Splitting the Difference
April 21, 2019
Inspirational Art
Happy Easter or Chag Sameach or simply happy Sunday to you! I wasn’t sure I was going to get this one out between holidays and family and wrapping up the latest issue of The Polymer Studio (there has been a slight delay with the printer so we still have time to get you on the list for the first shipment from the printer if you subscribe or pre-order before Monday night … go here to get yours) and picking out shower and floor tile (yes, there is a tad more drama at Tenth Muse headquarters, a.k.a. home, which I will expound upon at the end for those of you find it humorous to see what craziness I’m steeped in.)
So, have you ever been in the middle of a busy, stressful, crazy, chaotic day and then all of a sudden you just are coming up with new art projects from out of nowhere? Well, yesterday I was in this ginormous tile shop, putting white tiles against dark tiles and smooth stone surfaces next to busy mosaics trying to see what works and, of course, being so design focused, when it didn’t work I would ask myself why, and when it did, I asked myself why as well. (My mind is like a three-year-old… Why this? Why that? Why…?) This led to considering how I pair up surfaces in my own artwork. The fact is, I don’t do a ton of it, but I do really like it.
I think this also came to mind because I had the pleasure of online chatting with Kimberly Arden, a potential contributor for a future issue, and she showed me some of her pendants and earrings which are often a split canvas – one side is busy with canes or extruder veneers and one side is a lightly textured black with a flower or other form laid on it in using just a few canes, like the one you see opening this post. So, I’m there comparing tiles and thinking about her pendants which got me thinking about how often we pair up surfaces in art and next thing you know, I’m writing you this post with all this in mind. That’s how these themes happen!
So, let’s just ponder the idea of having two different surfaces next to each other on the same canvas or form. How is this done to in a way that still creates a cohesive piece and what are the different ways this can be applied?
Splitting the Canvas
Two or more different surfaces on the same canvas or form is a great method for creating contrast but like any other element, two surfaces that are not alike do have to have some kind of connection to make them work together in a piece. Yes, that connection is there physically when the surfaces are within the same framework in or attached to a singular object, but that is not usually enough. The best way to ensure a connection is to have at least one design element that is the same or very similar.
For instance, both sides could be the same color but very different textures. Olga Bulat does this in this necklace. Making it monochromatic keeps us focused on that texture and that difference which creates the energy in the piece.
Now, Olga could have had two different colors in the above piece but the colors themselves would have had to have some commonality. For example, both sides could be pastel, or both might be similarly bright. They could even be next to each other or completely opposite each other on the color wheel (because complete opposites also connect in our mind as being related but in an opposing fashion, if that makes sense. Think how much green and red there is at Christmas time. It works, color wise, right?)
Below is an example of using different colors but with the same texture so that there is commonality in the texture, but at the same time, the colors are also completely opposite (a dark, rich, warm brown versus a light, colorless, cool gray). These opposites are paired in our mind the way good and evil, young and old, and night and day are paired conceptually.
This is the genius of Meisha Barbee who also puts the canvas split on the horizontal (notice how many of the examples I show you today are split vertically – vertical has a lot of energy but it doesn’t mean that vertical is right for every piece.) Just changing the color however does not give the work a ton of energy so she adds a band of multicolored spots. I added a few more examples below the first pendant so you can see the various ways she pairs up the competing sides of the canvas. She uses large bands to separate when the surface pattern is subtle but goes for a simple slim line on the one with a bottom half already busy and full of extruded canes slices.
And speaking of changing up directions, you can also change up the point at which they meet. It doesn’t have to be a straight line or a simple curve Here is a simple design, actually done in terra-cotta, offered by a website called Tradenimbo. The zigzag line splits up the two sides with enough energy to carry the simple graphic look. Note how the pendant is the stronger design between it and the earrings, with the dots being a place of focus and rest for the eye as it jumps back and forth between the two sides.
Juxtaposing two different surface designs doesn’t mean it needs to be on the same canvas facing the viewer in the same direction. It could be on something three-dimensional so that the viewer has to walk around to compare. Or take it a step further and have a different surface on the front and back or get really ingenious and make it a curved surface so you can see both sides at the same time as Arden Bardol does with these whimsical earrings of hers.
You can also contrast different surfaces by creating one surface on the outside and another on the inside. Martina Buriánová did that here with two surfaces contrasted in pattern and treatment, yet with similar or highly contrasting colors which make a strong connection between them.
Splitting up is Not Hard to Do
If you find these contrasting surfaces interesting, click on any of the above artist names to see additional pieces for further inspiration. Then get to work trying your own!
Here is a simple series of steps you can try right now … A Cane Split Canvas:
- Choose a cane (or a few canes that go together) and pick a base clay in a complementary color.
- Roll a thick sheet of the solid color and apply canes to just one section, trimming or lining them up to create a boundary between a cane side and a solid clay color side.
- Burnish the canes into the clay sheet so the surface is smooth.
