Polymer Clay Daily

Polymer for dancing

This blog post from polymer newbie Kimberly Rogers about bad days and new beginnings may make you smile.

She’s an Alaskan lampwork and mixed media artist who easily transitioned to polymer when she bought Ginger Allman’s tutorial on rustic beads.

Kimberly used the red, white and blue polymer that she had on hand and diguised the color with paints following Ginger’s instructions. And then she danced!

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Donna Greenberg’s homage to artist Morundi. Fabulous polymer-covered bottles.

Free tutorial from Anke Humpert by signing up for her newsletter mailing list.

Go fish polymer

Watkins on PCDaily

Fishing takes patience and Rebecca Watkins shows us how patience pays off in this July holiday experiment.

She says of her 5″x7″ polymer plaque, “It started off as scrap clay, mostly pink and white on a muddy gray. I decided it looked like a bunch of wiggly fish but I didn’t like the gray so I cut the pink and white shapes out. I scratched some lines into the base for waves and added a few strings of seaweed.The fish were laid on top and burnished down lightly. I used a pointy tool to make the lines and then I covered the entire thing with black and metallic blue Perfect Pearls powder.”

After curing and sanding off the powder Rebecca didn’t like the faded color and started again. “I got out my colored pencils and went to town.” After more coloring, baking and buffing, she caught her fish.

If you’d like to read more about Rebecca, you can pre-order the Global Perspectives book where she walks you through one of her projects step-by-step.

Independent polymer

Phamova on PCDaily

Dana Phamova (Fruitensse) brings us the perfect colors for July 4 with her Lifebuoy bangles. Red, white and blue will be everywhere in the U.S. today.

Look at all of Dana’s work on her Flickr site. She is a university student in the Czech Republic studying computer graphics. A number of other popular Czech artists and Dana have put together an online polymer school and you can hear her talking about their courses.

Americans aren’t the only ones with a streak of independence! Happy Independence Day!

Polymer pests

Lovelace on PCDaily.com

Utah’s MaryAnne Loveless found an old wire egg basket at the second hand store that was perfect for holding her selection of polymer insects. She admits that the display could be confused for a buggy hat.

MaryAnne’s colorful creepy crawlies are particularly alluring at this time of year. What a great use for tail ends of canes!

See all the caned and textured pieces that she’s been putting together.

Need some polymer magic?

Maevinwrenscraft on PCDaily

Try making a wand like Maevinwrenscraft (anyone know her name?). She attaches a naturally faceted quartz crystal or other gem to a wooden rod with clay and bakes.

Then she decorates the resulting wand with leaves and vines that wind up the wooden base and rebakes. The design can become a hairstick or, without a rod, becomes a pendant. The magic continues.

Flying home

McNall on PCDaily

Page McNall provides a chipper Monday with her folkart bird as I fly home. Her 2″x4″ polymer sculpture is formed over an aluminum foil armature and then inked and painted. She placed the bird on a Stroppel cane-covered base. Page talks about her latest works (check out her designer rat) on Flickr and sells them on Etsy. You can see what’s inside her head on Pinterest.

I’ll be catching up and back to work tomorrow! Thanks for helping me out during my fabulous vacation.

Polymer paper bead smash

Doroshow on PCDaily

It’s the last day of class with Dayle Doroshow and you know how everyone gets frantic to finish. I’m no exception so I’ll just offer you these pictures of Dayle’s signature polymer flowers while we students complete our artworks.

Doroshow on PCDaily

Dayle’s polymer “paper beads” have always been a PCD favorite (see picture right). Long thin triangles of polymer scraps are twirled onto a needle tool paper-bead style.

Dayle leaves the bead on the tool and flattens the bead by stamping it with a rubber stamp. This preserves the hole. Voila! Beautiful bead from scrap! Here she is in the archives. I’ll be back at my computer next week.

Updated ethnic

I was captivated by Svetlana’s faux ethnic beads two years ago when I posted this and her methods still excite me. Luckily her tutorial is still there for you to study.

Svetlana Gracheva from Donetsk, Ukraine embeds what look to be jump rings into her faux ethnic polymer beads with a stunningly realistic effect. The jump rings become bezels for small imitation turquoise and coral pieces.

Other metal is sandwiched in the middle of faux amber and turquoise beads. You can see examples of the techniques in her Lhasa and Nagrang Tibetan-style necklaces.

On her Tibetan bead class description page, Svetlana offers pictures (scroll down her page) that show how she performs her sleight of hand. In that class she finishes the beads with mosaic inlays. What a treat for those of us searching for new faux fun.

Vacation post from the archives