Polymer Clay Daily

Tips and Tricks

Back to school polymer

Perry on PCDaily

New Hampshire’s Sheila Perry posted some pictures of the Encrusted work of guild members in Jana Roberts Benzon’s weekend class including Sheila’s own work here.

benzon_student

The undulating collaged cuffs appear positively impossible to create in polymer but Jana shares her secrets thoroughly. Just look at the students’ painterly geometric jumbles.

Convenient master class

If you’re itching for tips from a master, join Sarah Shriver tonight on Craftcast for some of her caning tricks (Wednesday, October 1 at 8:00. Sarah’s a delightful teacher and this is her first live online offering. It’s a deal!

More scrap tweaks

Bonnay on PCDaily

Building on yesterday’s tutorial, we look at how France’s Anne-Sophie Bonnay tweaks her scrap stripes, gouging across them to create a woven pattern.

She enhances the effect by impressing the polymer with a fabric texture.

Bonnay on PCDaily

Anne-Sophie offers more items made from the scrap sheet on her web site.

She even uses the curly gouged out strings, pressing them onto a solid colored sheet to create an abstract pattern. Her imitation tiger’s eye pattern is another riff on this scrap stripe theme.

Scrappy polymer

Hyde on PCDaily

Crisp fall days make colors brights and simple masks funnier. Look at these new pins from Susan Hyde (she’s mostly on Facebook).

A flat oval polymer face with a circle cut out gets her started on completely silly faces. A few dots and strings of clay turn into crazily raised eyebrows, a moustache or a glob of hair. A slice of any old cane will work for eyes.

Don’t forget teeth or a tongue and everybody gets a pair of jump ring earrings. Perfect Halloween favors.

Hyde on PCDaily

Start from scrap

Crothers for PCDaily

As long as we’re going for easy and effective art, check out Debbie Crothers’ scrappy cane tutorial.

I learned a similar version from Carol Blackburn who tames the tutorial and turns the results into tidy stripes and precise geometrics. Any way you handle this tute, it’s a great one to have at your disposal.

Polymer epiphany

Welker on PCDaily

“Do you know the moment at night — right before you fall asleep? That’s when I sometimes get the best ideas. Last night — out of nowhere — that very detailed picture of an earring design popped up right in front of my inner eye….so I had to try it today. They’re in the oven right now,” said Bettina Welker in describing a recent polymer epiphany.

Georg Dinkel caught this photo of Bettina wearing her new creations at the recent Staedtler Fimo Symposium in Paris. Bettina’s cutout shapes are heavily textured and often stacked or moving.

Welker on PCDaily

She calls her series The Place In Between and perhaps this week your best ideas are hiding in some overlooked spot, just waiting for you to relax and accept them.

There’s a free Pin-to-Pendant Converter tutorial on Bettina’s revamped site in case your customers, like hers, want to wear their jewelry in various ways.

You can find more of Bettina’s work and tutorials on Facebook, Pinterest, I-Pernity and Etsy.

Rough treatment for polymer

Sypkova on PCDaily

Olga Sypkova from Kemerovo, Russia plays rough with her African Ethnic beads.

What starts out as cane slices simply applied to clay bases becomes much more interesting once she draws a few lines with circles, scrapes some lines and scratches the surface with sandpaper.

A coat of light acrylic paint accentuates the marks. The rough treatmentt gives an ordinary polymer bead a tribal look with a mysterious past. The beads must have been worn and treasured.

Olga offers you a step-by-step free tutorial. See more of her work on this Russian site (use your translator).

 

 

Mixing media

Lewis on PCDaily

Polymer slices baked right on frosted resin beads. What a great idea from California’s Karen Lewis (Klew). She embellishes glass beads using the same technique.

This layered look is Klew’s trademark. See more of her on Etsy and on Facebook.

There’s a free how-to video about her sculpted accent beads on her site for your weekend enjoyment. And here’s a self-care snippet from Klew (with Sarah Shriver) from a few years back.

The IPCA crew is flying into my home town for the retreat and Klew is among them. This is the first time Ohio has hosted such a big time event! News from the retreat coming your way next week. Have a big time this weekend.

Potty polymer

Why yes, I believe that Germany’s Mareike Scharmer embellished even the potty with polymer. Here are the photos of the rest of the guest bath installation at the new Galerie Freisleben where inspiration will follow students from the classroom to the washroom.

The knobs and trim are polymer additions to the fancifully painted cabinets and mirrors and…well just about everything. Read about Mareike’s polymer work on her blog.

The facility is nearly ready and Ariane’s dream looks fabulous. Pore through more pictures of the gallery on Flickr. Claire Maunsell will teach in August and Loretta Lam is scheduled for October.

Bali boots from polymer

Jon Anderson on PCDaily

This must be the week for innovations. I’d heard rumblings about a new transfer process that Bali’s Jon Anderson is working on. He’s keeping the process under wraps for now but you can see what he’s up to (and purchase works) on his lovely new site.

He transfers the image from his polymer canes to fabric using a secret elixir. He’s getting consistent results while he works out colorfastness and other issues. You can put your name in for your own JSA boots and be a trendsetter.

The site is chock full of goodies including an interview that explains his history in polymer art. Keep up with Jon’s progress on his site and his Facebook page. Jon was voted the members’ favorite in this year’s IPCA Awards.

Monday monsters

Cormic_Isola on PCDaily

Caroline Cornic-Isola (KlickArt) was first featured on PCD only a couple of weeks ago and already she’s captivated us again, this time with monsters.

She offers some pictures of her process that involves drawing and texturing on raw clay then coloring with markers on fired clay.

The washers and nuts that she uses as accent beads on the robot pendant repeat the mechanical theme. 

Cormic-Isola on PCDaily

Caroline loves to draw and she’s just gotten started at drawing on polymer. You’ll want follow along on her Facebook page (that’s the only place I could find her) and see where she takes these monsters and the process.

Cats, kids and 27,000 hearts

Lehocky on PCDaily

Cats, kids and hearts – this winning combination has vaulted Ron Lehocky over the 27,000 mark in his polymer project that benefits the Kids Center.

Ron’s efforts have been assisted by artists who send him their unused canes, teachers who gladly show him their tricks, and collaborators who use his hearts in their work.

Leslie Blackford showed Ron how to transfer images with water and use colored pencils to bring life to the eyes of these cats before the images were transferred.

Boatwright on PCDaily

Jimmie Boatwright purchased a heart at Creative Journey Studios and used it as the centerpiece of the beaded necklace shown here.

You may select hearts from Ron’s latest collection of pins made from upcycled donated canes. These will be on sale at the IPCA retreat in Columbus, Ohio this month. If you donated clay, your patterns could reappear on a heart that will help Ron to his next big number.