- Then, texturize a similar sized section next to the canes. You can use something as simple as sandpaper or add lots of tiny dots with a hand tool or stripes or lines or whatever you like, but I think you will find it more successful if the texture is very different from the canes. So, for instance, if you applied a series of flower canes with dots in the center, don’t texturize with dots but rather create something quite unlike anything in the flowers, such as a lot of orderly vertical lines or go for the randomness of a filter sponge texture. The cool thing about applying texture here is that if you don’t like it you can burnish it away and try something else.
- Once you have a texture that you like, use a cookie cutter, first as a frame to find the section to cut that includes the two sides– it doesn’t have to be half canes and half texture. In fact, 1/3 to 2/3 will probably look nicer in many cases. Move your cookie cutter around to see what you like.
- Once you find the section you like, cover it with plastic wrap and cut with your cutter.
- Your new split canvas form can be used as the beginning of a more complex piece or punch a hole at the top and you have a pendant or the first of a pair of earrings.
Now, if you want to splice together two different sheets of clay onto the same piece, you might want to check out this tutorial by Samantha Burroughs.
You may also want to take a look at the first issue of The Polymer Studio for the great tutorial by Julie Picarello who has a beautifully simple way to splice together a mokume gane slice and simple textured clay.
Got any great split canvases of your own? Share it with us by leaving a comment or a link at the end of the post!
Now for the Great Tile Adventure
Story time! For those entertained by the little dramas of my little life.
So, as you might have read in previous posts, we have been forced to do a kitchen renovation earlier than planned, in part because of a drain that collapsed under the slab on the kitchen side. The bad news came when the plumbers came out to plan the job and determined that the drain in the master bath was about to go as well so in addition to the kitchen, we have to tear out the shower in the bathroom. Oh, joy!
Actually, we were kind of happy about this because we really dislike that shower. It’s like a tiny tile covered phone booth, which is great for singing in but, not big enough for even a tiny mobile recording studio to make that worthwhile, it’s otherwise rather claustrophobic feeling. This is not to say that the news and the added cost to the budget didn’t give me a few more gray hairs, but I won’t be sad to see that go.
So, after spending two hours in a tile shop yesterday, mostly searching for just the right basic white but still subtly veined tile (veins in a cool, not a warm gray on a cool but not bright white – we are both artists so the color conversations have been quite intense) to go with our more dramatic accent choices and coming home and putting every tile sample we bought up against the wall, and not finding any to be quite right, I went into my studio for something and there in my stack of tiles on my studio table was the exact pattern of tile we were looking for. And I’ve been curing clay on it for the last six years! Now we just have to see if we can find eight full boxes of it somewhere!
Here I am giving my better half the not so great news that our ideal tile came from my studio stash and I don’t remember where I got it. But at least we know what we like!
I’m also, by the way, designing and making our kitchen backsplash which will, of course, have polymer in it somehow. So that should be exciting. Especially the part where I have to figure out how to carve out the time to do actually make that happen. But I will!
So, with my head full of tile images, I say goodbye to you for now. Have a wonderful rest of your holiday weekend and a great coming week.
Silhouettes of the Past
November 30, 2018
Inspirational Art
I think everyone knows Jeffrey Lloyd Dever‘s work but he’s not as prevalent on the social media networks as a lot of other polymer artists. So sometimes, when his work does pop up, it feels so entirely refreshing and new. And sometimes it doesn’t even seem like his work but he has such a definite signature, especially in his forms and the way he arranges them.
I remember talking to Jeff in Racine, Wisconsin at the Racine Art Museum’s In-Organic exhibition in 2014. His installation piece, Whence from a Darkling Heart, a jacket with black shapes arranged on it and below it, was front and center when you walked into the exhibition space. Jeff asked if I knew it was his work when I walked in. I said of course I knew and told him I would be surprised if not everyone else did too. He was surprised. He thought it was so different that people might have wondered whose it was. I think it’s hard, when looking at our own work, to see what our signature style is.
But here’s another piece of Jeff’s, absent his familiar combination of sunset colors or a dominance of blues, and it seems very obvious that this is his work. Or maybe you would see it and wonder if somebody was emulating his work. But no, this is all Jeffrey Dever and I would say it’s the shapes, the immaculate finish and his careful consideration of balance that makes it so obvious.
The thing about going predominantly monochrome like this is that you are challenged to set color side and heavily consider all the other design elements. The forms, the size, the juxtaposition and contrast of elements, and the way the work is finished become paramount considerations. These other design elements must be attended to with care to make it work. Not that those design elements should not always be attended to with care but sometimes, with color, you may be tempted to let the color carry a piece because a bold or well-chosen color palette will still result in a piece that people admire. It’s just that the work can generally be taken up a notch or two if the other design elements are deemed just as important and are given just as much consideration as color.
And this is why this piece works so well. There is contrast in the form of black shapes but the base shape is the same in each one so there is a connection between them all. The red ball adds the drama with his heavy contrast in color as well as surface treatment and shape. Still, the ball’s roundness is an echo of the curves in the pod shapes. Just imagine if the red element was a square. It would lose so much. But it could have been a triangle, with the points of the pods and the points of the triangles echoing each other, although it would’ve felt very different.
