Polymer Clay Daily

Artists

Back from Santa Fe
Light, dark and middle tone Skinny Skinners from Lindly’s palette.

A few polymer friends spent a week in Santa Fe being guinea pigs for color theorists Lindly Haunani and Maggie Maggio. Be prepared to learn heaps in their upcoming workshops.

We began with collages of our favorite colors and vaulted into color mixing, limiting ourselves to just three colors plus black and white. We then careened through value and contrast and hue and composition. We "skinny skinnered", created color relationships and considered simultaneity. All of this we did in a lovely Santa Fe setting.

It may take me a while to process and pass it on to you in bits and pieces. Check back tomorrow.

Inspiring Artist: Sean Samoheyl

Sean’s medium is quite literally, anything he can get his hands on — soap, straw, old bicycle parts — and his subject matter is equally eclectic. A true self-taught/outsider/visionary artist, art is his way of life. This featured piece is made of carved wood, house paint, dipped in rubber.

Although Sean lives a rural lifestyle on a commune in Virginia, his work is now sold at the museum shop of Baltimore’s American Visionary Museum, as well as websites and other venues.

To view his ever-expanding body of work, now propelled into the digital age, (*ahem* at the nudging of his friends) visit seansamoheyl.com

It’s that time of year

The trees have hardly lost their leaves here in Ohio and we’re already gearing up for Christmas. Polymer artists like Sharon Sahl hold their annual sales this time of year. Sharon, like so many other fine artists, has no website and rarely enters juried shows. Instead she holds one open house and exhibits at three Ohio shows in October and November. Her works are collected and sought after. I’ll feature more of her works in the coming months. Her craftsmanship and attention to detail are remarkable.

If you know of other artists who, like Sharon, prefer to work out of the mainstream and the glare of the internet, let me know. They deserve some recognition and I’d like to give it to them.

Looking Elsewhere

For the past few days I haven’t wanted to look at polymer. I’ve turned my attention to rugs, jewelry, ceramics…art of other persuasions. There’s so much out there to inspire polymer artists. Take a look at some of these ideas and envision how polymer could transform them into something else.

I’m also priming myself for some quality color time with Lindly and Maggie. I’m thinking of this as homework but actually it’s just fun to immerse myself in new ideas as I surf the web. Join me at some of my latest finds.

Lentils

I’ve run across Ronna Sarvas Weltman in several magazines and articles. I’m attracted to her wavy lentil disks. She uses them both by themselves and with other, round beads.

Ronna lives in Bellevue, Washington. She works in silver, precious metal clay, polymer clay, glass beads, and other materials. Visit her site.

Crystals

I’m always browsing for designs and ideas. Check out the jewelry in the Ona catalog. It looks an awfully lot like rhinestones in polymer. Nice merging of crystals and mosaics. The description reads "…hand-molded from a patented clay and incrusted with swarovski crystals."

The Ona catalog has inspiring designs in other categories as well. It’s fun to mouse through.

Lorie Follett gets her fabulous rhinestones from rhinestoneguy.com. She says the selection is great and the prices are good. She recommends ordering the sample card to get ideas for sizes and colors.

Faux Drusy
Marie’s faux drusy
Natural drusy

Marie Segal started it at Shrinemont this year. She credits/blames Judith Skinner for starting the faux drusy craze.

Druse refers to a rock surface covered with tiny crystals such as are found inside geodes. Drusy has become popular in the gem world of late.

Drusy materials slowly appeared in the work of noted gem carvers and jewelry designers and, as a result, gained space in gem and jewelry publications.

Marie’s necklace pictured here is made by extruding cord and then making lanyards…like in girl scouts. The end pieces were made separately and baked and then glittered. The lanyard is then attached to the end pieces. The clasp in the center of the flowers is made from 20 gauge wire. Marie recommends glitter from Art Glitter.