A Painterly Cane
June 1, 2018 Inspirational Art
Here’s one last example for this week of these incredible illustrative image canes we are seeing these days. This one uses the more familiar and common imagery of flowers which so many cane makers are inspired by. However, the way Jayne Dwyer creates her flower here makes it look like a painting, with color variation and details that are not very common in polymer clay flower canes.
Jayne employees outlining, which we saw at work in Claire’s piece on Monday, but here it is quite a bit more dramatic with its black and white outlines. The soft gradation of color plays a contrast to the hard black-and-white delineation around the flower. It makes it really pop. She also created a painterly background for the flower within the cane itself. The streaks of color are varied but create radiating lines that give an energized, dimensional feel to the petals.
And then she has these spots of color that pop up within those gradations. It’s very detailed and interesting to look at closely and imagine all the decisions she made to come up with this image. I don’t suppose the decisions are much different than one would make when painting, but in polymer, each decision takes some serious confidence and dedication to the image since how it will look is not going to be wholly apparent until after reduction.
Take a close-up look for yourself at the image in this cane or go to a bigger image on Facebook. You can also see more of the work Jayne does on her website.
Biting Floral
May 16, 2018 Inspirational Art
I told you we will be doing a bit more floral but I bet you didn’t expect to have teeth. However, this floral piece does and yet it’s quite feminine and beautiful.
We can thank Ali of Warm Rain Art on Etsy for giving us this enchanting but slightly uncomfortable view of a floral necklace. The success of this piece is in large part because of the contrast between the light and calm pinks and lavender, and the very sharp teeth set dead center in them. It would still be a pretty piece if there was something else as the focal point, but I don’t think anything else would get quite the looks, comments, and double takes that those teeth will bring. You could take it as a reminder that nature has teeth, or that even the sweetest young lady can hold her own when needed. Or, probably more to the point, that beauty and danger are not mutually exclusive.
Floral work is not actually what Ali primarily creates. Animals, both realistic and fantastic, dominate her shop. Peek in on her very detailed and realistic looking work on Etsy and find her latest art on Instagram.
A Pocket Full
May 14, 2018 Inspirational Art
I know I usually only do one week of a theme but we’re going to kind of continue with flowers and transition into other organic beauty this week. I’m just letting serendipity choose for us. And serendipity chose that we look at a few more unique floral items.
This wall sconce was created by Judith Ligon. This is one of her signature forms and, in my opinion, what she does best. She calls this heart-shaped wall vase a Posey pocket. The decoration on these works like a continuation of the vase’s content. The floral elements come down the front from the vase’s upper edge with lines and vine impressions creating an echoing backdrop to the stems and leaves that might be here. The placement of these decorative elements causes them to blend with the flowers and other natural contributions set in it. This way the vase and the flowers become one cohesive decorative object.
Judith sells her work through her website and shows off her latest pieces on Instagram.
Ephemeral Flowers
May 11, 2018 Inspirational Art
Today we’re going to look at some actual flowers. Well, petals at least. This design is by Janine Bjornson, a Canadian life coach who, apparently, is drawn to color and pattern much like many of us polymer artists. She decided to make ephemeral art the subject of her 100 Day Project on Instagram and this is just one of her many beautiful, natural, and temporary designs.
If you’re not familiar with ephemeral art, it is art created with the intention of it being transitory. Its temporary nature is usually due to either the materials being something that quickly breaks down or the construction being set up in a place where nature or man will quickly and inevitably bring it down. The art is created for the momentary enjoyment, contemplation, or appreciation of it, and, often, also for the experience the artist has in the process of creating it.
In my 100 Day Project, which has completely changed parameters (I do manage to create a texture every day but the writing and posting have been more challenging!), I knew I would be traveling and considered ephemeral art as an option for those days when working with clay was not going to be possible. Some days we are not in a place where we get to be creative with our chosen material but that doesn’t mean we can’t stop and create something beautiful with what we have on hand.
Janine uses natural materials including flower petals, branches, leaves, berries, feathers, and even water droplets. Pretty much anything she can find outdoors, it looks like. So her work allows her to connect with nature and bring us these beautiful images as well. But this begs the question, that if it is photographed, is it still ephemeral art since we’ve made it lasting in recording it? That is a purely philosophical question, and irrelevant to our enjoyment of these beautiful colors designs.
Although this is an obvious mandala, she doesn’t commonly create symmetrically but changes it up pretty dramatically every day. You can take a look at her beautiful temporal creations on her Instagram account.
A Plethora of Petals
May 9, 2018 Inspirational Art
Have you seen what Jana Roberts Benzon has been up to lately? She has been creating these entrancing, super textural and rich pieces with layered petals and other highly dense collections of elements. They’re absolutely amazing.
