April 30 deadline – No fooling!

Dana Phamova’s tile for the FIMO50 World Project shows off her fascination with color, light and shadow. Her 4″ tile could be a modern painting, a mosaic, or a collection of pieces from a Monopoly game. See more of Dana’s color studies here and here as well as on Flickr and Instagram.

The tiles from American artists continue to pile up in my studio until April 30 when I’ll box them up together and whisk them off to Germany. You still have time to mail yours to me in Ohio. Let’s make a great showing.

A sampling of entries are fun to study on Fimo50WorldProject. (Instagram updated its system forcing me to learn a new routine. Not to worry if yours hasn’t shown up yet. Check back.) Now off to the studio to finish your tile!

Polymer menagerie

Anna Hanzalkova (YellowJacketAngel) posted her spring collection on Facebook. Her menagerie of charming animals is constructed mosaic style in geometric gradients. Then she adds texture so that the pieces appear almost quilted. It’s a fresh effect that’s sure to be a hit.

Anna is from the Czech Republic and she’s part of the gang who published the Polymer Clay Heaven book/tutorials on their Etsy shop.

If you click through her pictures on the IPCA post, you’ll see that she’s also using tassels and fibers as jewelry findings in her new line – another trendy approach for spring/summer.

Frozen polymer moments

Guess what medium was used in the piece that won the top award at the Schmuck (German for jewelry) exhibit during the world’s top international contemporary jewelry event. You are looking at Jelizaveta (Liza) Suska’s Frozen Moment brooch made of polymer and crushed marble powder.

It’s the winner of the top prize at the Munich exhibit and was chosen among 700 applicants. The field was whittled down to 66 designers from 21 countries and took place during Munich’s Jewelry Week. The judges were intrigued at how the brooch resembles an unpolished gemstone. Translucent polymer has captivated us for years. With Liza’s vision and skill, it’s gaining wider recognition.

Liza, 26, is a Latvian who lives in Sweden. Read about her in the New York Times, her site, on Facebook and on Pinterest.

I hope Liza doesn’t mind our basking in the glow of her prize. The polymer community will happily latch onto the coattails of this talented young jeweler. The prize was brought to our attention by Kathleen Dustin who agrees that it marks a big step forward.

Another step forward

PolymerArt’s Sage Bray announces the April 14 publication of Polymer Journeys 2016 with 30% off the cover price until March 30. The book (in paper and digital formats) covers recent works of hundreds of artists.

Sage included my input about how the community has progressed and where we’re headed. Whether you’ve been a polymer artist for 10 days or 10 years, you’ll find something useful and inspirational in this book to keep you moving forward.

Spring twists in polymer

The spring colors of Angela Guertel’s latest brooch bloom with hints and colors of spring. Her Flickr page shows works that you may recognize as thoughtful twists on well-known processes to which Angela has added her own ideas.

For instance, these black and white beads were made with Kor tools along with some handmade patterns. Angela backfilled the graphic patterns for effect and strung them with textured polymer spacers. Her spring brooch and other reinvented works are on Facebook.

A daily gift

This 12″ mixed media plaque Omni Die Est Donum (Every day is a gift) from Laurie Mika looks right for Easter.

Laurie is home from Portland’s Art and Soul where students quickly caught on to her rich mosaic, mixed media, baked-in antiquities. She talks about her experiences on her most recent blog post.

See how Laurie gathers her inspirations and makes molds when she travels. Would you have the courage to do this?

Wander through her modern antiquities on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram on your Happy Easter weekend.

Rock solid polymer

Martin Pottjewijd, freelance graphic designer and sculptor from the Netherlands, likes to mix polymer with rock and sometimes with boulders!

“My work varies from an array of strange characters to architecture from different worlds and bygone days. With my work I want to make the world more colourful and make people smile,” he explains. See more of his castles and characters on Facebook and his site.

Martin was also the creator of The Adventures Polly and Mur comic strip (sponsored by Polyform) that appeared in the From Polymer to Art magazine.

Curled polymer

How can colorfully decorated curls on a cord make such a happy statement?

The patterns are splashed on with abandon and the colors meld into each other. It looks like Italy’s Cecilia Leonini treated both sides of the polymer and darkened the edges. Would you guess that she used pastels for the base colors? Go to Facebook, Flickr, and Etsy to take a closer look.

Let’s hope Cecilia makes you giggle and smile on a day when giggles and smiles are very much needed.

Denim and ruffles in polymer

You may not usually envision denim with ruffles but Russia’s Anna Bragina combines these two concepts quite nicely in her new Denim polymer bangle.

The rough-edged pieces (I’m guessing some extrusion was involved) stack up tightly next to each other in a rich selection of blues. Some strips fold back and forth to form ruffles. The contrast of tight/loose, rough/ruffled, makes me start thinking about how I could build an outfit around this. And getting the viewer/customer involved is what our art is all about, isn’t it?

See more of Anna’s solid and sophisticated pieces on Flickr and on Facebook.

Polymer tribute

Colorado artist/illustrator Tammy Durham is revisiting her favorite classic painters in polymer. Currently she is paying homage to Alphonse Mucha. Czech painter Mucha was one of the leaders of French Art Nouveau beginning in 1895.

These panels (Primrose on the left and Feather on the right) measure about 10 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ and are created with carefully layered strips of clay plus extruded and sculpted bits that reinterpret the original art.

You can click on the images for a closer look and browse through Tammy’s Facebook feed for a glimpse of her work in progress. You can also see her work on her site and on Pinterest.

Inklings about ink

New Hampshire’s Mary Anne Williams Knapp has been refining her alcohol ink skills for a long time and these polymer brooch beauties are her most recent results.

Mary Anne has learned how far to push the inks so that they still retain their vibrance.

How do you push your work? Do you find you go too far, not far enough, or do you land somewhere in the middle? (I get discouraged by the dark stains on my fingers.)

Visit her Facebook page, her blog and Etsy shop to see what Mary Anne has learned.

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