Chains have gone through a transformation lately. The links are big and uneven. Shapes have changed. Sizes may be mixed and matched within a piece.
This Big Linx chain from London’s Debbie Carlton illustrates the point in polymer.
Debbie’s also a fan of the big bangle and you can see her work best on her Flickr gallery. The bangles were inspired by a workshop Debbie took with Seth Savarick.
If you like polymer chains, you’ll want to revisit Wendy Malinow’s version. And, come to think of it, there’s an ancient version I created in my archives. Guess I’ve been hooked on chains for a while. Escape your chains this weekend.
The goal of Heather Powers’s Art Bead Scene daily blog is to unite bead artists and jewelry designers who use art beads in their work. (Here’s Heather’s personal blog.)
The collaborations of the Art Bead Scene’s wire, metal, glass and polymer artists result in trendy, nostalgic assemblages of friends’ work and scavenged beads from the past.
Heather’s Humblebeads gallery on Flickr tracks how Heather’s polymer beads have been used by 23 of her fellow designers over the last couple of years (like this necklace from Lorelei Eurto that uses Heather’s work as a focal bead).
Most of the members of her group concentrate on one medium and when it’s time to create a wearable piece, they happily pick and choose the components from a wide array of baubles.
Other artists who work with polymer on the Art Bead Scene roster of editors include Cindy Gimbrone and Lynn Davis (hope I didn’t miss anyone). Warning: the links lead you to lovely sites that may suck up your afternoon.
To polymer artists, there’s nothing more appealing than a neat pile of coordinated canes. Show us the resulting bouquet of flowers and you’ve got our attention. These lovelies are from Madrid’s Fabi (fperezajates).
A few minutes on her Flickr site will reveal how she’s combined polymer with felt, crochet, books and wood. She even shares a mini-tutorial about turning a nail brush into a letter holder.
I admire Fabi’s experimentation with household items and decorative accessories.
Moving beyond bowls and frames, she embellishes drawers and makes sewing tool holders. Keep your eye on Fabi’s work.
This polymer wall art from Laurie Mika not only looks good with my site’s color scheme (always a consideration), it also reminds me to think in three dimensions on a similar project I’m working on for my new porch.
Thumbing through her site made me feel like I’d just taken a quick class. Her tiles are colorful and richly layered with a confident looseness and freedom
In creating her “Urban Icons” she uses a variety of overlapping techniques – mosaic design, painting, rubber stamping, collage, embossing, beading, and embedding just about anything into polymer clay.
She’s posted a growing list of workshops and you can also refer to her Mixed Media Mosaics book for more instruction on her lusciously embellished techniques.