Jeff has some other very different forms he’s been working on which you’ll see more of when we get the Polymer Journeys book out in February. In the meantime, you can take a look at his website to see what he’s been up to over the past couple years.
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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Illusionary Color
January 7, 2017
Inspirational Art
Since this week seems to be about juxtaposed color that causes visual shifting, I thought I’d check in on Sandra Trachsel of Koniz, Switzerland who creates some of the most splendid three-dimensional looking cane layouts. Her pieces are visual illusions of space and movement, all created with changes in shades and values of color and how they line up.
Here is one of her pieces from about a year ago. She calls this Necklace Artichoke which, as it is with a lot of her pieces, was inspired by a quilt pattern, this one from quilter Sylvia Schäfer. Although the cane work looks very much like the sample quilt, this arrangement and repetition takes it a step beyond. The variation in the side and background colors of the beads adds to the energy and dimensional feeling. If you try to look at the necklace as a whole, the beads then look to glow from their centers. It’s a beautiful adaptation of the original pattern.
Even though a lot of Sylvia’s canes come quite directly from quilt patterns, her precision and choices as she reinterprets them in polymer is quite inspiring. Take a look at her collection of pattern dominant work on her Flickr photostream.
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Fragility and Strength
December 30, 2016
Inspirational Art
Although New Year’s Eve allows for all kinds of bling and shimmer to be pulled out and showed off, sometimes the most impressive statement is understatement. That’s what I think this strong but delicate piece from jewelry designer Kayo Saito is about.
I imagine this necklace it is quite large so it will show off size wise for certain, but I think the organic shapes in semi-translucent fabrics draw the eye for its juxtaposition in the fragile look of the forms within their strong directional orientation and dense composition. Both the fragility and strength are unwavering which makes it quite a sophisticated and intriguing piece.
I know … I just posted two items in a row this week that weren’t actually polymer. But in both cases, they could easily have been polymer with the same impact. It doesn’t matter what material a piece is made from, only that it is done well and that it inspires. Right? Art is inclusive, not exclusive. Just go take a look at Kayo’s website to see more inspiring, strong and sometimes frail looking work in fabrics and metal.
I also picked this piece because I think its characteristics represents how many of us feel as we head into 2017. There is a lot of uncertainty in the world right now. We don’t know what our leaders are going to do and we don’t know how the conflicts across the world will play out in the coming months or what it will mean for us. This has left many people feeling frail and exposed. But the issues that have arisen have also given many, many people a new sense of direction as well as a swelling sense of responsibility and need to speak out and be heard. We may feel vulnerable, we may even appear frail, but I think a lot of people today are actually strong and resilient. We have already been through some seriously trying times this past decade and we have, for the most part, bounced back. I think recent experiences show that whatever comes this new year, we can meet it with strength, ingenuity, and compassion. A bit more creativity and beauty in the world won’t hurt either.
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Outside Inspiration: Through the Trees
November 18, 2016
Inspirational Art
I’m going to end this week with something that is translucent although maybe not the way you are thinking, a piece that shies away from the fall colors, moving into Winter, as so many of us are, at least in terms of upcoming plans if not weather.
I share this work with you upon one condition (okay, maybe it’s not a condition, but it is a very strong urging) … that you visit the links I have for you for this artist. Michelle McKinney is one of those artists whose work you need to see in its many variation to really understand the scope and beauty of her vision. She works in what she calls ” hand cut translucen
That fact that she calls her material translucent and we see it as delicate makes for a fairly dramatic contrast with our understanding that this is metal. There is further contrast between concept and material in that images are almost all organic and yet what they are made of is industrial. More impressive though, is the undeniable beauty in her subject matter, the usually simple images that are a bit torn and twisted. I think it garners empathy for the idea of something so delicate being in such a state. It’s rather hard to put one’s finger on exactly what it is that is so striking about these but it is there without question.
You need to look at her collection of work for yourself and see if the pieces speak to you in a similar fashion. Please treat yourself to the beauty of her pieces on her Facebook page which looks to hold the largest collection of images like these trees here. But also stop over at her website to see the black and white prints she is creating with these sculptural pieces, developing a collection she calls Ghost Editions. They are eerily beautiful and not to be missed.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Design or create something whose imagery is one thing but the texture, color or embellishment would say something else. Work in conceptual and visual contrast. Don’t think too hard about it or too long. Start with a few ideas and see where the muse takes you.
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Scratching Out Unusual Design
October 17, 2016
Inspirational Art
I’m not sure what the theme is going to be this week. I am just going to start here with this fairly unusual piece and see where the ideas take us. Some Mondays, you just gotta go with the flow.
Flow is part of what had me contemplating this piece by Marjana Cajhen. What caught my eye first–and was what you probably first noticed too, I’d guess–is that puzzle piece. This is looking like a progression of square shapes and then a puzzle piece shape pops up. Is this a geometric shape? It’s not organic but it seems a tad too complicated to be geometric yet it’s shape is balanced and measured and feels squarish in a way. However the edge of the shape keeps shifting gears. It’s that constant moving edge that makes it stand out, of course, but is this a good thing?
