Polymer Clay Daily

Polymer artifacts

“I make all kinds of artifacts,” says New Hampshire’s Luann Udell, “I imagine myself an ancient artist working in ivory and soapstone. I dream of giving these to people I love, people who wear them daily until they are worn smooth by the touch of human hands.”

These polymer faux stone masks kept calling me back to study them along with Luann’s ancient horses, bears, fish, birds and talisman. Resonances of both primitive and digital cultures come through as Luann retells ancient stories in our very modern medium – a cyber tribal effect.

“I tell stories with my art, stories to honor and encourage others who are making their own place in the world,” she explains. Check her links and see for yourself.

Bauhaus polymer

The UK’s Angela Garrod starts our week with these tidy bauhaus-like designs. The hollow lentil beads are covered with geometric designs that combine gold and pearl mica polymer with black contrasts.

She admits that the designs presented complex and challenging problems. Angela was named Voila’s Polymerista of the Year in the Proficient Category for 2011. She has started teaching her techniques and is scheduled at the UK’s Polymer Pamper Play weekend in April 2013.

Twisted polymer fun

All signs point to extruding. Get out your gun and try this new trick from St. Petersburg’s Maria Belkomor .

Her twisted bracelet comes with an easy tutorial in Russian but you won’t need written instructions to get the gist of it. The pictures show you everything.

Notice how the soothing colors of her bracelet match the colors in the street view on her blog.

Some fun for your weekend! It’s still hot which will make the clay softer and easier to extrude.

A polymer rabbit that teaches

This 3-inch lop bunny from Oregon’s Sophie Skein is sculpted from white polymer blended with iridescent glitter.

Her explanation may ring true for you today as she says, “Rabbits are gentle, shy and fearful. Rabbits have taught me how to be gentle with myself when I am afraid. People tend to dislike the fearful parts of themselves and others, but almost everyone likes rabbits. It helps me to remember that we can have the same compassion for our fearful selves that we naturally do for rabbits.”

Perhaps this group of groundhogs is more to your liking. It’s easy to find some critter in Sophie’s Menagerie of Inscrutable Magic that will lift your spirits. She grew up next to her family’s vet clinic which gave her a special understanding of small orphaned animals that comes through in her polymer creations.

Working Wednesday

Israel’s Yonat Dascalu brings us these sunny canes that look like crisp sun dress fabrics. What an inspiration it is to examine neat colorful canes that work. See more on her Flickr and Etsy sites.

If you’ve been eyeing the latest dyes and patinas from Swellegant, look at Heather Powers’ examples,  color formulas and step-by-step how-tos for this new line. The effects are stunning and require some patience and persistence. Heather is sold on the product and her instructions may help if you’re considering them.

Careful, Heather’s sites are full of new beads and pretty things that may keep you online longer than you intended.

Listening to polymer

Minnesota’s Jan Geisen calls herself an improv artist. “I just capture what the art piece I am working on tells me it wants to be,” she says. She comes to polymer after years working with photography and silkscreen.
Jan tried caning but had more fun collaging the scraps and followed her instincts.

If you find yourself isolated and far from other artists, read how Jan reserves her Tuesday nights for a Skype date when she works and chats with a polymer artist who lives 600 miles away.

See the results in Jan’s Flickr site and her Etsy shop which is full of her collages and tutorials.

Clearly a polymer mystery

We start the week with a head-scratcher from Katrin Neumaier. How does she form her glass-like Firefly earrings? In the comments (in German) on her Flickr page she reveals that liquid Fimo is involved. She certainly starts our week with a mystery.

You may recall that we featured Katrin’s glass-like earrings on PCD back in February. The early ones were made using Pardo translucent polymer clay. Obviously, she wasn’t satisfied and kept experimenting to achieve an even clearer form.

I see some teaching in Katrin’s future, don’t you?

Viral polymer extrusions

Bettina Welker’s clever extruded cane that was featured last week has gone viral already. Some of the most imaginative versions of Bettina’s tutorial showed up on the blog of tmariefrance (Marie France Tournat).

Marie used Bettina’s multi-colored extruded cane as a launch point for other experiments that you can browse through on her site and shop.

If you’ve never extruded before, this cane can give you instant success. Let me know if you come up with your own interesting versions. I’m going to have to try this too. You can use the off-cuts and leftovers for that other viral tutorial, the Stroppel cane.

Real textures

James real textures

Victoria James‘ texture sheets are a favorite of mine because most of them replicate stone, wood, plants and other real textures. It’s helpful that for most of her designs she shows polymer examples. This one caught my eye. The pattern comes from her shingle cracked growth ring texture sheet.

Victoria explains that, “PearlEx was lightly rubbed on the out-y part of a silicon texture sheet and the clay was impressed. This textures the clay and transfers the mica powder at the same time. Next PearlEx was rubbed directly onto the out-y part of the clay surface. The clay was then rolled flat.” Super easy mokume gane!

Beach finds

It feels as if you could brush warm ancient sand off these polymer treasures from Elena Sevva (here’s the correct link). Elena is from Ukraine and lives in Israel.

She wraps delicate wire around some of the amber-like beads and strings them on a leather cord to complete the effect. Stamped designs and scratches are accented with faux metallic and ceramic finishes. Look at them more closely on her Flickr pages.

Summer travels

I’m fully in vacation mode and PCD posts may reflect that as they appear little later and on a more leisurely schedule. Let’s all have some summer fun.