Slovenia’s Claudia Kurent has stockpiled an impressive stash of bowls. She’s taking a few days to admire them before they disappear at the holiday artfair. You can examine these little beauties on her blog. It looks like she’s built them on glass liners.
Seems PCD always gravitates to Claudia during the holidays. Here are her snowflake ornaments from last year.
You may particularly like her Tips and Tricks album on Flickr. She’s also on Facebook.
The snow outside had me looking for holiday designs. I got as far as these beads from Patricia Beuting. They fit the bill. Ethnic meets bohemian meets Christmas.
Patricia’s Pinterest bohemian board will show you that in her art she dreams of Africa, Morocco, and exotic places beyond the Netherlands where she teaches primary school.
For her second festive necklace, Patricia cut old canes into thick slices with a ripple blade for an entirely different effect from the patterns. (Here’s Sculpey’s explanation.)
The cross-cut slices expose layers of colors that are curled around to make big hole beads accented with a few solid rounds.
Get better acquainted with Patricia on Facebook and on Flickr.
Jan Montarsi gives us a fine example of undercutting a veneered shape technique that Ron Lehocky showed last week. Instead of a heart outline, Jan uses a shield shape for his Carnivorous lapel pin.
The edges slope gently because he’s angled the craft knife to remove excess underneath. (Watch Ron Lehocky here if you need a refresher. See step 2 at 2:40 and 3:56.)
Of course Jan’s way with metallics makes the shape even more dramatic and with this before-and-after sanding picture, he demonstrates how that extra step adds richness and depth.
Long ago Jan shared his methods of tinting metallic clays with alcohol inks to achieve clear, warm colors. You can still find his tutorial here. See more examples on Flickr, Pinterest and Facebook.
To meet his quota of 10-12 polymer heart pins each day, Ron Lehocky has to get up early (we shot this video at 7:00 a.m.) and take advantage of every spare moment.
Funny how that daily quota has added up to 27,000 hearts in 9 years! All the proceeds support the Kentucky Kids Center where he is also a physician.
Used to the routine, Ron’s hands moved gracefully and effortlessly as we chatted. He’s refined his process to 3 steps which he shows in this demo. A few hundred hearts are always waiting for sanding and finishing which he does as he watches TV or listens to music. To purchase hearts, contact Ron on Facebook or via email. Watch the video here.
In this weekend’s StudioMojo, Ron continues talking about his studio habits, his motivation, and his own designs. Join us on StudioMojo if you’d like more.
Sunday school
Those of us who love both technology and polymer are ecstatic that Mags Bonham will teach an online Craftcast class that explains how to cut polymer using the computer and a Silhouette Cameo printer/cutter. That’s on Sunday at 12:00 noon (EST). I plan to be in the front row (virtually) with the rest of you artist/nerds.
The possibilities for patterns expand when you insert a cane into the tube of an extruder. Here are just a few examples from the Mammoth Cave retreat.
Mari O’Dell showed students how to position, control and combine canes. A striped cane started these petals. Slices of the resulting extrusions were shaped into flowers or reinserted into the extruder to create even more complex designs. Nancy Nearing created this lovely lotus.
The retro flower fabric (right) was an experiment with slices from my petal disk impressed on a striped background (see Debbie Crothers free tutorial).
Folded charms are made from slices of a checkerboard cane. Amy Koranek manipulates the slices into a graceful shape by lightly pressing corners together.
Will simple ideas grow into more complex ones in your studio this week?
It’s all-extruders, all the time here at the Mammoth Cave Extruda-Paloozain Kentucky. This Black Widow Spider by Ohio’s Chris Kibitlewski is mostly polymer. He makes the legs from the thinnest extruded tubes I’ve ever seen by using three disks (a corer and two circles).
Amy Koranek fills bottle caps with bits of Halloween-themed extrusions. Mari O’Dell is filling our heads with new ways of thinking about extruding that I’ll share next week.
Holiday times remind us that polymer is fun for whimsical, silly art made with a wink and a smile. Tina Goodrich (Handmade Mom) turns ballpoint pens into carrots, corn, asparagus or pickles.
When Halloween comes around this California artist tops pens with spiders or ghosts or wraps them into mummies. She breathes new life into an old project.
She likes to play and you can play along with her on Etsy, Facebook and Pinterest.
No extruder? No fancy cutters? No problem. Moscow’s Anna Kokareva (Annie Bimur) shows you how to start the week with a minimum of muss and fuss with two free video tutorials – Cane 1 and Cane 2.
Turn off the sound if you don’t speak Russian. The pictures are sufficient to show you everything you need to know.
Her “cut and replace” approach results in precise geometric canes. Since there are no voids between the design elements, the pattern stays in perfect shape. Here’s Anna’s shop, her Facebook page and her Flickr photos.
The challenge is to come up with more designs that lend themselves to this treatment.
Germany’s Margit Boehmer shows how she reused a candy tray with shallow indentations to hold her palette of pastels.
She shaves hard sticks of color into a powder that falls into the tray’s dimples. If you look closely you’ll see that she uses cotton swabs to apply powdered pastels to polymer.
Margit draws on and carves and distresses the pieces to give them more character. Lately she’s been aging her rainbow colors by adding crackle surfaces and washes of paint as a finishing touch.
Maryland’s Eugena Topina ratchets up our fascination with hollow forms with her new Openwork Pendants: Under a Microscope series. Though their paper thin cell-like walls look fragile, they’re actually quite strong.
Your mind may be racing if you like microscopic images and undersea creatures. Eugena offers a new tutorial on her site (at 20% off today) that clearly shows how to achieve these effects.
Long known for her distinctive imitation cloisonne work and flawless resin surfaces, Eugena moved toward hollow constructions this year with openwork bracelets. The lacy pendants take the concept to a new level. You’ll find her on Etsy, Flickr and her own tutorial shop.
