Polymer Clay Daily

Facing the holidays

West on PCDaily

Melanie West went all “spots and dots” while Donna Kato got “spikey” and Loretta Lam played “hide and seek” in the new work they just unveiled on Facebook in time for the season. The works have a loose and confident feel about them.

Lam on PCDaily

Not ready for the holidays? Join the rest of us in the crowd who have good intentions and are scrambling to get artworks finished (or started).

Settle down and remember that the holidays aren’t really about competition but about heartfelt expression.

Kato on PCDaily

Breathe and take in the beauty of what others have created.

Crocheted polymer

Ajates on PCDaily

Cut out and texture a polymer slab, pierce the clay with a few small evenly-spaced circles. Consider adding a second layer and more holes. Fire the design. Sew contrasting threads in and out of the holes, wrapping the edges and adding colorful touches.

Madrid’s Fabiola Perez Ajates developed this simple decorative mixed media technique that simulates popular crocheted fashions.

See how quickly her students added their own touches to Fabi’s concept and include this idea in your holiday project stash. Fabi is featured in the Polymer Clay Global Persepctives and her projects are inviting and ingenious.

Mutilated polymer

Margit Bohmer chops, scratches, carves, gouges, and mutilates her polymer beads in the most delightful and enthusiastic ways. Her colors are exuberant.

“I especially like to make simple, rustic beads and ethnic-inspired jewelry. Krobo beads from Ghana and the gorgeous jewelry from Tibet are wonderful sources of inspiration,” she says.

Margit’s DaWanda shop and her Flickr pages show how her color palette has remained constant over the last few years while her techniques have gotten bolder and more energetic.

Have a bold, energetic and enthusiastic weekend!

Heartfelt homecoming

Sturdy on PCDaily

Veronika Sturdy (from Prague and now working in London) brings us charming off-season dotty hearts. The texture and the individually placed dots on a slightly graduated background make a soft and romantic statement.

Veronika has heaps of works in all kinds of polymer techniques for you to explore on Flickr and Facebook. She’s a ceramic artist who googled “clay” and got thrown wildly off-course when “polymer clay” came up in her results.

Veronika’s heartfelt reminders reflect my comfort with being back home with my lusciously large desktop screen and screaming fast Internet connection. Happy to be home! Now to answer all your emails!

On-the-road polymer

Kleist Thom on PCDaily

Vera Kleist Thom shows up with this dynamite looking polymer Kameko Vase for our last post from the road. I’ll be home-based tomorrow.

Vera’s work makes me want to get back in the studio and make something big and unusual. You too?

Terrific muted colors, zooming shapes, slightly retro , updated mosaic and it could be extruded! Here’s her Etsy shop.

Glamorous polymer

Tryfonova on PCDaily

Let’s start the week with some polymer glamor from Russia’s Olga Permyakova

Friday’s PCDaily looked at how Jan Geisen makes shapes work together. Olga hooks her shapes together tightly with rings and wires, sometimes linking an entire framed construction of polymer pieces.

Permyakova on PCDaily

See Olga’s Fall/Winter 2013-14 collection in this Facebook album and find it for sale here.

Homeward bound

One more day one the road! Days in the car make me feel anything but glamorous and if you’re waiting for an email from me, please be patient. We’ll be back soon.

Comfortable shapes

Geisen on PCDaily

Minnesota’s Jan Geisen knows how to make shapes comfortable with each other and just by looking at her Flickr gallery you start to understand how shapes on top of shapes can work harmoniously.

On this bracelet overlapping circles are cleverly constructed on bases that snuggle between larger ovals. There’s a soft ease to the colors and patterns as well. See more on Etsy.

Jan’s a photographer and there must be some architecture or engineering in her background as well. Have a comfortable weekend.

Seeing spots

tinapple on PCDaily

Polka dots are fashionable and classic…and very hard to make in polymer. I’m putting the finishing touches on tonight’s Craftcast class where you’ll learn how to make dots in your own palette and use them in a variety of ways. Then there are extruded tubes that become birch branches or curvy tubular accents…and so many other ideas!

If squeezing polymer out of a tube is a mystery to you, join us for some fascinating answers.

Tomorrow I’ll be less frenzied and it will be back to PCD business as usual.