At first I thought this pattern change from squares might be too jarring but to take it away would take away all its draw. The unexpected shape is a type of contrast not to mention adding a bit of fun in what might otherwise be a bit of a static piece, even with the energetic linear texture. The other thing I wondered about was that choice of texture. Each piece has a different textural pattern but there is consistency in that inconsistency. And since the textures also are all made up of lines, there is a relationship between them there as well as in their black and white nature.
But you know what delights me the most? That spray of cord ends splayed across the corner of that end square. Between that and the puzzle piece, it seems Marjana’s choices are trying to break up an orderly gathering of stodgy squares and force them into a bit of play time.
This juxtaposition of geometric shapes and use of line , especially the scratch marks, are a regular theme in Marjana’s work. You can compare her ideas on her Flickr photostream or read up on her various adventures and explorations on her blog.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Create a piece with a repeated form but change one along the way in some unexpected manner. Try to think of something that is both related but not commonly seen with such forms. A string of light blue round beads could be interrupted by a miniature peach. A pattern of deep red flower canes can give way to a large yellow fireworks cane. The idea is to keep the repeated element related in at least a couple of aspects and then challenge yourself to come up with something no one would expect but somehow makes sense–the blue beads relate to the peach in terms of shape and size and the orange color is a direct contrast to the blue so they can work dramatically together. Flowers and fireworks have similar centrally blooming structures and the yellow and red are both warm colors so they work together. See where this is going?
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A Pastel Presentation
September 30, 2016
Inspirational Art
I was hoping to find a good example a of cool white but these are not often used or they appear to be merely gray and if you are going to play with grays, richer, deeper grays seem more committed and elegant. The alternative is pastels, which can be warm or cool. Cool green leaning whites, like the palest mint color are delicious but what do they express? Cool blue whites in their palest manifestations can actually look even more brilliantly white and those with a hint of purple definitely head towards looking gray or even silver. But pastels are more definite in their expression having strong associations for us with springtime, delicacy and femininity. However, cool versus warm pastels do have different connotations.
In this piece by Cecilia Button (Mabcrea), you can easily see here how the warm colors come across compared to the cool colors. The warm ones still retain some of the energy associated with their fully saturated hues but it’s very muted while the cool colors, associated primarily with calm and relaxation, still feel that way, maybe even more so with their paleness. Juxtaposing warm and cool colors usually makes for a riotous presentation but being all things graduate to white, there is a cohesive feeling of peace and a surprising sense of simplicity event though there is really nothing simple about this piece. But simple and peaceful are meanings we closely associate with white so it’s dominance here literally colors the whole piece.
If you have not discovered Cecilia’s intense explorations of polymer, you might grab a cup of something and spend some time wandering through her her Flickr pages and her blog site.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Mix some pastels (start with white and add pinches of color, not the other way around, as you usually need a lot of white compared to colors for a pastel) and play with them using some of your favorite forms or techniques. Compare the feeling of the pastel colored pieces to how a more saturated color palette works in that same approach. How does the tint of the color change the mood or message?
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Painting a Story in Polymer
February 24, 2016
Inspirational Art
I thought I’d continue with the theme of story which, visually, can be told abstractly or with much more literal images. Today, we’re going to look at a literal set of images.
Today’s bit of story was created by Angenia (also known as Tonia Angenia Lupo) of Italy. I am not posting this because of the mermaid, although she is nicely executed and the curled and wavy polymer of the tail has a particularly nice flow to it, but I wanted to show you this painting. Because it is all polymer. It is rather hard to grasp that at a glance, but if you take time to peruse her blog or even just go through her process photos on Facebook, you will be amazed at the detail and work involved. It appears that she applies this all with a toothpick from tiny dabs of soft polymer clay. It’s so well done, though, that it looks like it might be a print set in a frame simply to accompany the mermaid, but no, the real masterpiece is the painting. Granted, the image is actually one of Thomas Kinkade’s, but the execution in clay is a great testament to what can be done with polymer in a painterly fashion.
The story here is being relayed purely by imagery with juxtaposition providing another layer of story. The ship out on the ocean, hit with rays of sunlight as a storm breaks behind it (or gathers around it, as I might have thought had I not just researched the original image), has its own story of courage. The mermaid creates another element to the story, including the possibility of other dangers in the sea. But only because the myth of mermaids are rather dark, not cute like this one. A more sinister air or refinement for the mermaid would have been a better pairing, style wise, for the seriousness and subtly of the painting for the sake of style consistency, but Angelina’s talent is undeniable.
If you have a couple of moments, take a look at her blog or Facebook page to admire her processes and other mini paintings, as well as her doll art and other miniatures.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Today, play with juxtaposition. You can do this with elements you already have if you don’t have time to create from scratch. Take two or three disparate things and arrange them together. Can you find a satisfying, if imperfect, way to compose them? Try this with a few other items, keeping track of what you’ve done (take photos if you can). Now, which ones worked better? You will usually find that the pieces that end up working together have something in common–sometimes its a design element, like similar textures or complementary colors or similar styles like geometric or organic or tribal. The other thing that makes things work is the stories in our minds. Like seeing animals in the clouds, our minds will try and make connections between elements even if they were not intended to be related. Is there a story in the compositions that worked best?
