Thank goodness that Croatia’s Nikolina Otrzan revealed her painterly polymer methods in a free tutorial that she uploaded this week. Her process is hard to guess but easy once you see it done.
Nikolina starts with a crisp graphic style that she later softens and blends for a retro effect. Thanks for the tute!
Her Flickr site is full of other examples including this clever cat design. She likes to doodle on polymer.
Spring cleaning
Thanks to the eagle-eyed Facebook fans who let me know that the PCD posts weren’t appearing in FB. I replaced the dusty old 2007 plugin with a shiny new one. I guess we wore it out!
How about this reverse mokume gane from Bulgaria’s Maria Ivanova for a Friday brain teaser? Maybe you’d call it a combination of mokume gane and backfilling. Maria calls it painting with mokume gane.
Look at her quick visual tutorial and you’ll get the gist. That’s how this simple flower and her Lady with Flower pendant were done. Does this twist on a familiar technique start some wheels turning?
We all have those bits of leftover colored polymer that should be good for something, right? Rebecca Watkins has taught herself to”see” something in each ball of colorful bits and she shows you how in a few scrap to bouquet steps on her Flickr site.
When she covers the resulting carved unbaked beads with black mica they look dull and disastrous. But a light sanding of the baked bead reveals the color and brings out the pattern. She makes it look simple. Please tell me if it really is that easy. Rebecca’s recently developed a shortcut to organic stripes tutorial that you may enjoy too.
by Genevieve Williamson on November 15, 2011 · 81 comments
When my art teacher husband told me he had decided to add polymer clay to his high school 3D design class I was thrilled!
Naively I thought it would be pretty easy to help him write the curriculum for his 10th-12th grade students. It wasn’t until we actually got to work that I realized our biggest hurdle would be condensing the mountain of skills, techniques and information available to fit ten, 80-minute sessions. Onward!
We ordered required reading materials based on the Polymer Art Archive bibliography, poured over the internet and started sharing the pasta machine. Basic supplies were ordered and arrived within a week. So what’s next?
Well, we’d love to have your help! Beyond conditioning, baking and basic studio safety, what four or five foundational polymer clay skills should be included in the lessons? Leave your comment here or write me directly at jibbyandjuna@comcast.net
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