Dan Friedlander’s series of 4″x4″ white polymer tiles is a study of textures. This Colorado artist makes the process sound like a meditation – sculpting the clay with only his hands, firing the tiles in a solar oven, and giving each a poetic title. You can see how he digs deep to come up with his wide range of variations…and titles! Ann Kruglak sent the link along.
Jon Anderson lives and works in Bali. His distinctive animal sculptures, densely covered with rich polymer cane patterns, have for years been found in galleries across the US.
Now Anderson has branched out, covering custom electric guitars with polymer for Hand Guitars. Hear him talk about his 50-pound, 12-foot canes in this video (at the top of the column at right) taken at a trade show in Nashville. The guitars range from $1800 to $6000. Here are more pictures and videos of the new venture.
I’ve returned to the midwest with a head full of ideas and a suitcase full of dirty laundry. I’ll be unpacking both this week.
Gera Scott Chandler has taken polymer rock making to the next level – inter-planetary. Her Martian rocks reveal colors and images from another planet. Click here to see one of her finished necklaces.
As a rock hound myself, it was gratifying when several artists attended our “Rockettes” session. They shared their secrets and compared their faux river rocks, beach stones and exotic pebbles. Gera’s were the most outlandish.
Gera was also the first one to spot a magical moose this week. Have a magical weekend.
One of my guilty pleasures at retreats is taking pictures of artists’ workspaces when they’ve left them for the night.
The tools and the piles of projects in process give a glimpse into how an artist works. Piles of scrap and dissarray are as intriguing as the tidiest table.
My favorite items are the personalized tools. Maybe it says something about how the artist values his or her skill, taking time to decorate a humble tool.
Kim Korringa’s work surface was littered with petal canes last night. Because she often wraps canes with Jones Tone foils, they pile up without sticking to each other.
The canes were surrounded by experiments and evidence that she was having a good time, like a littered kitchen after a particularly good party.
Maureen Carlson examines her more soulful side in her new collection of polymer totems. She says it’s a relief to sometimes leave her sweet fantasy characters behind and examine other ideas, emotions and cultures.
These modern tribal images are based on her face molds. Further decoration and coloring with alcohol inks and pencils give them distinct identities and stories. She makes the process look loose and fun.
Maureen will be teaching her new totem designs as part of her narrative bead class at the Florida Fandango retreat next May.
Jonathan Callan is a UK sculptor who mostly works with books and paper. While there’s no polymer clay here (and PCD rarely strays from polymer artists), I’m hoping that you’ll appreciate Callan’s cane brain. His “canes” are made from books and they’re simply fascinating. Could he have been influenced by polymer clay?
New ideas are flooding in from fellow artists here in Colorado. I have some lovelies to share with you tomorrow. For now, it’s back to my worktable. Today’s link came from my darling daughter.
Before I left town I finished my porch mosaic and I think it says “welcome” in a way that suits me. Adding the mosaic frame around the window in the door gives the entry the final touch it needed. Here are a few closeups and here’s the earlier post.
I’m getting settled in Colorado and hope you’ll distract yourselves with this while I get my bearings..
The Les Ethiopiques site is full of free tutorials and French polymer fun that will keep you kids busy in the back seat while I travel to Colorado for a week in the mountains. With any luck, I’ll keep posting daily about old friends, new products and moose.
Les Ethiopique’s faux leather ties in nicely with this week’s earlier Biker Chick post. Though her tutorials are in French, the photos say it all and you needn’t translate to get the gist. Just look for “tuto” and click away. Her generosity in creating all these free how-to’s is refreshing.
Thanks to Eva Ménager for the link. Have a refreshing weekend!
The armature for Christi Friesen’s latest wrap vessels may make you smile. She uses a ball of wet toilet paper!
Christi reveals that, “The technique is simply to take some toilet paper, get it wet, wad it into a ball and wring out the excess water. Wrap the clay around the ball and sculpt! The paper provides firmness to work against so you’re not poking through the vessel when you try to add details. Once the vessel is baked, just submerge the pot in water until the toilet paper gets all dissolvey. Then pull it out. It’s fun.”
Her new vessels will be in the next issue of American Style magazine and her annual eBay sale is happening this week.
Julie Eakes is pushing the boundaries of extrusion-based mosaics again. This time she used a looser palette and a more stylized image as her starting point. Would the image still be discernable?
This is the small version of the finished cane. I’m partial to the dimensional original cane. Mixing the palette for one of these works is an arduous dance between Photoshop and the pasta machine. She created 2,000 color samples on the computer to arrive at her last palette. No small feat! Read her story here.
The cable guy appeared and we’re back in business. Heaven!