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Happy Easter or Chag Sameach or simply happy Sunday to you! I wasn’t sure I was going to get this one out between holidays and family and wrapping up the latest issue of The Polymer Studio (there has been a slight delay with the printer so we still have time to get you on the list for the first shipment from the printer if you subscribe or pre-order before Monday night … go here to get yours) and picking out shower and floor tile (yes, there is a tad more drama at Tenth Muse headquarters, a.k.a. home, which I will expound upon at the end for those of you find it humorous to see what craziness I’m steeped in.)
So, have you ever been in the middle of a busy, stressful, crazy, chaotic day and then all of a sudden you just are coming up with new art projects from out of nowhere? Well, yesterday I was in this ginormous tile shop, putting white tiles against dark tiles and smooth stone surfaces next to busy mosaics trying to see what works and, of course, being so design focused, when it didn’t work I would ask myself why, and when it did, I asked myself why as well. (My mind is like a three-year-old… Why this? Why that? Why…?) This led to considering how I pair up surfaces in my own artwork. The fact is, I don’t do a ton of it, but I do really like it.
I think this also came to mind because I had the pleasure of online chatting with Kimberly Arden, a potential contributor for a future issue, and she showed me some of her pendants and earrings which are often a split canvas – one side is busy with canes or extruder veneers and one side is a lightly textured black with a flower or other form laid on it in using just a few canes, like the one you see opening this post. So, I’m there comparing tiles and thinking about her pendants which got me thinking about how often we pair up surfaces in art and next thing you know, I’m writing you this post with all this in mind. That’s how these themes happen!
So, let’s just ponder the idea of having two different surfaces next to each other on the same canvas or form. How is this done to in a way that still creates a cohesive piece and what are the different ways this can be applied?
Splitting the Canvas
Two or more different surfaces on the same canvas or form is a great method for creating contrast but like any other element, two surfaces that are not alike do have to have some kind of connection to make them work together in a piece. Yes, that connection is there physically when the surfaces are within the same framework in or attached to a singular object, but that is not usually enough. The best way to ensure a connection is to have at least one design element that is the same or very similar.
For instance, both sides could be the same color but very different textures. Olga Bulat does this in this necklace. Making it monochromatic keeps us focused on that texture and that difference which creates the energy in the piece.
Now, Olga could have had two different colors in the above piece but the colors themselves would have had to have some commonality. For example, both sides could be pastel, or both might be similarly bright. They could even be next to each other or completely opposite each other on the color wheel (because complete opposites also connect in our mind as being related but in an opposing fashion, if that makes sense. Think how much green and red there is at Christmas time. It works, color wise, right?)
Below is an example of using different colors but with the same texture so that there is commonality in the texture, but at the same time, the colors are also completely opposite (a dark, rich, warm brown versus a light, colorless, cool gray). These opposites are paired in our mind the way good and evil, young and old, and night and day are paired conceptually.
This is the genius of Meisha Barbee who also puts the canvas split on the horizontal (notice how many of the examples I show you today are split vertically – vertical has a lot of energy but it doesn’t mean that vertical is right for every piece.) Just changing the color however does not give the work a ton of energy so she adds a band of multicolored spots. I added a few more examples below the first pendant so you can see the various ways she pairs up the competing sides of the canvas. She uses large bands to separate when the surface pattern is subtle but goes for a simple slim line on the one with a bottom half already busy and full of extruded canes slices.
And speaking of changing up directions, you can also change up the point at which they meet. It doesn’t have to be a straight line or a simple curve Here is a simple design, actually done in terra-cotta, offered by a website called Tradenimbo. The zigzag line splits up the two sides with enough energy to carry the simple graphic look. Note how the pendant is the stronger design between it and the earrings, with the dots being a place of focus and rest for the eye as it jumps back and forth between the two sides.
Juxtaposing two different surface designs doesn’t mean it needs to be on the same canvas facing the viewer in the same direction. It could be on something three-dimensional so that the viewer has to walk around to compare. Or take it a step further and have a different surface on the front and back or get really ingenious and make it a curved surface so you can see both sides at the same time as Arden Bardol does with these whimsical earrings of hers.
You can also contrast different surfaces by creating one surface on the outside and another on the inside. Martina Buriánová did that here with two surfaces contrasted in pattern and treatment, yet with similar or highly contrasting colors which make a strong connection between them.
Splitting up is Not Hard to Do
If you find these contrasting surfaces interesting, click on any of the above artist names to see additional pieces for further inspiration. Then get to work trying your own!
Here is a simple series of steps you can try right now … A Cane Split Canvas:
- Choose a cane (or a few canes that go together) and pick a base clay in a complementary color.
- Roll a thick sheet of the solid color and apply canes to just one section, trimming or lining them up to create a boundary between a cane side and a solid clay color side.
- Burnish the canes into the clay sheet so the surface is smooth.
