Declare your independence
A touch of red, white and blue from Barbara Handy to put you in an Independence Day mood.
Happy Fourth of July! Party on.
Polymer meets zentangle meets typography
Not only is this design from Croatia’s Nikolina Ortrzan eye-catching, it contains some secrets.
Another artist (Christine Candora-Hickey from North Carolina) showed how she had combined contour lettering and zentangle in her journal in ink and then added color using watercolor. Nikolina used the idea to create a polymer pendant that lists the names of all her pets.
“I just couldn’t resist when I saw this artjournaling post. I wrote the names of all our pets, past and present ones,” she says. Here’s Nikolina’s Etsy page. You may remember her popular cat earring designs.
Mosaic Monday
Pavla Cepelikova’s mosaic hollow beads will have you scratching your head. The colors and design combine to make them light, summery and intriguing.
This Czech polymer artist has a way with mosaics. Last time we featured her she had created her interpretation of a red, white and blue mosaic American flag on a heart brooch.
Pavla’s Facebook page shows how active she’s been in regional guild events.
Polymer shisha
Pieces of the PCDaily blog started moving themselves around unpredictably yesterday. And I started chasing them in the code (not my strong suit).
I threw up my hands in dismay and decided to focus on something positive like the brand new Etsy shop put up by the ladies in Birtamod, Nepal (with a big expert assist from Genevieve Williamson).
Look at those colors! Read Wendy Moore’s warm, wild commentary! I am so proud. Please go buy! Click a like or a favorite. It’s all good. The money goes directly to the project that you can read about here.
Miracle of miracles, the blog reshuffled itself back into place. “No, you did-dent,” I yelled at the computer and it smiled back. We seem to be on the mend! Thanks for your patience.
Polymer pansies
Eri, an artist on Etsy, brings an architectural sense to her simply sculptured polymer necklaces. In the Pansies Between Pink Corals necklace she places groups of rounded polymer disks off center between small pink beads.
Her work is filled with references to flower petals (lillies, pansies, tulips, water lilies) as in this Meadow Around Your Neck. Her other inspiration comes from sea creatures (limpets, sea anemones).
What we know about Eri is that she’s a full-time architect in Athens, Greece and that she has a way with clay.
Going clayzy
Montreal-based artist and illustrator Raku Inoue feared he had that dreaded viral clay disease. He’d gone clayzy! Nope, it was just his art manifesting itself in polymer. Read his biography to get the full scoop.
Raku was born in suburban Tokyo in 1983. He spent his early childhood watching anime, reading manga and discovering living creatures, especially insects. He immigrated to Canada when he was nine. He bounces between illustration, sculpture, photography and never strays far from polymer.
Look at these closeups of some of his lush polymer sculptures.
Summery flowers
Doesn’t this necklace from Cecilia Botton look charmingly simple? A no-brainer!
Extruded square black tubes of polymer are interspersed with shorter sections of tube that have been embellished with simple flower cane slices. The colorful slices pop out against the black background.
Cecilia is French and works in Hong Kong. As a fabric buyer she has lots of experience with what does and doesn’t work in patterns. Her web sites are a riot of experiments and playing with patterns in ways that catch the eye. See what she’s done with the Stroppel cane. When she’s not traveling, Cecilia gets up early to fit in some polymer work before she begins her job and it’s easiest to track her work on Flickr.
Giving myself a long weekend! See you here on Monday.
Trebizond beads
These big beads from Tory Hughes have an uninhibited, slap-dash look about them with a few seed beads tossed on top of random strips of color.
The allure of the colors and the composition have me wishing I could get to Santa Fe for her one day Big Colorful Bead class in July. Read all about it here.
Moscow summer
Need a taste of summer? This is Moscow summer from Juliya Lauhina. Not only are the colors like sorbet and salads, her techniques contain twists and turns that will leave you scratching your head. How did she do that?
Plus you get to see Juliya at her booth in the market.
Polymer paydirt
Tucked in among the oxidized silver, bronze and copper chains, pendants and earrings in Greg and BJ Jordan’s booth at the local art fair, a blast of color jumped out at me. Paydirt! New polymer!
BJ and Greg are from Fort Wayne, Indiana and have been metalworkers for 30 years. BJ creates the polymer sheets and inlays the fired patterns into the bezels.
Her bold colors and graphic patterns compliment their strong primitive metal designs.
I had to have a pair for my collection (business expense, right?) and you can find them online at Etsy here. For their most current activity, check their Facebook page.