Low tech polymer

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.

Your vote counts

I need your vote! Every Fall, Crafthaus awards a micro project grant and my application is in the running.

Prison Polymer: Art as a Lifeline Back to the Community is a project I’d like to nudge forward. This summer Leslie Blackford and Tammy Dye taught one class in Ohio prisons, Maggie Maggio and I taught another. We were all surprised and fascinated by the impact that our medium had on inmates.

What could we do with polymer in prisons that would make a difference? How could our community help? That’s what I’ll use the grant to discover. Please vote for Project #2. Thank you for your help.

It’s hard to look at Leslie Blackford’s Elvis and not smile at his gold leisure suit and sparkling belt buckle. Here are the characters from one afternoon’s class. You can follow her on Facebook too.

Catalog giveaway

Would you like to have a memento from the ground-breaking Carthage College Re-Visioning exhibit? In the show catalog Rachel Carren writes eloquently about how polymer art is expanding and reinventing itself.

This slim full color publication would make an elegant addition to your bookshelf. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment below. I’ll pick five lucky winners on Monday.

Aging the rainbow

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.

See her complex textures on Flickr and Etsy and Facebook.

Architectural polymer

When it gets gray and chilly, I like to wander through the small cozy gingerbread villages created in polymer by Stephanie Kilgast.

Will this be the year you try your hand at some? Look at those little circles she uses for roof tiles. She makes it look temptingly easy and you can google scads of templates. She shows some in-process shots on Instagram.

In the fall Stephanie makes gorgeous gourds that look fresh picked and tiny breads that almost smell home-baked.

Like many of you, I started playing with polymer when my daughter was furnishing her dollhouse many years ago. I have a soft spot for these small delights. Visit Stephanie on her blog, Facebook and her shop.

Polymer cut ups

Beauty will save the world. – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Austria’s Izabela Nowak posted this quote on her site and she takes it seriously. She mixes polymer with juice boxes and milk cartons as she navigates her way to beauty in recycling. Upcyling humble materials is part of her most recent Cut Up pieces.

A stroll through her Flickr site shows how she’s moved from spiraled up strips of polymer (her Gilese pieces) to intricate folded shapes (Into the Fold) and then to Cut up assemblages.

She has found that most manipulations that can be done with paper can also be done with polymer and she has developed classes and workshops for teaching her methods. Ultimately she combines the two media. Her latest creations appear on her Facebook page.

Her colors are bright and her love of geometry comes through strongly as she bends, cuts and folds basic shapes into beauty.

Microscopic imitations

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.

From painting to polymer

When I first saw the lovely paintings of Indian women by Rachana Saurabh, I thought, “This artist needs to try polymer, she’d be a natural.” It was easy to imagine her graphic style and her skill with color transitioned to clay.

Two years later, Rachana wrote from Baltimore where she now lives and indeed, she had found polymer.

Rachana quickly learned the craft and tried any number of techniques. She gravitated to appliquing bright bits of clay onto beads. Her designs take on a distinctly Indian textile flavor to which she adds bunches of dangling sparkles. These earrings are from her Festive collection.

On her latest bangle, Krishna and Peacock Feathers, Rachana introduced the ladies from her paintings to her jewelry. She says she tried face canes but couldn’t get the hang of reducing. These faces are sculpted and painted on the wide blue bangle. The Indian dieties’ favorite peacocks, cows, trees and lotus circle the piece.

Rachana’s story is full of exotic imagery and happy coincidences. Watch her on Facebook, Flickr and Etsy as well as her blog to see what she develops next.

Polymer tell-all

Israel’s Iris Mishly has been on the computer for months learning to give her website a makeover. She’s a do-it-yourself, recycle kinda gal.

You may have guessed that the secret ingredient in her trendy DiscChic line involves a recycled computer part.

Today she’s posted a tell-all video that will have you scouring through the cords and adapters in your computer junk drawer in search of these parts that turn into easy bezels for polymer.

Iris’ 30 free tutorials are easy to find on the updated site along with tools and scads of other tutorials by category.

You can find her in the usual places too…Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, Etsy. She’s covered all the bases.

Back to school polymer

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.

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!

Art by inchies

Spain’s Miryam Garcia moves us away from yesterday’s large works to witness the power of small ones.

Inchies are so ubiquitous that we hardly notice them. But when Miryam grouped hers, the dots and textures took on new life as a colorful quilt. Wall art by inches!

Earlier this year Miryam’s Occluded Symmetry won a Staedtler design contest. She shows her impressive prize loot on her blog.

Even better, she reveals her design drawing (below right) for perfectly positioning all the dots on the pendant. And here’s the back of the piece.

You can wander through her Flickr photos and see how dots and cracks have evolved in her work as she’s taken classes and developed her style.

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