Spain’s Manon van Kempen has a way with flowers and she’s not ready to give up summer’s brilliant colors.
The pink of this 3D flower brings the delicately silkscreened base to life.
See all the flower gardens Manon brings to life on Instagram, Facebook, Flickr and Etsy.
The commission list for 2017 is full but you might make the 2018 wait list for your miniature polymer pooch from HelenViolet.
In the meanwhile look at the in-progress videos of her sculpting, texturing and then painting Who’s Your Doggy pets in polymer and see past works on Instagram.
“If we could be a little more ‘dog’, we would love more, we would play more, and rather than ‘try’ to be – We would just be,” Helen says on a interview on Outlaw Kritters.
Could you be a little more ‘sculptor’?
Greece’s Arieta Stavridou (Big Fish Arietas Handmade World) brings us a look at the last of the summer flowers with this polymer covered vessel.
The dimensional textured blossoms hover near the outer edges of the graceful shape. The blended background makes the whole arrangement look more like a painting than a pot. See more of Arieta’s unusual approach to covered shapes on Facebook.
Alisa Laryushkina’s (LiskaFlower) flowers and birds are made of delicately shaped curls of polymer in pastel colors. Her process combines aspects of paper quilling and braided soutache (traditional decorative braid or passementerie).
Alisa learned all kinds of embroidery as she grew up in Russia. She spent years creating flowers and then poured what she’d learned into her own polymer style.
The jewelry that Alisa has recently created updates the color, decoration and traditional parts of her heritage into a trendy and fashionable variation.
These two-tone post earrings are my favorite. Which of her works do you prefer? Refer to Etsy, Instagram and Pinterest to see all her styles.
Shannon Tabor (Charleston Clay Jewelery) uses her new silkscreen sparingly on these new Tribal Series post earrings.
One slim strip of Punchinella (sequin waste stencils) highlights the African colors and patterns.
See more photos on Facebook and Instagram. You can watch her work with some of these designs on a free video on YouTube.
These 3″ x 4″ polymer bowls from France’s Sonya Girodon are loaded with rough texture, dark color and curious details. They wobble and fold over and let the light in. They beg to be examined.
Even their names, Give some, take some (left) and ForNever (right) make you stop and look again.
Sonya says that her bowl experiments were prompted by Melanie Muir’s recent series in the London Design Fair. Perhaps the hunter-gather impulse still stirs us in the fall.
Meeting the artists whose work you only knew online previously requires some adjustment. You will know Jana Lehmann of Stuttgart from photos of her meticulously crafted pens and jewelry on Flickr and Facebook.
Here’s a new necklace of hers that sold immediately at the FIMO Symposium in Germany. Jana told me about the project books she’s written for FIMO (they don’t come up on your U.S. Amazon) and her venture into teaching in the U.S.
We chatted about how she might combine the caretaking path she’s considering with the art and teaching at which she excels.
In each FIMO50 class, islands of translation spontaneously appeared as multi-lingual students bridged the gaps between artists and we got to know each other. (Leila Bidler shows lots of photos on Facebook.)
Kristin Halvorsen’s newest beads from the Hooked on Polymer Facebook page match my FIMO50 party mood.
Kristin’s from Norway and her tube beads are formed from a wild patchwork of bright cane slices. The beads are are made uniform with color-matched metal grommets baked into each of their ends. Here’s Kristin on Pinterest.
The Symposium classes have started and I’m suffering from FIMO FOMO with the rest of you because I’m still adventuring in the city. I’ll join the festivities in earnest on Friday. Meanwhile check the great pictures all over Facebook.
What is FIMO FOMO? It’s the Fear Of Missing Out on the party. But fear not, there’s more coverage to come.
Joan Israel gives us a reminder to look around for surprise color in the leaves at this time of year. She mounts her own variety of polymer leaves onto a black canvas background for a dramatic effect.
When we slow down and take the time to look, we discover Joan’s vision of jewel-tone foliage all around us. See more on Instagram, Flickr and her site.
This is the night that Fimo50 participants pack their most distinctive pieces to wear at the symposium in Nuremberg. Could these crisp graphics belong to anyone but Carol Blackburn?
There’s no denying that we each have a style and we might just as well own it as Carol does with this new necklace. The controlled black and white stripes of varying widths, dots and chevrons radiate cheer and someone who’s ready to celebrate.
What piece of yours do you wear when you’re ready to have some fun? Should you make a new version that reflects the real you?
