Heartfelt homecoming

Veronika Sturdy (from Prague and now working in London) brings us charming off-season dotty hearts. The texture and the individually placed dots on a slightly graduated background make a soft and romantic statement.

Veronika has heaps of works in all kinds of polymer techniques for you to explore on Flickr and Facebook. She’s a ceramic artist who googled “clay” and got thrown wildly off-course when “polymer clay” came up in her results.

Veronika’s heartfelt reminders reflect my comfort with being back home with my lusciously large desktop screen and screaming fast Internet connection. Happy to be home! Now to answer all your emails!

On-the-road polymer

Vera Kleist Thom shows up with this dynamite looking polymer Kameko Vase for our last post from the road. I’ll be home-based tomorrow.

Vera’s work makes me want to get back in the studio and make something big and unusual. You too?

Terrific muted colors, zooming shapes, slightly retro , updated mosaic and it could be extruded! Here’s her Etsy shop.

Glamorous polymer

Let’s start the week with some polymer glamor from Russia’s Olga Permyakova

Friday’s PCDaily looked at how Jan Geisen makes shapes work together. Olga hooks her shapes together tightly with rings and wires, sometimes linking an entire framed construction of polymer pieces.

See Olga’s Fall/Winter 2013-14 collection in this Facebook album and find it for sale here.

Homeward bound

One more day one the road! Days in the car make me feel anything but glamorous and if you’re waiting for an email from me, please be patient. We’ll be back soon.

Comfortable shapes

Minnesota’s Jan Geisen knows how to make shapes comfortable with each other and just by looking at her Flickr gallery you start to understand how shapes on top of shapes can work harmoniously.

On this bracelet overlapping circles are cleverly constructed on bases that snuggle between larger ovals. There’s a soft ease to the colors and patterns as well. See more on Etsy.

Jan’s a photographer and there must be some architecture or engineering in her background as well. Have a comfortable weekend.

Polymer comic relief

Enjoy a little comic relief from Pavla Cepelikova. These cute polymer pins are the work of students in her Comics class. What a fun introduction to polymer. Go see the rest on her Flickr site as I soak up the final few days of my vacation. Need more? Try Etsy and her Czech site.

Seeing spots

Polka dots are fashionable and classic…and very hard to make in polymer. I’m putting the finishing touches on tonight’s Craftcast class where you’ll learn how to make dots in your own palette and use them in a variety of ways. Then there are extruded tubes that become birch branches or curvy tubular accents…and so many other ideas!

If squeezing polymer out of a tube is a mystery to you, join us for some fascinating answers.

Tomorrow I’ll be less frenzied and it will be back to PCD business as usual.

Strings of polymer

These polymer pieces from Russia’s Victoria Mkhitarian are probably extruded strings. Either way, you’re going to enjoy a trip through her Flickr site to see her earthy colors tinged with an updated ethnic vibe.

In her Polymer with Spices necklace Victoria makes a Natasha bead look like a folk museum piece. Natasha beads are fun but they are rarely put to such good use.

Wednesday extrusions class

Only one more day of my rant about extrusions. There’s so much to pack into one online Craftcast class that I had to enlist the help of friends to give a bunch of techniques a try.

I had no idea that these longtime polymer artists were extruder newbies and it was fun to watch them “get it.” Still time to reserve a good seat (and of course you can download and watch later too).

Blazing new polymer paths

Sandra Trachsel’s works will have you squinting and scratching your head. How is that kind of precision possible?

Sandra (ST-art-clay) explains that she combined an illusion quilt pattern from Caryl Bryer Fallert and Dan Cormier’s matrix cane idea. For her mud cloth bracelet, she credits Donna Kato for the cane ideas and Dan Cormier for the forms.

A trip through Sandra’s recent work shows that while she’s been inspired by great teachers, she’s veering off on her own path which we’ll happily follow.

Polymer snails

This Snails 17″ necklace from Madrid’s Silvia Ortiz de la Torre shows us bright new ways with extruded polymer. We’ll have to guess how the coiled strips reveal their hints of other colors. Are they mounted on a backing or baked as a single unit?

Admire more of Silvia’s works on her blog and in her Etsy shop. Learn easy and time-saving extrusion tricks in my Craftcast class next Wednesday…I’m adding more to wow you.

Have a great weekend!

Extruded sunset

Libby Mills assembled this polymer collaged 4-inch tile as she quietly worked at our table at a recent conference. Backed with a Skinner blend, the tile combines a layer of ripple blade slices, swirled extruded strings and dabs of solid colors and textures in a fall palette. Her goal was to produce a series of decorative compositions for a wall.

This snapshot of Libby’s work popped up as I prepared samples for a class next Wednesday. (It looks very Santa Fe sunset!) My new extruded disks are now on sale on the Kazuri West site and I’ll be teaching extruder tricks (like perfect polka dots).

Extrusion is an enjoyable technique that we can use as another nifty tool to cover large areas and to produce consistently-sized elements. Ok, I have a thing for extrusion, do you?

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