Lindly Haunani has watched her Niche Award-winning pinched petal design evolve and change as the idea spread around the globe. The latest incarnation is this brooch version from Jeanette Kandray. Here Lindly’s pinched petals meet Eva Ehmeier’s artichokes.
Lindly chronicles some of the earlier versions on her blog. The process for making her original necklace is outlined as a color study in the Color Inspirations book.
This polymer pendant from Ukraine’s Svetlana (Rereshechka) makes a festive wearable garland of faux pine and cones, taking an organic approach to holiday jewelry.
Since I’ve missed many of this year’s shopping days, I’m less overwhelmed by the season and have a less jaded approach to decorations and festivities. It’s a nice turn of events.
If seasonal polymer doesn’t inspire you, Els VanHaasen’s experiments with pastel crayons may push you back to the studio to mess around with this painterly effect. See what she’s doing here.
Christine Damm helps the Create Mixed Media blog countdown to the holidays with this week’s dates in polymer that she’s stamped, molded, textured and painted. Great info on that blog!
A postage stamp triggers the theme of Tory Hughes’ Greetings Brooch. She constructs a tiny village around the stamp complete with skating pond and a VW bug stuck in a snow bank. She’s running a 20.12 discount special on her works through the end of the year. Check out her new SeaCliff series of brooches while you’re there.
In case you need a little more holiday-themed polymer to get your Monday buzz going, check out this easy “How to turn a heel“ tutorial from Joan Tayler.
Washington’s Sue Ellen records the essence of her nightly dreams in polymer and lets those sleeping faces speak their truth. Her Dreaming Muse Series involves creating one sleeping face a day that reflect the images, feelings and words of her dreams.
“How will the dreaming hours effect the waking ones? How will the observation of the nightly, subconscious stories, help to create the conscious ones I live in every day?” she asks herself.
My vivid jet-lagged dreams reminded me of this project that Ronna Weltman mentioned a while back. Sue Ellen’s been an actor, speech writer, career coach, corporate sales executive and more. Her introspective art fits comfortably with her interests.
My dream images deal with the clash of cultures as I try to integrate what I’ve learned in my travels into my life.
Sue Ellen’s been running her experiment since October. Her faces, tinted with alcohol inks and tucked among the rocks and plants in her garden, are intriguing. Take a look and have a restful weekend. I’m nearly back in the swing.
The quaint snow scene on a moon-shaped polymer necklace from France’s Cebeka is luring me back from a vacation groove to holiday mode. Check out the matching earrings here.
Cebeka and her “Bo and Girls Show” friends are putting on a show that’s guaranteed to make you feel festive.
In case you need a little help to ease you into making a few seasonal pretties, check out this tutorial from Carolyn and Dave Good. I’m hoping these are the antidote to jet lag.
Nepalis don’t fear color. The unbaked canes and finished pieces in the Samunnat studio showed none of the muddiness that plagues many projects. Their natural color sense must be a cultural legacy from a country awash in color. (Of course it helps that these polymer artists have also studied Color Inspirations.)
On the second day of teaching, the students gravitated to a pair of Kim Korringa earrings that I had brought along and were hungry to learn about them. Via email Kim generously agreed that I could share her tricks.
This tray of earrings headed for the oven (powered by a bone-rattling, foul-smelling generator) looked like a lovely local garden and the colorful Korringa designs with their new Nepali flavor blended beautifully with the women’s brightly patterned kurta salwars. Sharmilla models her earrings here and there are more pictures here.
Traveling around the world has left me jet-lagged, pondering what I learned and happy to be home as I sip a cup of peppery Nepali tea in my Ohio kitchen.
Thanks to the guest posters for their help, to you readers for making my trip worry-free, to my daughter for handling the details, to our gracious hosts and guides, and to you generous donors who continue to brighten the lives of artists a world away.
Mira (Pinki) Krispil began working with polymer in 2005 after operations on her hands. She went on to not only rehabilitate her hands but also to head up the Israeli Polymer Clay Guild. It’s not surprising that her sculptures and vases are imbued with joy, optimism, mischieviousness and humor. Here’s her Etsy gallery.
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Every day for the next three weeks, you’ll be treated to topics chosen by guest posters who volunteered to pinch-hit on PCDaily. Their work allows me to travel worry-free. Shower them with comments!
Here are some ways you can get involved in my Nepalese adventure:
In this exotic bracelet Wisconsin’s Erin Prais-Hintz took a few beads I created for my trip and worked some magic. I asked for asymmetric and jangly and sent her to my Pinterest board to get a sense of my vision. I’ve been tossing ideas and inspirations onto Pinterest for months.
My eyes filled with tears when I saw Erin’s results on this and several other pieces which are better than what I had in mind and way better than what I could have done. Here’s Erin’s work on Flickr and she’s written about this project on her blog. Erin’s creations are carefully packed in my suitcase as I head out for a few weeks.
I can hear you all shouting, “Bon Voyage!” See you in December.
Susan Crocenzi mixes polymer clay elements with her unglazed porcelain, tempered glass, glass and mirror mosaics as in this 8×10″ Architecture Healer (Hundtertwasser).
Artists can match polymer to the color, texture, shape, and thickness of other tesserae without the need of a kiln. Recently Susan’s been teaching mixed media classes that focus on integrating polymer into traditional mosaics.
“Mosaic art offers the sweet possibility that the random, disparate bits-and-pieces of our lives can yield peace, beauty, and meaning,” she explains. Read about Susan’s classes and study her glittering works on her site and her Facebook page.
South Carolina’s Lynda Moseley ushers in the season with some lovely vintage holiday transfers on polymer. Her collection’s theme is loosely based on historical traditions from around the world.
Lynda admits that her designs are sentimental. “When I was a teenager, my grandmother gave me a crosstitch pattern book which had different Christmas traditions in it and I recreated them all and put them on our tree. My mother still puts them on her tree and has every year for the last 35 years,” she says.
Here’s a sneak peek at her holiday collection. Do you have traditions that tug at your heartstrings and affect your designs?
