Germany’s Margit Boehmer shows how she reused a candy tray with shallow indentations to hold her palette of pastels.
She shaves hard sticks of color into a powder that falls into the tray’s dimples. If you look closely you’ll see that she uses cotton swabs to apply powdered pastels to polymer.
Margit draws on and carves and distresses the pieces to give them more character. Lately she’s been aging her rainbow colors by adding crackle surfaces and washes of paint as a finishing touch.
When it gets gray and chilly, I like to wander through the small cozy gingerbread villages created in polymer by Stephanie Kilgast.
Will this be the year you try your hand at some? Look at those little circles she uses for roof tiles. She makes it look temptingly easy and you can google scads of templates. She shows some in-process shots on Instagram.
In the fall Stephanie makes gorgeous gourds that look fresh picked and tiny breads that almost smell home-baked.
Like many of you, I started playing with polymer when my daughter was furnishing her dollhouse many years ago. I have a soft spot for these small delights. Visit Stephanie on her blog, Facebook and her shop.
Austria’s Izabela Nowak posted this quote on her site and she takes it seriously. She mixes polymer with juice boxes and milk cartons as she navigates her way to beauty in recycling. Upcyling humble materials is part of her most recent Cut Up pieces.
A stroll through her Flickr site shows how she’s moved from spiraled up strips of polymer (her Gilese pieces) to intricate folded shapes (Into the Fold) and then to Cut up assemblages.
She has found that most manipulations that can be done with paper can also be done with polymer and she has developed classes and workshops for teaching her methods. Ultimately she combines the two media. Her latest creations appear on her Facebook page.
Her colors are bright and her love of geometry comes through strongly as she bends, cuts and folds basic shapes into beauty.
Maryland’s Eugena Topina ratchets up our fascination with hollow forms with her new Openwork Pendants: Under a Microscope series. Though their paper thin cell-like walls look fragile, they’re actually quite strong.
Your mind may be racing if you like microscopic images and undersea creatures. Eugena offers a new tutorial on her site (at 20% off today) that clearly shows how to achieve these effects.
Long known for her distinctive imitation cloisonne work and flawless resin surfaces, Eugena moved toward hollow constructions this year with openwork bracelets. The lacy pendants take the concept to a new level. You’ll find her on Etsy, Flickr and her own tutorial shop.
When I first saw the lovely paintings of Indian women by Rachana Saurabh, I thought, “This artist needs to try polymer, she’d be a natural.” It was easy to imagine her graphic style and her skill with color transitioned to clay.
Two years later, Rachana wrote from Baltimore where she now lives and indeed, she had found polymer.
Rachana quickly learned the craft and tried any number of techniques. She gravitated to appliquing bright bits of clay onto beads. Her designs take on a distinctly Indian textile flavor to which she adds bunches of dangling sparkles. These earrings are from her Festive collection.
On her latest bangle, Krishna and Peacock Feathers, Rachana introduced the ladies from her paintings to her jewelry. She says she tried face canes but couldn’t get the hang of reducing. These faces are sculpted and painted on the wide blue bangle. The Indian dieties’ favorite peacocks, cows, trees and lotus circle the piece.
Rachana’s story is full of exotic imagery and happy coincidences. Watch her on Facebook, Flickr and Etsy as well as her blog to see what she develops next.
Israel’s Iris Mishly has been on the computer for months learning to give her website a makeover. She’s a do-it-yourself, recycle kinda gal.
You may have guessed that the secret ingredient in her trendy DiscChic line involves a recycled computer part.
Today she’s posted a tell-all video that will have you scouring through the cords and adapters in your computer junk drawer in search of these parts that turn into easy bezels for polymer.
Iris’ 30 free tutorials are easy to find on the updated site along with tools and scads of other tutorials by category.
You can find her in the usual places too…Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, Etsy. She’s covered all the bases.
The undulating collaged cuffs appear positively impossible to create in polymer but Jana shares her secrets thoroughly. Just look at the students’ painterly geometric jumbles.
Convenient master class
If you’re itching for tips from a master, join Sarah Shriver tonight on Craftcast for some of her caning tricks (Wednesday, October 1 at 8:00. Sarah’s a delightful teacher and this is her first live online offering. It’s a deal!
Spain’s Miryam Garcia moves us away from yesterday’s large works to witness the power of small ones.
Inchies are so ubiquitous that we hardly notice them. But when Miryam grouped hers, the dots and textures took on new life as a colorful quilt. Wall art by inches!
This Spring Sprang Sprung table by Maine’s Bonnie Bishoff and J. M. Syron started small and grew bigger.
Bonnie explains that, “The table started as a request from a client to make a board room table and she wanted us to veneer the surface with a design inspired by a tryptich wall piece about 40 inches across.”
The polymer artist/furniture maker duo had already made several large fantastical pieces for the client.
The design concept showed an 8 ft table that would be 9 times larger than the original wall piece and would require 12 pounds of clay.
Bonnie shared a number of in-process photos that will give you an idea of what is required for a piece of this size. (I’ve slid her photos over from Facebook so that you can see them all at a glance.
Bonnie works in jewelry as well as furniture. Visit Artful Home, Bonnie’s shawl pin site, Facebook and their website to acquaint yourself with the wide span of their work. Start your week big!
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.
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.