- Then, texturize a similar sized section next to the canes. You can use something as simple as sandpaper or add lots of tiny dots with a hand tool or stripes or lines or whatever you like, but I think you will find it more successful if the texture is very different from the canes. So, for instance, if you applied a series of flower canes with dots in the center, don’t texturize with dots but rather create something quite unlike anything in the flowers, such as a lot of orderly vertical lines or go for the randomness of a filter sponge texture. The cool thing about applying texture here is that if you don’t like it you can burnish it away and try something else.
- Once you have a texture that you like, use a cookie cutter, first as a frame to find the section to cut that includes the two sides– it doesn’t have to be half canes and half texture. In fact, 1/3 to 2/3 will probably look nicer in many cases. Move your cookie cutter around to see what you like.
- Once you find the section you like, cover it with plastic wrap and cut with your cutter.
- Your new split canvas form can be used as the beginning of a more complex piece or punch a hole at the top and you have a pendant or the first of a pair of earrings.
Now, if you want to splice together two different sheets of clay onto the same piece, you might want to check out this tutorial by Samantha Burroughs.
You may also want to take a look at the first issue of The Polymer Studio for the great tutorial by Julie Picarello who has a beautifully simple way to splice together a mokume gane slice and simple textured clay.
Got any great split canvases of your own? Share it with us by leaving a comment or a link at the end of the post!
Now for the Great Tile Adventure
Story time! For those entertained by the little dramas of my little life.
So, as you might have read in previous posts, we have been forced to do a kitchen renovation earlier than planned, in part because of a drain that collapsed under the slab on the kitchen side. The bad news came when the plumbers came out to plan the job and determined that the drain in the master bath was about to go as well so in addition to the kitchen, we have to tear out the shower in the bathroom. Oh, joy!
Actually, we were kind of happy about this because we really dislike that shower. It’s like a tiny tile covered phone booth, which is great for singing in but, not big enough for even a tiny mobile recording studio to make that worthwhile, it’s otherwise rather claustrophobic feeling. This is not to say that the news and the added cost to the budget didn’t give me a few more gray hairs, but I won’t be sad to see that go.
So, after spending two hours in a tile shop yesterday, mostly searching for just the right basic white but still subtly veined tile (veins in a cool, not a warm gray on a cool but not bright white – we are both artists so the color conversations have been quite intense) to go with our more dramatic accent choices and coming home and putting every tile sample we bought up against the wall, and not finding any to be quite right, I went into my studio for something and there in my stack of tiles on my studio table was the exact pattern of tile we were looking for. And I’ve been curing clay on it for the last six years! Now we just have to see if we can find eight full boxes of it somewhere!
Here I am giving my better half the not so great news that our ideal tile came from my studio stash and I don’t remember where I got it. But at least we know what we like!
I’m also, by the way, designing and making our kitchen backsplash which will, of course, have polymer in it somehow. So that should be exciting. Especially the part where I have to figure out how to carve out the time to do actually make that happen. But I will!
So, with my head full of tile images, I say goodbye to you for now. Have a wonderful rest of your holiday weekend and a great coming week.
Read MoreI think everyone knows Jeffrey Lloyd Dever‘s work but he’s not as prevalent on the social media networks as a lot of other polymer artists. So sometimes, when his work does pop up, it feels so entirely refreshing and new. And sometimes it doesn’t even seem like his work but he has such a definite signature, especially in his forms and the way he arranges them.
I remember talking to Jeff in Racine, Wisconsin at the Racine Art Museum’s In-Organic exhibition in 2014. His installation piece, Whence from a Darkling Heart, a jacket with black shapes arranged on it and below it, was front and center when you walked into the exhibition space. Jeff asked if I knew it was his work when I walked in. I said of course I knew and told him I would be surprised if not everyone else did too. He was surprised. He thought it was so different that people might have wondered whose it was. I think it’s hard, when looking at our own work, to see what our signature style is.
But here’s another piece of Jeff’s, absent his familiar combination of sunset colors or a dominance of blues, and it seems very obvious that this is his work. Or maybe you would see it and wonder if somebody was emulating his work. But no, this is all Jeffrey Dever and I would say it’s the shapes, the immaculate finish and his careful consideration of balance that makes it so obvious.
The thing about going predominantly monochrome like this is that you are challenged to set color side and heavily consider all the other design elements. The forms, the size, the juxtaposition and contrast of elements, and the way the work is finished become paramount considerations. These other design elements must be attended to with care to make it work. Not that those design elements should not always be attended to with care but sometimes, with color, you may be tempted to let the color carry a piece because a bold or well-chosen color palette will still result in a piece that people admire. It’s just that the work can generally be taken up a notch or two if the other design elements are deemed just as important and are given just as much consideration as color.
And this is why this piece works so well. There is contrast in the form of black shapes but the base shape is the same in each one so there is a connection between them all. The red ball adds the drama with his heavy contrast in color as well as surface treatment and shape. Still, the ball’s roundness is an echo of the curves in the pod shapes. Just imagine if the red element was a square. It would lose so much. But it could have been a triangle, with the points of the pods and the points of the triangles echoing each other, although it would’ve felt very different.
