Polymer Clay Daily

Puns in polymer

Minnesota’s Jody Travous Nee has an affinity for puns in polymer. Her “ducks in a row” sculpture perfectly describes this Wednesday when most of us are making our lists for the rest of the week. Look for the pun in each of Jody’s small sculptures – from turnip trucks to brainwashing.

When Jody had a hard time making her works appear in the search engines, she decided to create a Kardashian sculpture. “That ought to do it,” she theorized. There’s lots of laughter in her work.

Now let’s line up our ducks:

  • Lori Wilkes has published a new Absolute Beginners Guide. Though they’re beginner projects, Lori shows you how to get started with style as she quickly moves you to more advanced concepts.
  • For those who are beyond beginner, check out Bettina Welker’s new bracelet book. Written in both English and German, Bettina leads you through four basic bracelet designs with ten exciting variations.
  • The Polymer Clay Master Class book can be pre-ordered (it’s due in December) and while you wait authors Judy Belcher and Tammy Honoman let you in on the backstory with the book’s new web site that introduces the artists and their works.
  • Did I mention that I’m teaching online tonight at Craftcast?
  • Yes, you can still fill out the first of our Synergy3 surveys to help us paint an accurate picture of our community.
  • Here’s hoping your ducks behave as well as ours.

 

Stacked polymer shards

These faux sea glass earrings are part of my live online Wednesday night Craftcast class. The soft and colorful alure of polymer shards pair nicely with the muted tones of my faux rocks. The pebbles and glass could have been scooped up off the beach.

Claire Maunsell’s glass butterflies from yesterday veer in another direction and show us that lots of artists are experimenting in this relatively new area. Of course, Kathrin Neumaier’s and others’ excellent works are spurring us on too.

Enthusiastic answers

Wow, your Synergy3 survey response has been terrific. We are so grateful for your help and will leave the forms up for the entire week in case you missed it. There’s still time.

Polymer flutters and surveys

Do these transparent polymer butterflies from Claire Maunsell make your heart flutter? The thin colorful beads are built on a 20 ga. copper wire which can be bent into a custom attachment. The customer asked for an assortment of colors and Claire happily obliged.

If these look like glass, it’s because Claire brings 20 years of experience in hot glass to polymer and her work contains echoes of her earlier training.

Check her Etsy and Zibbet sites to see when these lovely creatures begin appearing there (not yet).

More about you

The first of the surveys for our Synergy3 presentation poses just a few short questions about how you came to work in polymer and what pleasures and frustrations the craft brings you. Your answers will help Judy Belcher and me construct a more accurate picture of our community.

The multiple choice format makes it easy and you can answer in English, French, Spanish, German or Czech thanks to our volunteer translators. Click here to start.

Putting the pieces together

Each of these 25 polymer squares was made by different artists following a pattern handed to them. Julie Eakes prepared the Picasso drawing puzzle and the Pingree group created the pieces in 2011.

The rules were to reproduce the image you were given and to use a limited palette. No one knew what the whole project would look like. Assembling the tiles into an image was a struggle and a good group project.

Synergy puzzle

Judy Belcher and I are trying to assemble a picture of the polymer world for the Synergy conference. When you fill out the first of our surveys on Monday, you’ll be adding your anonymous data to our puzzle. Be ready, pop quiz on Monday. With your help, we’ll begin to see a picture emerging.

Wednesday class

I’m also assembling the last bits for my Rolling Stones class on Wednesday which will include some faux sea glass tips. Join me online at Craftcast for a fun session.

Fairy tale polymer

Julie Eakes has returned to her fairy tale canes, taking slices from her Beauty and the Beast and Red Riding Hood canes and making them into cylindrical pendants with polymer end caps.

Tiles with reminders about the stories hang from the bottom of each bead saying, “Beauty comes from within”,”Sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth” and “Wolves lurk in every guise.”

“I managed to get a cane slice to wrap around completely, working the tree and the bushes together to hide the seam which really looks cool up close,” says Julie.

See these and more of her recent cane portraits and elaborate frames on her site.

Polymer housing

Housing starts are on the rise, at least in the polymer world. Two new ones – Inessa (smfactory) from Kiev with her Halloween houses and Slovenia’s Marjana Cajhen collections of buildings got me house hunting. You may remember a few others featured on PCD:

These nostalgic and stylized designs make popular wearable and decorative reminders of simpler times and places.

Polymer mwah

We end the week with a big juicy kiss from Kathleen Dustin. It’s one of her signature polymer evening bags, of course.

Two of Kathleen’s purses were donated for an exhibit at Amsterdam’s Museum of Bags and Purses and will be part of the museum’s permanent collection.

Technical Note

Did you know that the folks at Sculpey changed the name of Premo Frost to White Translucent? (I had it turned around earlier…oops.) Frost and White Translucent are the same.

Iris Weiss from Polyform clarifies the situation explaining that, “We had to rename the two ounce bars for the larger craft stores because consumers didn’t understand what Frost was.” Thanks to Ronna Sarvas Weltman for bringing the switch to our attention.

Retro bangles

Seth Savarick introduced these new bangles on his Facebook page along with a couple of brooches.

While everyone else is gushing in their comments, Seth remains silent and mysterious about his latest creations. Way to keep us on our toes, Seth. What gives? There’s a cool retro look to these bangles, don’t you agree?