Surface soulmates

California’s Syndee Holt and Ontario’s Helen Breil share a love of surface techniques on polymer. Syndee gravitates to paints, transfers, markers, and gelli-plates (mono-printing). Helen has developed her own line of silkscreens, texture stamps and shapes.

It’s not surprising that when the two artists’ set up their worktables near each other, their interests spontaneously merged. Here you can see Helen’s silkscreen patterns in gold over light delicate paints applied via Syndee’s gelli-plate.

They cut simple shapes and oven-cured the pieces on gently curved surfaces. They each brought the other a slightly different approach to surface decoration and expanded their options. See more examples here and here.

Share your favorite techniques with someone who works with polymer like you do and the possibilities grow exponentially.

Aspen memories

Maine’s Bonnie Bishoff translated her quick sketch of the surrounding aspens, snowy mountains and puffy clouds into a 7″ x 10″ polymer landscape. It’s her way of taking a bit of the Colorado mountains back to her east coast home.

You can see more of how Bonnie builds her paintings in this weekend’s StudioMojo (sign up here) along with lots of photos of works by names you know plus products and tools for your studio that you may not have discovered.

Thanks for following along while I traveled. Back to the usual PCD schedule next week.

Totem towers

Bonnie Bishoff’s totem pieces are each made of three ovals gently bent and joined together. She’s combined bits of her signature striped veneers to make her geometry jaunty. They’re on a string in the photo. Tomorrow we stack them.

Here’s more of Bonnie and her husband J.M. Syron’s work. Bonnie often uses two-part epoxy clay to create very strong bonds between her metal and polymer jewelry pieces. They’re very lightweight and extremely strong.

We’re anxious to see how the totems from our group of artists with very different styles will mix and match.

Moose mapped mosaic

Florida’s Alice Stroppel created a polymer moose which will be framed in a 5×7 frame and sold in our group’s auction later in the week.

Alice has developed a clever way to make a thin cane mosaic by placing a photo or drawing under glass and following the image, placing cane slices onto the glass. The completed polymer “cane mapped” mosaic is placed in the oven and removed from the glass after baking.

Alice has developed a number of streamlined versions of the usual methods and created interesting variations which she’s gathered into an online school which you can test out for free here.

You’ll also find information on her site, on Facebook and on Instagram.

Rocky Mountain cactus

It may look like a photo from the desert, but it’s Kim Korringa’s display of her blooming polymer cacti. Each year our group has a swap and this year we’re swapping “totems”, big beads which will stack up and be displayed on rods as sculpture or garden art.

Everyone receives one big bead from each participant to remember our event. Kim scooped up some gravel from the path to display her charming totems. Come back later in the week to see the resulting wild mix of polymer art on a stick.

The network is weak in the mountains where our group meets and then my mail domain had issues. Things are conspiring for a light online week social media-wise but the creative ideas are flowing so stay tuned.

Sculpture to wear

Donna Greenberg shows us Blue Bird Biscuit choker, her version of twisted and sculpted polymer on a cord.

Donna includes work-in-progress photos that give you insight into her thinking for this series of organic, flowing shapes. More complex versions link with one another to form chains.

Donna and Christine Dumont and Ronna Sarvas Weltman offer a series of 5-week online creative design courses to enhance each student’s design skills and bring vitality and impact to the work while exploring what it takes to develop their own distinctive series.

The classes start in September. Read all about the courses here.

Twisted polymer

In the original picture these knots and curls from Lindsay Locatelli (WazoDesigns) are photographed laid on top of an Art Jewelry Forum article on contemporary jewelry. Our medium’s sculptural flexibility and color possibilities place polymer squarely in the mix for the future.

Uninhibited gestures like these move us in new directions. They’re also reminiscent of macaroni necklaces that every kid makes.

Lindsay’s Instagram post got me thinking. You too?

See more of her recent mixed media pieces on Facebook.

Mentoring as Art

Washington silversmith Sarah Wilbanks says that the jewelry in her current show contains the most polymer she’s ever used in her pieces. The backs of the silver bezels on her necklace of pods are as interesting as the polymer fronts.

Two other features kept me prowling through her Etsy, Facebook, and Pinterest pages — her series of carved translucent pieces (she documents her process in photos) and the title of her current show at Water Works Gallery in the San Juan Islands.

Called Mentoring as Art, the show highlights the artists who have studied in Micki Lipp’s studio over 27 years. It explores the role of mentor and mentee in the hopes of creating a new generation of mentors. What a smart idea!

Add drama with paint

Polymer artists like Texas’ Shelley Atwood continue to show us what you can do with textures and paints. Shelley bends the textured ribbons of polymer for additional movement on these dangling earrings.

The red of the bottom medallions is a surprise. Gold paint unifies the look which is topped off with the big loops of the earwires.

Look at her Flickr pages to see how Shelley pumps up the drama of her work.

Complex simplicity

Michigan’s Sandra Niese (DandyBeads) eases us into Monday with a simple pendant. On its own, the spiral would have been too simple.

By embedding those metal pins into the edge of the design, Sandra makes us stop and take in the texture and the metallic finish and ponder the piece.

The dance between complexity and simplicity is a tricky one. See more of Sandra’s organic and slightly grungy works on Facebook, Pinterest and Etsy.

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