Polymer Clay Daily

Artists

Korringa’s workspace

One of my guilty pleasures at retreats is taking pictures of artists’ workspaces when they’ve left them for the night.

The tools and the piles of projects in process give a glimpse into how an artist works. Piles of scrap and dissarray are as intriguing as the tidiest table.

My favorite items are the personalized tools. Maybe it says something about how the artist values his or her skill, taking time to decorate a humble tool.

Kim Korringa’s work surface was littered with petal canes last night. Because she often wraps canes with Jones Tone foils, they pile up without sticking to each other.

The canes were surrounded by experiments and evidence that she was having a good time, like a littered kitchen after a particularly good party.

Carlson’s other faces

Maureen Carlson examines her more soulful side in her new collection of polymer totems. She says it’s a relief to sometimes leave her sweet fantasy characters behind and examine other ideas, emotions and cultures.

These modern tribal images are based on her face molds. Further decoration and coloring with alcohol inks and pencils give them distinct identities and stories. She makes the process look loose and fun.

Maureen will be teaching her new totem designs as part of her narrative bead class at the Florida Fandango retreat next May.

Callahan’s book cane sculptures

Jonathan Callan is a UK sculptor who mostly works with books and paper. While there’s no polymer clay here (and PCD rarely strays from polymer artists), I’m hoping that you’ll appreciate Callan’s cane brain. His “canes” are made from books and they’re simply fascinating. Could he have been influenced by polymer clay?

New ideas are flooding in from fellow artists here in Colorado. I have some lovelies to share with you tomorrow. For now, it’s back to my worktable. Today’s link came from my darling daughter.

Mosaic final touch

Before I left town I finished my porch mosaic and I think it says “welcome” in a way that suits me. Adding the mosaic frame around the window in the door gives the entry the final touch it needed. Here are a few closeups and here’s the earlier post.

I’m getting settled in Colorado and hope you’ll distract yourselves with this while I get my bearings..

Travel toys and tutorials

The Les Ethiopiques site is full of free tutorials and French polymer fun that will keep you kids busy in the back seat while I travel to Colorado for a week in the mountains. With any luck, I’ll keep posting daily about old friends, new products and moose.

Les Ethiopique’s faux leather ties in nicely with this week’s earlier Biker Chick post. Though her tutorials are in French, the photos say it all and you needn’t translate to get the gist. Just look for “tuto” and click away. Her generosity in creating all these free how-to’s is refreshing.

Thanks to Eva Ménager for the link. Have a refreshing weekend!

Friesen’s TP trick

The armature for Christi Friesen’s latest wrap vessels may make you smile. She uses a ball of wet toilet paper!

Christi reveals that, “The technique is simply to take some toilet paper, get it wet, wad it into a ball and wring out the excess water. Wrap the clay around the ball and sculpt! The paper provides firmness to work against so you’re not poking through the vessel when you try to add details. Once the vessel is baked, just submerge the pot in water until the toilet paper gets all dissolvey. Then pull it out. It’s fun.”

Her new vessels will be in the next issue of American Style magazine and her annual eBay sale is happening this week.

Eakes’ leap of faith

Julie Eakes is pushing the boundaries of extrusion-based mosaics again. This time she used a looser palette and a more stylized image as her starting point. Would the image still be discernable?

This is the small version of the finished cane. I’m partial to the dimensional original cane. Mixing the palette for one of these works is an arduous dance between Photoshop and the pasta machine. She created 2,000 color samples on the computer to arrive at her last palette. No small feat! Read her story here.

P.S.

The cable guy appeared and we’re back in business. Heaven!

Faux bike chain

Yep, LaLa Ortiz used polymer to create this faux bicycle chain bracelet. Lighter and less oily than the real version, don’t you think? There are better pictures here.

It’s a clever chain design which LaLa promises to upload to her Web site. She’d been thinking about the bracelet for a couple of years and it came to fruition at this year’s Polypalooza at Lake Tahoe. Clever biker girl.

Cable woes

Our wires got crossed or the squirrels chewed them or some such disaster has upset our household. Worse than not having internet is listening to my husband mourn the loss of his tv. If I’m slow to respond to email or a bit sloppy with my coding, you’ll know why. Waitin’ for the cable guy.

Blackford’s sideshow

Leslie Blackford is breathing a sigh of relief as she finishes her first major batch of orders for galleries. The tagline for her “carnies” series is “Damn everything but the circus.” The theme continues through the sculptures to her imaginative packaging.

Pendant cords travel up through the top of her boxes through a slit that holds each pendant in place. Stacked together they form an impromptu fun house display of her sideshow characters. Her catalog is printed as a circus flier.

Leslie’s companion packaging and promotions amplify the impact of her intensely personal and engaging work, an edgy combination of dark and whimsical.

Leslie’s theme is based on an e. e. cummings quote that may resonate with you on a Monday, “…damn everything that is grim, dull, motionless, unrisking, inward turning, damn everything that won’t get into the circle, that won’t enjoy, that won’t throw its heart into the tension, surprise, fear and delight of the circus, the round world, the full existence.“

Monstrous fun

Johnson's Normals

Nicole Johnson’s polymer Mealy Monsters finish our mostly non-jewelry week in style, monster style.

Her monsters have pets and sweetly flawed personalities that help you get past their horns, fangs and bulging eyes.

Leslie Levings’ Beastlies have that same sort of friendly monster appeal with their cute spots of color and tiny teeth. Check out pictures of her sales table at the recent Comic Con.

Levings' Beasties

Friendly monsters are all the rage in August but beware, the Halloween fanatics are mixing batches of orange and black polymer for darker, scarier creations. Thanks for playing along and have a monstrously fun weekend.