This pendant is part of Dan Cormier’s new Intentional Mokume Gane which he’s teaching this Tuesday in Slovenia as part of a week of workshops. He’ll demonstrate how to use dies and cutouts as templates for cutting more predictable patterned veneers with nature-inspired organic shapes.
Dan leaves little to chance and the idea of making mokume gane a less random process gets our attention.
He moves on to France later in March and then returns to the US for summer classes. Check out his schedule and his other new classes here and on Facebook – a good start for your intentional week.
Madrid’s Silvia Ortiz de la Torre has Germs. That’s what’s she’s calling this series of post earrings (or at least that’s how Google translates it).
They’re pillow shaped and covered with striped veneers. The corduroy texture comes from the fine threads on a bolt rolled across the unbaked surface. That’s an easy addition to pop into your toolbox.
Look closely and you’ll see subtle blends in Silvia’s bright stripes. As a wearer of post earrings, I appreciate her attention to small interesting shapes. See more of Silvia on Facebook, Flickr, Pinterest and Etsy.
Germany’s Bettina Welker will show how she swivels in an April class in Barcelona. Her full-day class is all about playing with shape, color, texture, pattern, dimension and movement.
Bettina has a background in graphics that shines through her work. She’s also got an engineer’s brain and enjoys devising new ways of riveting, hinging and connecting in polymer.
Here’s her newest moving art and she explains that, “All the parts are connected in a hinge-like manner so that every little piece can move freely.”
Classes fill fast so you’ll want to check Bettina’s schedule to see where she’s teaching next. (She’s in the US this fall.) See more of her art on her Ipernity site and on Facebook.
Florida’s Debo Groover is a failed bead maker. She couldn’t figure out how to use polymer so she devised her own methods as this large Dog Park painting shows.
She says that, “A few thousand bars of polymer clay and eight pasta machines later, I use the clay like a piece of fabric or paper. I mix the colors and make the patterns. I cut and glue it. I scrape and scratch it. I treat it like it was real clay and end up with surfaces I couldn’t possibly achieve with just a paintbrush. I try to capture the joy that is in my life and I tell my silly stories.”
Debo had a very successful ceramic career, traveling and teaching all over the world, but in 2000 her home and studio burned to the ground. Heartbroken, she stopped doing art, and instead renovated houses and worked as a nurse.
Then four years ago she started playing around with polymer clay. She’s self-taught and knows that her methods are unorthodox. People often think her large paintings are fabric or wood or linoleum.
You can read her story in the Fort Myers paper this week as she and her partner Tina begin the art festival season. Tina makes the smaller pieces and keeps things organized and on track. Follow their uninhibited and colorful works on the web site, on Facebook and on Pinterest.
Angela Barenholtz brings us another scrap trick in her newest woven fabric tutorial. If you’re a textile lover who has some patience with geometry and a pile of clay that needs rejuvenating, you may have found your answer.
The strips of pattern can be joined to make flat veneers as on the Hamsa below (it’s a symbol of protection). Or the thinner individual strips can be joined end to end and wrapped around base beads as shown at the left.
This technique may reduce your guilt about that abandoned project or those long ignored canes. Angela is a whiz at replicating the look of fabric and her tweed tutorial is still one of my very favorites.
Her series of cuts and stacks can be confusing. I know because I don’t follow instructions particularly well myself. But if you follow the pictures you’ll soon catch the logic and start cutting and stacking every scrap in sight. (That’s what I’ve been doing for days.)
Angela’s from Israel and it can take a few hours for her to send you the download link. See more of her samples on Flickr and in her Etsy shop.
Yes, yes, Germany’s Jana Lehmann knows just what we need for Monday. Her flowerpot pins bloom with bright graphic flowers springing out of textured cone shaped Skinner-blended pots.
Each flower contains a contrasting “seed” bead and is topped with dots of polymer. Jana says she prefers flowers in pots because they last longer than cut flowers in vases.
Jana stepped away from her precise style and used only very basic tools to create these monsters for a Fimo kids book she’s writing. See the whole range of her work on Pinterest, Flickr and Facebook.
Today we announce the launch the anticipatedVolume II – RETROthat so many of you have been waiting for! We are over the moon about this collection of Cynthia Tinapple’s newest extruder disk set which contains 8 fun and fashionable patterns. Cynthia doesn’t like to brag about herself so KazuriWest has taken over the controls today.
Check out the photo above of some of the amazing designs you can make and watch this quick video (below) of the disks in action. We here at kazuriwest.com are excited to launch Volume II – RETRO.
Cynthia is an international award-winning designer, educator, author of the book Polymer Clay Global Perspectives and producer of this renowned and insightful blog. As many of you know, she is quite a talented and amazing artist and loads of fun to work with.
Cynthia originally produced Volume I of her polymer clay extruder disks to meet the need for more clay pattern options and it flew off the shelves with customers all over the world clamoring for more. We cannot believe how popular extruders are becoming. Her designer’s eye has found fashionable icons and translated them into extrudable patterns that you can easily integrate into your work. Order yours here.
If you’ve never silkscreened on polymer, you’ll want to watch Helen’s free video tutorial that quickly shows you how. She’s been experimenting with using Tim Holtz crackle medium along with silkscreens to produce aged and crackled patterns as on this black folded bead (with red feathers)! Click on the image for a better look.
Helen used Picket Fence crackle paint over black clay using her Cosmic Spider Webs design. See more of her silkscreened samples on Pinterest. Helen’s books and stamps are available from KazuriWest.com. Catch up with Tonja on her blog and Facebook.
New tools offer the promise of exciting discoveries, new creations. When we’re cooped up and restless we start thinking, “What if ?”
Melissa Cable thought What if? and popped a band embellished with snap bezels and polymer into the oven to see if the leather would survive. It did and Create Recklessly was born.
If you’re itching for something that will help you take your work up a notch, come on over to Craftcast this evening (7:00 pm EST) for the free I Love Tools online party.
Discounts, giveaways and virtual appetizers! Reserve your seat or listen in later. Here’s what’s on the agenda (including my newest disks):
Art Clay World stamps with Jackie Truty
Potter Tools USA with Melissa Muir
Jool Tools with Anie Piliguian
Perfect Match Doming ™ with Janet Alexander
The D.R.E.A.M. Machine with Wilma Yost
Dover copyright free designs with Barbara Becker Simon
Create Recklessly leather tools with Melissa Cable
Polymer extruder disks (new set #2) with Cynthia Tinapple
Marina Rios (fancifuldevices) was born in Uraguay and lives in Chicago. Perhaps that helps explain how she’s able to reconcile colliding worlds, patterns, materials. Here’s what she says of her assemblages that often include polymer.
Balancing opposites is how I think of the universe and how I make jewelry. Old is paired with new, feminine contrasted with masculine, rustic mixed with refined, western enriched with tribal, functional elaborated with decorative…all these dualities and more are synthesized into an artifact that tells an alternative story of our past or perhaps a myth for the future.
On Pinterest you can see her polymer on a single board. On other sites (Etsy, her blog) your eyes have to search carefully to pick out which components might be polymer.
She says of her cosmic Victorian tribal jewelry, “To me they are a magical key to an imaginary realm.”
