Polymer Clay Daily

Integrating findings

Washington’s Dede Leupold hammers leftover bits of silver into soft shapes that harmonize with her canes for an elegant effect and easy assembly. Baked into the clay the silver also provides a sturdy finding.

Leupold on PCDaily

Dede gravitates to canework and she has come up with a folding mirror to carry in your toolbox so that you can accurately predict how a pattern repeats. It’s a handy device to have when you’re building a cane that’s full of confusing color and geometry. Enjoy Dede’s spring colors on Facebook and in an Etsy shop for jewelry and one for buttons.

Sample polymer

Fresh spring colors pull your eye to the brooches and rings from Madrid’s Fabiola Perez Ajates. These new samples from her May class hum with patterns and layers of interest.

The pièce de résistance is the companion container that hides your jewels. Fabi’s known for her clever containers. Thumb through her Flickr pictures to get a sense of what she does. And note how well her students do!

Can’t get to Madrid? I’m pleased to have a chapter and a project from the fabulous Fabi in my upcoming book that’s available for pre-order on Amazon/Barnes & Noble/Indiebound. It’ll be here by July 30!

Monday mashup in polymer

Hyde on PCDaily

What would happen if last week’s elephant met up with a kangaroo? In Susan Hyde’s mind we’d have a Kangarat/Eleroo like this 10″ one she’s constructed from polymer.

Susan has joined a gallery in Bremerton, Washington. For poetry month, she and her fellow artists illustrated poems by local poets. The one Susan chose, The Bainbridge Zoo, chronicles an elephant and kangaroo affair.

Another poem called Gypsy inspired this 12″ piece filled with the great polymer fabrics that Susan is known for. Here’s her old fabric tutorial that I have to drag out again because it’s my favorite.

Tiny mandalas

Inga Rosenberg (Kni.Kni) from Latvia has a thing for elephants. She set herself a challenge to create one polymer mandala elephant each month this year. While they are lovely, what’s even more astounding is their size. They’re each 1 1/2 inch by 1 inch (3×4 cm) and here’s the picture to prove it. This was her mini-mandala for March.

Imagine the patience it takes to create at this scale. “I got my peace back,” she says of her effort, “The peace I get while making each of them is indescribable.” Last month’s Chocolate Cake with Cherries elephant is mouthwateringly lacy and beautiful. You’ll have to see the whole herd to appreciate Inga’s skill.

More Elephants

Inga’s tiny elephants transport me right back to Nepal (here’s a photo from our trip) and the latest posts from the Samunnat ladies who are busy buying cement and building supplies for their new home which is becoming a reality because of your generosity. Your contributions of cash and karma mean that they will have a safe place to call their own.

Your heart will melt when you read what this means to them. Samunnat beads are for sale on KazuriWest and their jewelry is sold through their Etsy shop.

Polymer kiss

Kiss on PCDaily

Here’s a refreshingly easy mid-week interlude from Agi Kiss in Budapest, Hungary. These gypsy-like earrings are smartly shaped, then stamped with an exotic image and darkly stained to reveal the detail. Altogether simple and sexy design.

Don’t let the simplicity of her design fool you though, Agi also takes on complex beaded projects, mixing beads and polymer in heavily encrusted pieces.

Kiss on PCDaily

She markets the simpler pieces on her Etsy shop and in her Hungarian online shop. Agi shows more work that’s bead embroidered on her blog and on Facebook.

Synergy fallout

Rebecca Watkins on PCDaily

The Synergy fallout continues with Rebecca Watkins’ Floral Bangle. After attending a Seth Savarick session on planning your projects, Rebecca decided walk the talk.

She wanted to work on more complex projects that required planning, precision, and polish so she took her usual methods of working to the next level. The process wasn’t without pitfalls that she recounts on her blog. She’s ready to keep going.

Christine Dumont on PCDaily

Part of Rebecca’s inspiration also came from this Curl-Up bangle that Christine Dumont wore. The openwork makes the cuff appear delicate but I examined it myself and it was very tough and sturdy (using Kato clay). Christine made her bangle as she was rethinking cane slices on her site, Voila.eu.com, for a module in the popular How to Become a Better Artist series.

Don’t miss Rebecca’s Saturday post about what she learned in Jeff Dever’s session. Jeff taught the crowd how to keep an eye out for unusual materials that cost next to nothing. So smart!

Weekend sightings

Welker UFO on PCDaily
Dustin fragment purse on PCDaily

Why not start the week with the UFO bracelet hovering on Bettina Welker’s pages and a Fragment from Kathleen Dustin’s latest purses?

Bettina’s work didn’t start out as a spaceship but when she took a second look, the bangle begged for antennae (and that’s no April fool). Kathleen posted her addition in a new location, the gallery on her Pinterest page. Both works point toward freer designs and styles unfettered by old expectations. This is the look of today’s polymer art and there are many more exciting examples.

It’s spring and time to think about the new design seeds you’d like to plant in your work.

Hollow echoes

Krichevskaya on PCDaily

This week big, rough, natural-looking beads kept popping up all over the world. We’ve got Anna Krichevskaya (left) from Russia, Kseniya Iokhna from Belarus, and Danièle Moucadel in Italy all catching the same vibe. All different, of course, but with an emphasis on light and hollow (or with big holes which is similar).

Anna calls her necklace Jeans Forever and she sells her big, earthy, informal jewelry here.

Danièle (right) refers to her heavy cord as jump rope (or that’s how it translated). The heavy cord works well with this jumble of big rings. If you can get to her Facebook page you’ll see even more in this vein.

Kseniya (Xenia) Iokhna goes under the name of SolarBird and she lives in Minsk. She calls these hollowed out round beads Druid Stones.

Iokhna on PCDaily

Xenia pinpoints her influences – the architect Zaha Hadid and paper artist Jeremy May. It’s easy to see the echoes in her work. Whew, there’s so much to look at these days. Have an inspired weekend.

Egg hunt

Friesleben on PCDaily
Hickey on PCDaily
Ariane Friesleben Angela Hickey Jan Montarsi

Go on a little egg hunt with me today. First I bumped into Angela Hickey’s flower-covered eggs (one chicken, one quail). Hers is a traditional approach straight from her garden of flower canes.

Ariane Friesleben camoflaged her eggs with Swelligant patinas to make them look like precious metallic treasures. She offers a carved faux ivory version as well.

This Jan Montarsi egg was hiding in his Flickr gallery. His palette includes pearl clays and pinata inks (here’s the tutorial) in the mix which makes the extruded strings glow.

All of this led me back to the PolymerArtArchives and one of my all-time favorite eggs from a 1991 series by Ford and Forlano (then City Zen Cane). You can still find echoes of David and Steven’s bright graphic roots in their current work.

Even Martha Stewart was in on the hunt this year. Yep, here’s the video that shows Martha trying her hand at polymer.