Jeff has some other very different forms he’s been working on which you’ll see more of when we get the Polymer Journeys book out in February. In the meantime, you can take a look at his website to see what he’s been up to over the past couple years.
Read MoreLet 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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Read MoreSince this week seems to be about juxtaposed color that causes visual shifting, I thought I’d check in on Sandra Trachsel of Koniz, Switzerland who creates some of the most splendid three-dimensional looking cane layouts. Her pieces are visual illusions of space and movement, all created with changes in shades and values of color and how they line up.
Here is one of her pieces from about a year ago. She calls this Necklace Artichoke which, as it is with a lot of her pieces, was inspired by a quilt pattern, this one from quilter Sylvia Schäfer. Although the cane work looks very much like the sample quilt, this arrangement and repetition takes it a step beyond. The variation in the side and background colors of the beads adds to the energy and dimensional feeling. If you try to look at the necklace as a whole, the beads then look to glow from their centers. It’s a beautiful adaptation of the original pattern.
Even though a lot of Sylvia’s canes come quite directly from quilt patterns, her precision and choices as she reinterprets them in polymer is quite inspiring. Take a look at her collection of pattern dominant work on her Flickr photostream.
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Read MoreAlthough New Year’s Eve allows for all kinds of bling and shimmer to be pulled out and showed off, sometimes the most impressive statement is understatement. That’s what I think this strong but delicate piece from jewelry designer Kayo Saito is about.
I imagine this necklace it is quite large so it will show off size wise for certain, but I think the organic shapes in semi-translucent fabrics draw the eye for its juxtaposition in the fragile look of the forms within their strong directional orientation and dense composition. Both the fragility and strength are unwavering which makes it quite a sophisticated and intriguing piece.
I know … I just posted two items in a row this week that weren’t actually polymer. But in both cases, they could easily have been polymer with the same impact. It doesn’t matter what material a piece is made from, only that it is done well and that it inspires. Right? Art is inclusive, not exclusive. Just go take a look at Kayo’s website to see more inspiring, strong and sometimes frail looking work in fabrics and metal.
I also picked this piece because I think its characteristics represents how many of us feel as we head into 2017. There is a lot of uncertainty in the world right now. We don’t know what our leaders are going to do and we don’t know how the conflicts across the world will play out in the coming months or what it will mean for us. This has left many people feeling frail and exposed. But the issues that have arisen have also given many, many people a new sense of direction as well as a swelling sense of responsibility and need to speak out and be heard. We may feel vulnerable, we may even appear frail, but I think a lot of people today are actually strong and resilient. We have already been through some seriously trying times this past decade and we have, for the most part, bounced back. I think recent experiences show that whatever comes this new year, we can meet it with strength, ingenuity, and compassion. A bit more creativity and beauty in the world won’t hurt either.
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Read MoreI’m going to end this week with something that is translucent although maybe not the way you are thinking, a piece that shies away from the fall colors, moving into Winter, as so many of us are, at least in terms of upcoming plans if not weather.
I share this work with you upon one condition (okay, maybe it’s not a condition, but it is a very strong urging) … that you visit the links I have for you for this artist. Michelle McKinney is one of those artists whose work you need to see in its many variation to really understand the scope and beauty of her vision. She works in what she calls ” hand cut translucen
That fact that she calls her material translucent and we see it as delicate makes for a fairly dramatic contrast with our understanding that this is metal. There is further contrast between concept and material in that images are almost all organic and yet what they are made of is industrial. More impressive though, is the undeniable beauty in her subject matter, the usually simple images that are a bit torn and twisted. I think it garners empathy for the idea of something so delicate being in such a state. It’s rather hard to put one’s finger on exactly what it is that is so striking about these but it is there without question.
You need to look at her collection of work for yourself and see if the pieces speak to you in a similar fashion. Please treat yourself to the beauty of her pieces on her Facebook page which looks to hold the largest collection of images like these trees here. But also stop over at her website to see the black and white prints she is creating with these sculptural pieces, developing a collection she calls Ghost Editions. They are eerily beautiful and not to be missed.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Design or create something whose imagery is one thing but the texture, color or embellishment would say something else. Work in conceptual and visual contrast. Don’t think too hard about it or too long. Start with a few ideas and see where the muse takes you.
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Read MoreI’m not sure what the theme is going to be this week. I am just going to start here with this fairly unusual piece and see where the ideas take us. Some Mondays, you just gotta go with the flow.
Flow is part of what had me contemplating this piece by Marjana Cajhen. What caught my eye first–and was what you probably first noticed too, I’d guess–is that puzzle piece. This is looking like a progression of square shapes and then a puzzle piece shape pops up. Is this a geometric shape? It’s not organic but it seems a tad too complicated to be geometric yet it’s shape is balanced and measured and feels squarish in a way. However the edge of the shape keeps shifting gears. It’s that constant moving edge that makes it stand out, of course, but is this a good thing?
