind. Save up your pennies and plan to get that time off from work for the next big event you can possibly work into your schedule. They are each an experience you’ll keep with you all life long.
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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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