Wired polymer

Ponsawan Silapiruti has been playing with positive/negative space as she makes wire brooch and pendant forms. " I use bigger gauge wire to make the form, then use smaller wire to wrap around the big wire and in the middle. When I put on a sheet of polymer to fill it up, the clay grabs onto the wire," she explains.

You can see how Ponsawan has progressed with her wire working on her Flickr site and get even more details on her Facebook page. One of the wire forms below became this polymer-filled brooch.

Breezy polymer

On a hot day, the graceful, spare designs from Ohio’s Grace Stokes are like a cool breeze.

Grace says that her work with polymer was born out of frustration. "I did not want to be limited by the color or pattern or size of a stone," she says. " Polymer allows me the versaility to create elements and qualities exactly to the specifications that I want for my designs."

Time for a mint julip!

Fruit polymer

The weekend farmers markets are bustling this time of year and these wearable translucent polymer raspberries look as juicy as the real ones.

Moscow’s Natalia Leitman (Madlen) specializes in small fruits, berries and flowers to wear.

What looked like a single J-shaped earring confused me until I saw this photo and realized it’s not an earring, it’s a belly ring for wearing on your pierced navel! Google body jewelry findings to locate the hardware.

Her garden delights make great bracelets, brooches and hair adornments as well. See all her creations on Natalia’s blog and her instagram. Should you consider some fruit this week?

Sulky polymer

France’s Sonya Girodon’s Boudoir necklace has a softer, more romantic way with designs and doodles. Sonya explains that boudoir means, “Little bedroom or study adjacent to the lady’s main bedroom of the castle – a place to hide away and be alone amongst the things she loves. Bouder means to sulk in French.”

Sonya takes Sutton-slice accented pieces of polymer and rolls them into dimensional tube beads. The coral and beige colors add to the sulky mood and the square metal bezel adds intrigue.

Sonya usually gravitates to ethnic designs and you may enjoy her pages on the EthnicJewels ning site. Here’s her Rain Dance necklace where she carves designs into polymer. You might have guessed that she grew up in South Africa. See the range of her strong and unusual designs on her Flickr site.

Doodle delights

Continuing our doodle theme, Germany’s Margit Bohmer doodles on paper and then transfers the drawing to raw polymer.

The fun continues as she uses inks or paints or colored pencils to color in the design. The results are formed into bangles or sliced into earrings, brooches and such. (Note that the transfer would actually be mirror-imaged but the animation looked more believable this way.)

Get the whole scoop on Margit’s Flickr page or friend her on Facebook. On a hot day, this might be a painterly way to play with sticky clay.

Doodled polymer

Pennsylvania’s Staci Louise Smith doodled on white polymer after she was inspired by a favorite painter’s new work. Her doodle beads made her feel better about not buying the painting.

When you visit Staci’s studio you will see how doodling is deeply embedded in her art brain. It may make you consider painting your floor!

In the same post she talks about salvaging a batch of black polymer beads by carving doodles in them. Staci works in metal clay, sea glass, wire – you name it.

Most of her polymer beads show up on her Artisan Accents site and she’s a force in the Love My Art Jewelry group. Yesterday’s Kimberly Rogers is also part of the group.

Polymer for dancing

This blog post from polymer newbie Kimberly Rogers about bad days and new beginnings may make you smile.

She’s an Alaskan lampwork and mixed media artist who easily transitioned to polymer when she bought Ginger Allman’s tutorial on rustic beads.

Kimberly used the red, white and blue polymer that she had on hand and diguised the color with paints following Ginger’s instructions. And then she danced!

Read more

Donna Greenberg’s homage to artist Morundi. Fabulous polymer-covered bottles.

Free tutorial from Anke Humpert by signing up for her newsletter mailing list.

Action-packed inchies

These 1-inch squares from Missouri’s Chris Kapono are packed with color and movement. Textured strips, rolls and balls of polymer have a surprising impact crammed into small spaces. They remind us that we can make a big splash with a few tools and a little clay.

See Chris’ gallery on ClayLessons and her sales site on Etsy. Thanks to Randee Ketzel for the link.

Go fish polymer

Fishing takes patience and Rebecca Watkins shows us how patience pays off in this July holiday experiment.

She says of her 5″x7″ polymer plaque, “It started off as scrap clay, mostly pink and white on a muddy gray. I decided it looked like a bunch of wiggly fish but I didn’t like the gray so I cut the pink and white shapes out. I scratched some lines into the base for waves and added a few strings of seaweed.The fish were laid on top and burnished down lightly. I used a pointy tool to make the lines and then I covered the entire thing with black and metallic blue Perfect Pearls powder.”

After curing and sanding off the powder Rebecca didn’t like the faded color and started again. “I got out my colored pencils and went to town.” After more coloring, baking and buffing, she caught her fish.

If you’d like to read more about Rebecca, you can pre-order the Global Perspectives book where she walks you through one of her projects step-by-step.

Independent polymer

Dana Phamova (Fruitensse) brings us the perfect colors for July 4 with her Lifebuoy bangles. Red, white and blue will be everywhere in the U.S. today.

Look at all of Dana’s work on her Flickr site. She is a university student in the Czech Republic studying computer graphics. A number of other popular Czech artists and Dana have put together an online polymer school and you can hear her talking about their courses.

Americans aren’t the only ones with a streak of independence! Happy Independence Day!

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