Traveling polymer

Kathleen Dustin posted six new World Traveler Purses on her Pinterest board over the weekend. “Based on my travels of the world and the ethnic art I’ve seen and collected, these are my modern tribal purses and their influences,” she says. Each one in this group is named after a city in Turkey.

On this Amasya Purse, large swaths of subtly blended polymer colors are densely textured by hand. Additional dimension is added with dots and other appliques. Washes of color enhance the details.

When a violin bow maker offered Kathleen some horsehair, she gladly accepted it. The horsehair is incorporated into several of these new works.

The top half slides up on thick buna cord which allows the wearer to open the purse.

Thanks to Kathleen for igniting our week with inspiration.

Hollow how-to

Arizona’s Amber Radosevich was all about bugs – making caterpillars, arachnids, butterflies and such in polymer.

When she started experimenting with translucent polymer, her work took a turn to amber and imitative glass. She’s come up with some innovative methods and clever solutions for making hollow beads and she’s not done playing yet.

If translucent beads have been calling you, take a look at her tutorials. I bought one tutorial to test and now I want to know all her tricks. Headpins? Disks? Bumpy beads? She continues to turn out tutorials. Here’s her Etsy shop and her Facebook page.

Hope you didn’t have other plans for the weekend because you may be distracted.

Polymer painting

Victoria’s Gera Chandler lets her poppies climb off the top edge of this 16″ x 8″ canvas. She’s become expert at layering high intensity polymer scenes onto canvases, combining painting and sculpture.

Read Gera’s project in Polymer Clay Global Perspectives to learn her process. There are lots more examples on her blog and a bit on her Etsy shop.

You may have to look closely at Susan O’Neill’s canvas below to see where she’s headed. A pair of earrings hang from holes in the middle of the canvas. This dual purpose work allows the owner to wear the artwork or simply appreciate it on the wall.

You may also appreciate how she used her bird in a stunning pair of earrings.

Susan has long experimented with combining liquid polymer and gauze (here and here). You can also track her progress on Facebook.

If you’re considering moving to larger polymer works, canvas is obviously one good path.

Polymer rainbow roses

Ann Duncan Hlavach knows her roses. The color tricks she learned in a recent class in Chicago with Lindly Haunani took her flowers to a new level. “I think my head may have exploded,” she says.

Rainbow roses are a real phenomenon. Here’s a tutorial on how to tint a natural white rose.

But I prefer Ann’s translucent petals with their contrast tinged edges and jewel centers. You can enjoy them for a whole lot longer. You’ll find more on Etsy, Facebook and Pinterest.

Monday dragons

These Monday dragons are from Alessio Busanca, an illustrator from Sardinia who picked up polymer as his primary medium in 2010. His small sculptures combine influences from American comics and Japanese manga. His dragons may be his most popular series and he sells them on Ebay.

His Pinterest page has the most up-to-date offerings. I also tracked him down on Facebook, DeviantArt, Twitter and Instagram. It’s worth the hunt to research his endearing miniatures. His pop culture characters, horror show stars and fanart creatures are packed with an endless variety of personalities and styles.

Wrap it up polymer

We wrap up the week by moving from folding to wrapping with this Striped Cage Pin from Maine’s Bonnie Bishoff. Strips of polymer patterns wind and swirl around each other to form a vortex.

This new work for the April CraftBoston and other new pieces on her revamped website show the direction that Bonnie is moving with her jewelry. Of course you’ll want to check out her furniture inlays as well. Bonnie’s also on Facebook here.

Muir’s free tutorial

Sculpey has revamped their company website too. The new site includes a gem of a free tutorial from Melanie Muir. In just a few steps she shows some signature tricks for her distinctively framed mokume gane.

Polymer future unfolds

Look for more folds this year. Here you see Susan Hyde wrap her fabric-like sheet around curled snakes to create a brooch that you can find on Facebook.

Her fabric tutorial is still my all-time favorite.

Then Dan Cormier combines three techniques he’s researched into one in this Blurred Lines brooch.

A veneer of blurred colors runs over a light folded background until it hits a dieformed dark area.

This brooch is featured on the cover of Dan and Tracy’s newest e-book, Blurred Lines: Blended Patterns in Polymer Clay, that the duo will offer online soon. Read the whole story here. Are folds in your future?

Euclidean polymer

It must be almost spring. After a couple of days visiting grandchildren, I return to find Debbie Crothers trying some alchemy in her studio. What do you suppose she’s using?

Sona Gregoryan is folding paper in complex ways and covering it for a kind of Euclidian polymer. I get back online and everywhere there’s something new in bloom.

There’s even a buzz about an upcoming clay product from Polyform first announced on PolyClayPlay. Seems the suedelike surface of the new Sculpey Souffle may fill the hole left by discontinuation of Sculpey Studio. Spring ideas are blossoming all around.

Polymer growths

These organic dot earrings and brooches from Kerstin Rupprecht are intriguing. Surely they are polymer and the shine could be resin or liquid polymer.

I’ve spent too much time trying to figure out how she did this so I’ll leave it to you. What do you think? There aren’t too many clues on Flickr. Her fashionable and mysterious creations look like cells or growths. Very hip and mysterious.

Louder than words polymer

This small, haunting mosaic brooch by Cynthia Toops kept drawing me back to it. The image is of Sharbat Gula, the Afghan girl whose portrait was featured on the cover of National Geographic in 1985. She became known as the Afghan Mona Lisa and her photograph inspired millions to support the refugee effort.

Cynthia reinterpreted the famous photograph in a 2″ x 1 1/4″ polymer micro mosaic for an exhibit called Louder Than Words at Facere Gallery in Seattle. She embeds thread-like, pre-baked bits of color into an unbaked polymer background to recreate the photo image.

Cynthia also rendered the Tianamen Square photo in polymer for the exhibit which featured jewelry that spoke louder than words. Her beautifully detailed work reminds us how powerful and exquisite polymer can be! Cynthia’s new self-published portfolio of her latest works is a treasure too.

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Artists

Muir’s free tutorial