Polymer Clay Daily

Polymer with hardware

Picarello on Polymer Clay Daily

Julie Picarello mixes new icy colors for her latest glacier-inspired
polymer beads. In her popular YouTube video she explains her basic process.

Julie prowls the hardware stores for some of the odd metal accents that she embeds in the clay.

She’s been including tinted epoxy resin in her recent pieces at the suggestion of fellow hardware lover Robert Dancik. The two shared a table as they worked on collaborative projects for the Polymer Clay Master Class book and the creative sparks flew.

Polymer squared

Blackburn_square_bangle

This square striped bangle from Carol Blackburn was just one of dozens of ideas and designs she presented in a small Santa Fe workshop this weekend. While Carol taught clever and deceptivly simple techniques she’s developed after years as a machine knitter, those techniques were only part of what was offered.

Tory Hughes then encouraged students to improvise and make Carol’s techniques their own. She guided students as they considered, “What do I want it to be?” and “How can I make this work with my style?”

Penina Meisels, photographer for the award-winning Terra Nova polymer book, tackled the process of photographing the created objects. She showed us how to arrange and light them to their best advantage. (These are my snapshots, not Penina’s beauty shots.)

This three-pronged approach packed a punch and may represent a new twist in polymer education which combines problem solving and development of personal style along with skills building.

Harlequin heart

polymer heart

Spain’s Pilar Rodriguez Dominguez (Amatista) ends our week with a bright polymer love token, part of her Harlequin collection that’s colored with acrylic inks. You can study her work best on Flickr.

If a caned heart is more your type of valentine, hop on over to Boston Baked Beads to see Lisa Mackin’s scalloped edged beauty that’s waiting to be reduced. Have a lovely weekend.

Fauxpal bowl

Opal has tickled the “faux rock” area of my brain since Donna Kato offered her free online tutorial. Camille Young, Randee Ketzel, Liz Hall and others devised their recipes.

My husband’s turned walnut bowl and a looming show deadline gave me the perfect opportunity to try out my own color combinations and mixtures.

Though I learned along the way and would do some things differently, these ideas are finally out of my head and strewn about my studio. It’s been a long time since I’ve shared with you and I want to start the year right.

Party tonight over at Craftcast where the group from the Polymer Clay Master Class book will gab and guffaw. Lots of prizes and fun. Join the gang!

Go-for-it polymer

Interior designer Nao from Brussels focuses her designer’s eye on polymer with this That’s not the shape of my heart pendant with freshwater pearl and gold chain.

She upcycles and recycles, mixing and matching her materials with flair and style.

Free from what can be the complications of tools and techniques, Nao starts from a designer’s perspective.

See more in her Etsy shop. Genevieve Williamson sent the link along (and she shows a neat earring trick here).

Reminder

Online party tomorrow night at 8:00 ET. BYOpolymer!

Pietra dura polymer

The UK’s Fiona Abel-Smith created this polymer box with its decorative panels using an ancient inlay technique called pietra dura. Fiona watched Sue Heaser demo the technique in November and she was smitten.

The box is 5 1/2 inches (13 1/2 cm) square and 4 1/2 inches (11 cm) high with decorative panels of birds on each side and the top. Fiona details the her successes and failures (cracks during baking) with this technique and shows how she began with inlay and added minute dabs of polymer from fine extruded strings. Adding these flecks of color for the feather details gives the piece a more painterly feel.

This ancient technique may not be for everyone and Fiona admits that the box took 120 hours of work. See more pictures on her Flickr site. The link came to us from another polymer painter, Cate Van Alphen.

Heartfelt polymer

Katie Way brings us a whole bunch of very cool textured polymer hearts for our Friday enjoyment. Katie’s Bull’s Eye Studio shares studio spaces and gallery/classroom area at Upstairs Studio in downtown Anchorage, Alaska.

If you want a hit of happy color or a reason to dust off your extruder, check out the header on her Facebook page. (Here’s the image for the non-FB crowd.)

Tute treat

One more sweet little non-caloric treat to make it a lovely weekend – a freebie heart tutorial from Meg Newberg.

Off-center polymer

Nat Gernigon posted this very fun Cane Scribbles tutorial on her website as a New Year’s gift to polymer artists. Her photos make it easy to follow along even though the text is in French.

The concept is one of those clever, simple ideas that was hiding in plain sight.

As you cruise through her archives and photo pages you’ll see that Nat is accustomed to being different and she likes designs that are off-center. Thank you, Nat, for helping us start 2013 with a new trick.

Bottled polymer

It may not dawn on you that Joyce Cloutman has formed these polymer art dolls over bottles. They’re not the kind of bottles we’re used to seeing covered with polymer patterns. These blissful sisters cradle simple treasures in their hands.

Joyce is teaching this 2-day Bella Dona class at All Dolls Are Art (ADAA) in July in Austin, Texas.

In an interview Joyce talks about how important it has been to her to get together with friends and guild mates. Prompted by a magazine article she stumbled into sculpting and she hasn’t looked back.