Polymer Clay Daily

Waking the muse

Melanie West has revived her appetite for beads. She’s added a hole and modified the shapes of her squid, cicada and cephalopods that usually become bangles.

The new creations retain her unmistakeable undersea aesthetic.

Explaining her “two steps back” approach, Melanine says, “I have found that sometimes going back to a form that comes easy (i.e., simple round balls with holes in them) helps coax out a sleeping muse.”

And speaking of muses, we’ll post the winner of the “Creative Sparks” giveaway here this afternoon.

Royal couple, polymer style

Joan Israel’s vision of the royal couple may not match those in the news headlines but her 17″ polymer cane slice covered bottles have a very regal air. She’s been on a bottle jag that’s fun to study. My favorite is her scotch bottle.

We looked at Joan’s painting-by-the-slice creations earlier this year and she’s added tons of work to her Flickr site in the meanwhile. I can’t imagine the stash of canes required for this body of work!

Have your royals ready for Friday’s events!

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Faux Shisha

These new mirrored beads delight me so I thought I’d share them with you. I’ve always been drawn to Shisha embroidery (you know, those wonderful textiles with mirrors). Seeing how Maria Airoldi applied small nail glitter pieces to her beads gave me big ideas.

All that I learned about working small and intensely in the Cynthia Toops’ class was brought to bear on this project. Thin cane slices were individually applied to a black bead. I felt like I’d hit a new vein of creativity.

The small hexagonal pieces of glitter bake tightly onto the raw clay with no adhesive necessary. Cynthia Toops’ faux heishi beads are cut from thin sheets of baked clay with a paper punch. These beads represent a collaboration of many ideas from artists around the world.

Dayle Doroshow will draw a random number for the book giveaway (see Tuesday’s post) on Friday afternoon. We love all the comments! Thanks.

Texture your trash

Dayle Doroshow’s oversized paper beads (these are each about 1 1/2″ wide) echo exotic, tribal themes.

Dayle admits they’re made from the tail ends of her polymer projects, simple tall triangles rolled onto a fat skewer and then flattened with stamps and textures. Paints and powders and whatever is handy add the final effect.

Since Dayle and I are playing together this week, we’ve decided to giveaway one of our Creative Sparks books signed by both of us. Dayle shares how she developed habits and tricks that tease her back into the studio when she’s stumped or stewing.

Leave us a comment and we’ll dash an autographed book off to the winner on Friday.

Easter Monday

There are a few polymer mushrooms and such in this beaded bracelet by Wendy Malinow. The rabbits are beheaded toys surrounded by seed beads and crystals. It’s a sumptuous seasonal piece that’s irresistable. Here’s a close-up. Wendy grew up in this area of Oregon where such moss and wildlife and dewy sparkling flowers are plentiful in spring.

The polymer patchwork rabbit is from Lisa Pavelka who is just back from Petra Nemravova’s Fimohrani Event in Prague. Lisa’s rabbit is covered with mokume gane cane ends.

It feels like spring and I wasn’t quite ready to give up the holiday so let’s have another day of celebration.

Egg Hunt

Carol Simmons has been hunting for the best technique for covering eggs with veneers of polymer cane slices.

Now that she’s perfected her system and created a machine that will cut consistently thin slices, she’s pondering applying cane slices to other shapes and items.

Read about her pattern-choosing, color-selecting method here. Here’s an earlier PCD post with more information. Have a Happy Easter!

Sweet polymer

Beware, Afi Tajvidi’s polymer characters are sweeter than Easter candy and just as addictive. This Toronto artist has a delicate voice and a soft touch completely in sync with her palette and her stories. Check out Hippopo shown here or the romantic Igie and JellyBelly.

Her dainty, fine characters are sometimes available on her Etsy Joojooland shop where she also sells her illustrations and jewelry. They’re nicely grouped on Flickr.

Cane, layer, texture, repeat

These polymer pendants from France’s Cathy (dumauvobleu) are intensely caned, collaged and textured. Balancing colors and patterns takes skill and patience. Cathy must have her dot technique down to a rapid fire rat-ta-tat-tat because her Flickr pages are full of patterns riddled with texturing.

In the mood for spring? Take a look.

Vacation Update

Who knew that a 3-hour time change could wreak such sleeping/waking havoc? Surely I’ll feel awake tomorrow!

Micromosaics and metal clay

Just in time for Easter, Cindy Silas finished her micromosaic from our recent class with Cynthia Toops. Cindy’s leaping bunny is set in a metal clay bezel that she textured with photopolymer plates.

Here’s the in-progress shot in case you missed it. Baked, splinter-sized pieces of rolled polymer are set into unbaked clay, a tedious but meditative process.

I’m leaping to the west coast today for a vacation. If you see beach pebbles and sea glass creeping into PCDaily posts, you’ll know why.

Speechless polymer

Claire Wallis invites the wearers of her polymer brooch to fill in the empty bubble and make their own statement with her quote brooch. “Grab a pen and express yourself,” she says.

Her matching earrings whisper sweet nothings.

We last looked at this UK artist’s faux knitting. “My work generally leans towards simple colours and sculptural shapes and with the exception of striped, stacked canes I hadn’t tried anything more adventurous. This was my first attempt at a ‘proper’ cane,” says Claire.

What would you like to say to yourself this week?