The UK’s Claire Wallis builds a cane pattern, backs it with white and shapes it into an imitation cone shell. A bit of weathering with paint and sand paper completes the effect.
Claire loves to simulate nature. PCD has featured her water cane, her faux agate, her polymer knitting and now shells.
Mother Nature must be flattered with all Claire’s imitations.
Moscow’s Juliya Laukhina refines her carving with this newest batch of beads on Instagram. Long nicks of clay dramatically reveal contrasting layers underneath in an almost net-like pattern.
On Etsy, you can see her trying other shapes and sizes as well.
Cuticle cutters are great for carving raw polymer. Could that be what she’s using? I’m adding one more must-try to my studio list. Yours too?
Just as I was admiring the speckled heishi beads in yesterday’s post, Croatia’s Nikolina Otrzan unveiled her new terrazzo cane tutorial for what she calls a Pixie Cane.
Artists from Pier Voulkas to Angela Bahrenholtz to Alice Stroppel and others have come up with methods of making multicolor terrazzos.
Nikolina’s variation is tighter, neater, more intense. I ran to my studio to see if I could do it. My first effort was satisfying even though I was working with too-soft clay. These blocks will make great veneers. Nik is planning another tutorial that will cover projects made using the patterns.
Caners will be pleased to achieve a random pixelated look that goes beyond a surface effect. Yesterday’s spattered beads from Marina Rios were created with what I’m guessing were low-fire enamel powders. You know how it is when you hit upon a method that’s right up your alley? I couldn’t contain my enthusiasm.
Chicago’s Marina Rios (fanciful devices) made some very cool heishi beads by covering faceted tubes of polymer with acrylics and enamel paints.
“At all hours I find myself crouched over tiny, crusty treasures found in my home country of Uruguay, or in midwestern flea markets, or culled from the brilliant artisans of Etsy” says Marina, “I am madly in love with crafting, altering, assembling little bits of wearable art.”
Look at more of Marina’s rustic, tribal, mixed media assemblages on Instagram.
These beads have already sold on Etsy so we’ll have to make our own versions. I plan to make facets on long extruded tubes, then color them and chunk them up.
Sometimes simple ideas grab me and won’t let go so I post them on PCD as a way to remind myself to try them.
Italy’s Serena Ghidoni (Mondoinundito) admits that she loves swimming, photography, and Disney.
You can sense the heart she puts into her small, flowing, translucent mermaid charms. Her style combines Art Nouveau and fantasy with sparkle.
Today’s artists who gravitate to polymer whimsy mind their social media. Serena has nearly 44K followers on Instagram alone and she’s covered all the bases including YouTube. Facebook and Etsy.
The inspirations have ranged from Barbies and Disney to animals and monsters. The power of these handmade whimsies begins in the artist’s experience and travels online to a receptive audience.
Are there significant toys and trinkets in your experience that deserve to be included in your art?
Join Saturday’s StudioMojo group for a deeper dive into polymer ideas and trends.
Does this sculpture from Tina Yu belong in PCD’s whimsy week? “I used to collect Barbies when I was little and growing up I was always fascinated with unique and one-of-a-kind ball jointed dolls,” says Tina.
She is a Chinese-raised New York-based artist/designer who studied graphic design at Pratt Institute. This twenty-something admits that even though she often spends up to nine hours a day working on her sculptures, she doesn’t plan out what she will do beforehand.
Whimsy is defined as extravagant, fanciful, playful, or odd. Her works surely check off those boxes. And she has hundreds of thousands of followers. She’s struck a nerve and amassed an enthusiastic following on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and elsewhere.
How do you explain the fascination of this whimsy?
It’s turned into PCD whimsy week and today’s features come from Washington’s Dayna Corbitt (WhimsyCalling). “I’m assuming you love all things fantastical, slightly odd, and melt-your-face-off-cute. I am the same sort,” says Dayna.
Here she dreams up a marmoset and a blue baby armadillo. Recently she added albino bats, butterfants, a lotus turtle, a dragon, a sloth with a cactus on its head, and a cute alien.
This kind of creation may not be wandering around in your head (not in mine, for sure) but we sure can admire the fantasy and the skill it takes to bring these creatures to life. See more on Facebook and Etsy.
Angela Fernihough of the UK’s Monjoo continues our look at what she calls, lovably ugly pet monsters. Each of the polymer pocket pets has a story.
When Angela decided to take her monsters on the road she raised the funds for display stands and signage through a modest and successful Kickstarter campaign. Have you considered a funding campaign to reach your goals?
A few days in the studio with grandchildren has heightened my appreciation for lovably ugly creatures like Angela’s.
Ohio mixed-media artist Amanda Spayd’s dust bunnies need another day of vacation and so do I.
Amanda’s works are hugely popular. Read her quirky success story on her site, Facebook, and Instagram.
I’ll be back tomorrow.
Each year our red, white and blue canes are provided by another country! Aren’t you proud of that?
Thanks to Israel and Shuli Raanan for these stars and stripes canes. Her Etsy site is full of flags and tidy swirl beads topped with stars in unusual ways.
If you’ve ever made a bicone bead that swirls as hers do, you’ll appreciate her precision. It still looks like magic when Shuli does it so well. You can find her work on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter.
Visiting grandchildren will be distracting me for the next few days so PCD posts will be intermittent or missing altogether this week. Have a great holiday!
