Wiwat Kamolpornwijit started his show season with a twist in Florida last weekend. Dots are a hot item and Wiwat gives his a twist that plays with geometry.
He backs dotted veneers with silver clay that he cuts into circles. Sliced across the middle, half the circle heads east and the other flips west as they are mounted on round silver links.
Sometimes we like the unexpected.
Is your wavy blade feeling neglected? Is it calling to you from the back of a crowded drawer?
UK’s Nadege Honey gives ho-hum stripes some zig-zag pizazz by setting the straight blade aside and using a wavy one instead as she creates a slab of pattern.
Not rocket science but a welcome change.
When Monday chores won’t allow you to work on your clay, following another artist’s process can be very satisfying. That’s why these step-outs from Washington’s Kristi Thorndike-Kent and Jen Young (GoInsideandclay) are enticing.
The straight strips of color overlap slightly for a beautiful bend. The vibrant blend thins out and then stacks up into sporty stripes. Kristi and Jen share how they arrived at these cutouts that are just a few steps away from finished jewelry.
They make it look so easy! See the in-between steps on their Instagram.
Prague’s Jana Honnerova decorates her ukulele with polymer. Her colored stripes and carved lines mirror the design of the frets and strings striking just the right chord.
Imagine the size of that veneer? Is there something in your world that would benefit from decoration?
The shape that Vancouver’s Janet Bouey uses for her pendants is a pleasing and popular one.
Janet has synthesized what can be a complicated design to its simplest form with the use of a jump ring on either side on the top edge of the pendant.
It’s simple to construct and can still be elegant to wear. That’s a win-win in my book. Of course, it helps to have compelling veneers for your pendants too!
Utah’s Jana Roberts Benzon’s latest new pins/pendants show off her wing-like dimensional, veneer-covered collages.
She’s about to offer her work on Etsy in a few weeks after years of resisting online sales. She’also promises to beef up her Instagram. It may be the grandbabies who are compelling her to stick closer to home.
While we wait for Etsy to launch her, enjoy Jana’s works on Facebook and her website.
Oklahoma’s Katie Way made stripes in her own distinctive palette using Carol Blackburn’s clever instructions. By cutting slim slices and incrementally jogging their positions, Katie re-assembled her stripes into a veneer that looks like a miniature afghan. It could provide warmth in some dollhouse this winter.
The result is so alluring she probably hates to cut it to make her holiday jewelry line. Go to Katie’s Instagram to see what her veneer becomes.
Over at StudioMojo this weekend, I’m taking a deep breath and revealing the subject of a new book I’m writing. I won’t be alone. There are several other polymer artists who are writing this fall. Join us to read about the bumper crop of books and the trends that have started a buzz.
I hesitate to feature my own work but when I run out of research time, it’s the best option. Here’s the 11″ diameter bowl I inlaid last week.
I was happy to get back to my easy stripes at the Virginia conference. Rather than fight against doing the “same old, same old” I welcomed the ease of the familiar. And I had Lindly Haunani nearby to give me color guidance.
I laid narrow strips of veneer into a shallow groove in the spalted maple bowl turned by my husband, Blair Davis. There’s something comforting in knowing that the bowl is made from the tree across the street. “Spalted” is a fancy word for rotted and the tree had to go. You can see a few in-process shots on my Instagram.
Now I can get to composing this week’s Saturday newsletter and gathering up the last tidbits that surfaced at the end of Shrine Mont. Just as we were packing up, people were sharing their “one-last-thing.” And there was a sudden spring crop of tutorials online this week. Join us over at StudioMojo for the scoop.
Maryland’s Kelly Russell excels at jewel-like veneers. She can’t stop saying, “What if.”
With this veneer, she had to figure out what her gilded and colored surface would look like if she gave it Jana Roberts Benzon’s encrusted treatment.
With others, she made rough mosaics and big multi-part beads that seem unearthed from another time. Kelly’s on a roll that she shares on Facebook.
Caner Carola Greiser (polymerclayshed) from Texas starts our week with a black and white background cane. Carola made the cane specifically to frame her moose cane.
But who wouldn’t welcome the sketchy dashes and lines of this composition to enhance a larger design? It has the look of a Norwegian knitting pattern.
Carola uses her designs to cover crochet hooks, card cases, pens, and other small items that you can see on Instagram and Etsy.
