Polymer Clay Daily

Polymer fly on the wall

Gesine Kratzner’s Blobhouse characters provide a whole kennel of wall pets, monsters that dangle from the ceiling and tabletop critters.

You may recognize your own friends and neighbors in her current series of People and Their Pets.

Enjoy Gesine Kratzner's odd assortment of polymer pets on PolymerClayDaily.com

If you could use a good laugh, visit Gesine’s Instagram, and her Etsy. She’s also made a rollicking fun Advent calendar for the past two years. Let’s hope she’s planning one for 2017 that we can follow.

Gesine’s Fly on the Wall shows me what I’ve always wanted to be. In fact, I’ll be your fly on the wall at this weekend’s opening of the Into the Forest Exhibit in Pittsburgh.

Monster polymer

Leah Lester's monsters migrated from cakes to PolymerClayDaily.com

Washington’s Leah Lester started out as a cake decorator. In 2010 she decided to put the monsters she loves on the top of a cake.

Her friends went wild and asked her to make them out of something more durable.

Since then Leah’s created thousands of Little Lazies and sold them to her Etsy fans. Her most recent batch will be for sale on Big Cartel on Sept 28 with others on Facebook and Instagram.

Her time-lapse videos will kick off your week at high speed.

Monster Monday

If you tracked monster storms all weekend you may be in the mood to purge your world of all its monsters.

Monster Monday courtesy of Anthony (Ace of Clay) on PolymerClayDaily.com

Watch as Michigan’s Anthony, Ace of Clay, turns his demons into pins. With ferocious teeth, of course.

Some texture, a few wrinkles and a dusting of dark shadows around the eyes heightens the ominous look. Some have sunlight color-changing eyes, others glow in the dark.

Anthony also keeps switch plates, phone cases and sculpted figures in stock. If you’re squeamish, you’ll prefer his colorful imitative sugar skulls. Look on Instagram, Etsy, and Facebook.

Kickstarting monsters

Fernihough's friendly monsters funded by Kickstarter on PolymerClayDaily.com

Angela Fernihough of the UK’s Monjoo continues our look at what she calls, lovably ugly pet monsters. Each of the polymer pocket pets has a story.

Angela Fernihough's friendly monsters funded by Kickstarter on PolymerClayDaily.com

When Angela decided to take her monsters on the road she raised the funds for display stands and signage through a modest and successful Kickstarter campaign. Have you considered a funding campaign to reach your goals?

A few days in the studio with grandchildren has heightened my appreciation for lovably ugly creatures like Angela’s.

 

Lazy Monday

Lazy on PCDaily

Until 2010 Leah Lazy was a full-time cake decorator. Her customers wanted to keep her gum-paste characters so she switched to polymer and developed her line of monsters called Little Lazies.

Zombie kitties, pandas, bears and other beasts – all the colorful characters on this Virginia artist’s pages have colorfully bandaged owies.

It’s hard to feel threatened by an injured turquoise guy with a purple tongue, especially when you’ve seen him deconstructed. Leah makes her process seem deceptively simple.

Lazy on PCDaily

Creating endearing expressions, consistently smooth finishes and colors that grab – those tricks take patience, skill and a real love of monsters. Witness Leah’s work on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Etsy.

Polymer deviant

Johnson on PCDaily

Nicole Johnson’s Mealy Monsters may have caused the outage at PCDaily yesterday. Some serious gremlins pawed through the server and partied on the database. These guys look like they might be the culprits.

Each of Nicole’s buggy-eyed polymer creatures comes with a story and issues and a nose for trouble. Even if monsters scare you, it’s hard not to fall for these misfits.

Johnson on PCDaily

The Lowbrows were born from that sludge at the bottom of the tea cup and gave Nicole an excuse to shop at antique stores.

You can find the critters at Facebook, Instagram and Flickr. It’s most enlightening to check out Nicole’s Pinterest page and see what steers her to polymer deviants.

We chased them out of the server. PCD is back up and running fine.

Gaedechens glows, Udell collages

Germany’s Caroline Gaedechens (on Etsy as NuitBlanche) is an illustrator who mostly creates 2D illustrations and soft sculptures.

She has a penchant for glow-in-the-dark polymer clay, however, and her monsters and magnets (scroll sideways) are somehow a perfect blend of scarey and reassuring.

As I was exploring the web’s nooks and crannies, I also discovered that Luann Udell has an Etsy site.

Her jewelry and fiber collages are inspired by the Lascaux cave in France. This ancient cave, long considered the birthplace of human art, is filled with paintings of prehistoric animals.