This is the first piece I saw, jumping out at me from my Facebook one day last month, but there have been so many more posted since. It is a bit hard to describe why these are so alluring. I think, for one, you just really want to reach out and touch them and it’s a touch frustrating that you can’t, right? Secondly, for us artists, we look at this and can only imagine how much work must go into them. Or you might wonder what kind of trick she has up her sleeve to complete so many of these in what seems like a short period of time. The colors are deep and rich, matching the richness of the density of elements she puts together in these pieces.
I’m going to stop attempting to tell you about these and just have you jump over to her Facebook page to see what she’s been up to. It’s not like any of her work you’ve seen before and I, for one, am really excited to see where this is taking her.
A Moment for the Flowers
May 7, 2018 Inspirational Art
Spring is finally here in full force in Southern California. My daffodils have already bloomed and gone for some reason but suddenly everything else is jumping out and it is really hard to stay in the office when just outside my window so much is going on. So I will bring some of the flowers indoors this week by checking out some flower pieces here!
I came by this lovely set of nested trumpet-like flowers by Anna Nel on Instagram the other day and just had to stop and admire. I think it’s really the colors that make this image. I first thought this was a complete necklace and then realized it is two separate ones. My vote, however, is it that these be worn together. Green and purple are always a lovely combination and yellow and purple are opposites on the color wheel so collectively the three bright colors make a very vibrant and eye-catching color palette.
I couldn’t find much about Anna but you can go over to her Instagram account to see what she’s been up to. She looks to be in a rather exploratory phase of her polymer journey but definitely heading in an interesting direction.
When Simple Is Complex
April 27, 2018 Inspirational Art
After all that blathering to you on Wednesday, I thought I’d keep it simple today. Let’s just enjoy some relatively minimal but beautiful canes to spark some ideas for your creative time this weekend.
Spain’s Pilar Rodríguez Domínguez creates lovely, dynamic flower petal canes. The soft but dense sets of radiating lines that dominate her designs help to create a sense of complexity with relatively few elements. I chose this one because you can see how much energy is created with the just these brushed-looking lines, three oval marks, and a vibrant burgundy red. You don’t need a lot of different stuff to create complexity and energy.
She works similarly in almost all her canes although more commonly with highly contrasting colors to create finely controlled finished flower canes. Enjoy a good eyeful of color and pattern in her Etsy shop, and on her Instagram, Facebook, and Flickr accounts.
Also, since you all couldn’t click-through to see the work of Cécile Bos last week, as she went on vacation and shuttered her shop right after I drafted the blog on her work, take this opportunity to click-through to her website now to see her delicately detailed pieces.
Here’s one last example for this week of these incredible illustrative image canes we are seeing these days. This one uses the more familiar and common imagery of flowers which so many cane makers are inspired by. However, the way Jayne Dwyer creates her flower here makes it look like a painting, with color variation and details that are not very common in polymer clay flower canes.
Jayne employees outlining, which we saw at work in Claire’s piece on Monday, but here it is quite a bit more dramatic with its black and white outlines. The soft gradation of color plays a contrast to the hard black-and-white delineation around the flower. It makes it really pop. She also created a painterly background for the flower within the cane itself. The streaks of color are varied but create radiating lines that give an energized, dimensional feel to the petals.
And then she has these spots of color that pop up within those gradations. It’s very detailed and interesting to look at closely and imagine all the decisions she made to come up with this image. I don’t suppose the decisions are much different than one would make when painting, but in polymer, each decision takes some serious confidence and dedication to the image since how it will look is not going to be wholly apparent until after reduction.
Take a close-up look for yourself at the image in this cane or go to a bigger image on Facebook. You can also see more of the work Jayne does on her website.
Read More
I told you we will be doing a bit more floral but I bet you didn’t expect to have teeth. However, this floral piece does and yet it’s quite feminine and beautiful.
We can thank Ali of Warm Rain Art on Etsy for giving us this enchanting but slightly uncomfortable view of a floral necklace. The success of this piece is in large part because of the contrast between the light and calm pinks and lavender, and the very sharp teeth set dead center in them. It would still be a pretty piece if there was something else as the focal point, but I don’t think anything else would get quite the looks, comments, and double takes that those teeth will bring. You could take it as a reminder that nature has teeth, or that even the sweetest young lady can hold her own when needed. Or, probably more to the point, that beauty and danger are not mutually exclusive.
Floral work is not actually what Ali primarily creates. Animals, both realistic and fantastic, dominate her shop. Peek in on her very detailed and realistic looking work on Etsy and find her latest art on Instagram.
Read MoreI know I usually only do one week of a theme but we’re going to kind of continue with flowers and transition into other organic beauty this week. I’m just letting serendipity choose for us. And serendipity chose that we look at a few more unique floral items.