At first I thought this pattern change from squares might be too jarring but to take it away would take away all its draw. The unexpected shape is a type of contrast not to mention adding a bit of fun in what might otherwise be a bit of a static piece, even with the energetic linear texture. The other thing I wondered about was that choice of texture. Each piece has a different textural pattern but there is consistency in that inconsistency. And since the textures also are all made up of lines, there is a relationship between them there as well as in their black and white nature.
But you know what delights me the most? That spray of cord ends splayed across the corner of that end square. Between that and the puzzle piece, it seems Marjana’s choices are trying to break up an orderly gathering of stodgy squares and force them into a bit of play time.
This juxtaposition of geometric shapes and use of line , especially the scratch marks, are a regular theme in Marjana’s work. You can compare her ideas on her Flickr photostream or read up on her various adventures and explorations on her blog.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Create a piece with a repeated form but change one along the way in some unexpected manner. Try to think of something that is both related but not commonly seen with such forms. A string of light blue round beads could be interrupted by a miniature peach. A pattern of deep red flower canes can give way to a large yellow fireworks cane. The idea is to keep the repeated element related in at least a couple of aspects and then challenge yourself to come up with something no one would expect but somehow makes sense–the blue beads relate to the peach in terms of shape and size and the orange color is a direct contrast to the blue so they can work dramatically together. Flowers and fireworks have similar centrally blooming structures and the yellow and red are both warm colors so they work together. See where this is going?
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Read MoreI was hoping to find a good example a of cool white but these are not often used or they appear to be merely gray and if you are going to play with grays, richer, deeper grays seem more committed and elegant. The alternative is pastels, which can be warm or cool. Cool green leaning whites, like the palest mint color are delicious but what do they express? Cool blue whites in their palest manifestations can actually look even more brilliantly white and those with a hint of purple definitely head towards looking gray or even silver. But pastels are more definite in their expression having strong associations for us with springtime, delicacy and femininity. However, cool versus warm pastels do have different connotations.
In this piece by Cecilia Button (Mabcrea), you can easily see here how the warm colors come across compared to the cool colors. The warm ones still retain some of the energy associated with their fully saturated hues but it’s very muted while the cool colors, associated primarily with calm and relaxation, still feel that way, maybe even more so with their paleness. Juxtaposing warm and cool colors usually makes for a riotous presentation but being all things graduate to white, there is a cohesive feeling of peace and a surprising sense of simplicity event though there is really nothing simple about this piece. But simple and peaceful are meanings we closely associate with white so it’s dominance here literally colors the whole piece.
If you have not discovered Cecilia’s intense explorations of polymer, you might grab a cup of something and spend some time wandering through her her Flickr pages and her blog site.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Mix some pastels (start with white and add pinches of color, not the other way around, as you usually need a lot of white compared to colors for a pastel) and play with them using some of your favorite forms or techniques. Compare the feeling of the pastel colored pieces to how a more saturated color palette works in that same approach. How does the tint of the color change the mood or message?
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Read MoreI thought I’d continue with the theme of story which, visually, can be told abstractly or with much more literal images. Today, we’re going to look at a literal set of images.
Today’s bit of story was created by Angenia (also known as Tonia Angenia Lupo) of Italy. I am not posting this because of the mermaid, although she is nicely executed and the curled and wavy polymer of the tail has a particularly nice flow to it, but I wanted to show you this painting. Because it is all polymer. It is rather hard to grasp that at a glance, but if you take time to peruse her blog or even just go through her process photos on Facebook, you will be amazed at the detail and work involved. It appears that she applies this all with a toothpick from tiny dabs of soft polymer clay. It’s so well done, though, that it looks like it might be a print set in a frame simply to accompany the mermaid, but no, the real masterpiece is the painting. Granted, the image is actually one of Thomas Kinkade’s, but the execution in clay is a great testament to what can be done with polymer in a painterly fashion.
The story here is being relayed purely by imagery with juxtaposition providing another layer of story. The ship out on the ocean, hit with rays of sunlight as a storm breaks behind it (or gathers around it, as I might have thought had I not just researched the original image), has its own story of courage. The mermaid creates another element to the story, including the possibility of other dangers in the sea. But only because the myth of mermaids are rather dark, not cute like this one. A more sinister air or refinement for the mermaid would have been a better pairing, style wise, for the seriousness and subtly of the painting for the sake of style consistency, but Angelina’s talent is undeniable.
If you have a couple of moments, take a look at her blog or Facebook page to admire her processes and other mini paintings, as well as her doll art and other miniatures.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Today, play with juxtaposition. You can do this with elements you already have if you don’t have time to create from scratch. Take two or three disparate things and arrange them together. Can you find a satisfying, if imperfect, way to compose them? Try this with a few other items, keeping track of what you’ve done (take photos if you can). Now, which ones worked better? You will usually find that the pieces that end up working together have something in common–sometimes its a design element, like similar textures or complementary colors or similar styles like geometric or organic or tribal. The other thing that makes things work is the stories in our minds. Like seeing animals in the clouds, our minds will try and make connections between elements even if they were not intended to be related. Is there a story in the compositions that worked best?
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