This wall sconce was created by Judith Ligon. This is one of her signature forms and, in my opinion, what she does best. She calls this heart-shaped wall vase a Posey pocket. The decoration on these works like a continuation of the vase’s content. The floral elements come down the front from the vase’s upper edge with lines and vine impressions creating an echoing backdrop to the stems and leaves that might be here. The placement of these decorative elements causes them to blend with the flowers and other natural contributions set in it. This way the vase and the flowers become one cohesive decorative object.
Judith sells her work through her website and shows off her latest pieces on Instagram.
Read MoreToday we’re going to look at some actual flowers. Well, petals at least. This design is by Janine Bjornson, a Canadian life coach who, apparently, is drawn to color and pattern much like many of us polymer artists. She decided to make ephemeral art the subject of her 100 Day Project on Instagram and this is just one of her many beautiful, natural, and temporary designs.
If you’re not familiar with ephemeral art, it is art created with the intention of it being transitory. Its temporary nature is usually due to either the materials being something that quickly breaks down or the construction being set up in a place where nature or man will quickly and inevitably bring it down. The art is created for the momentary enjoyment, contemplation, or appreciation of it, and, often, also for the experience the artist has in the process of creating it.
In my 100 Day Project, which has completely changed parameters (I do manage to create a texture every day but the writing and posting have been more challenging!), I knew I would be traveling and considered ephemeral art as an option for those days when working with clay was not going to be possible. Some days we are not in a place where we get to be creative with our chosen material but that doesn’t mean we can’t stop and create something beautiful with what we have on hand.
Janine uses natural materials including flower petals, branches, leaves, berries, feathers, and even water droplets. Pretty much anything she can find outdoors, it looks like. So her work allows her to connect with nature and bring us these beautiful images as well. But this begs the question, that if it is photographed, is it still ephemeral art since we’ve made it lasting in recording it? That is a purely philosophical question, and irrelevant to our enjoyment of these beautiful colors designs.
Although this is an obvious mandala, she doesn’t commonly create symmetrically but changes it up pretty dramatically every day. You can take a look at her beautiful temporal creations on her Instagram account.
Read MoreHave you seen what Jana Roberts Benzon has been up to lately? She has been creating these entrancing, super textural and rich pieces with layered petals and other highly dense collections of elements. They’re absolutely amazing.
This is the first piece I saw, jumping out at me from my Facebook one day last month, but there have been so many more posted since. It is a bit hard to describe why these are so alluring. I think, for one, you just really want to reach out and touch them and it’s a touch frustrating that you can’t, right? Secondly, for us artists, we look at this and can only imagine how much work must go into them. Or you might wonder what kind of trick she has up her sleeve to complete so many of these in what seems like a short period of time. The colors are deep and rich, matching the richness of the density of elements she puts together in these pieces.
I’m going to stop attempting to tell you about these and just have you jump over to her Facebook page to see what she’s been up to. It’s not like any of her work you’ve seen before and I, for one, am really excited to see where this is taking her.
Read MoreSpring is finally here in full force in Southern California. My daffodils have already bloomed and gone for some reason but suddenly everything else is jumping out and it is really hard to stay in the office when just outside my window so much is going on. So I will bring some of the flowers indoors this week by checking out some flower pieces here!
I came by this lovely set of nested trumpet-like flowers by Anna Nel on Instagram the other day and just had to stop and admire. I think it’s really the colors that make this image. I first thought this was a complete necklace and then realized it is two separate ones. My vote, however, is it that these be worn together. Green and purple are always a lovely combination and yellow and purple are opposites on the color wheel so collectively the three bright colors make a very vibrant and eye-catching color palette.
I couldn’t find much about Anna but you can go over to her Instagram account to see what she’s been up to. She looks to be in a rather exploratory phase of her polymer journey but definitely heading in an interesting direction.
Read MoreAfter all that blathering to you on Wednesday, I thought I’d keep it simple today. Let’s just enjoy some relatively minimal but beautiful canes to spark some ideas for your creative time this weekend.
Spain’s Pilar Rodríguez Domínguez creates lovely, dynamic flower petal canes. The soft but dense sets of radiating lines that dominate her designs help to create a sense of complexity with relatively few elements. I chose this one because you can see how much energy is created with the just these brushed-looking lines, three oval marks, and a vibrant burgundy red. You don’t need a lot of different stuff to create complexity and energy.
She works similarly in almost all her canes although more commonly with highly contrasting colors to create finely controlled finished flower canes. Enjoy a good eyeful of color and pattern in her Etsy shop, and on her Instagram, Facebook, and Flickr accounts.
Also, since you all couldn’t click-through to see the work of Cécile Bos last week, as she went on vacation and shuttered her shop right after I drafted the blog on her work, take this opportunity to click-through to her website now to see her delicately detailed pieces.
Read More