Polymer Clay Daily

Creating signature style

Tricia Dewey’s newest polymer beads hum with color and they come with a good story.

Tricia bought Christi Uliczny’s popular “Rocky Path” tutorial and modified the instructions extensively to create beads rather than pendants. Tricia used the tutorial as a launch pad to combine leaf and alcohol inks and mica powders on polymer in her own way.

Sidelined by an elbow injury, Tricia was taking a break from her fossil series of polymer/encaustic multimedia wall art to experiment with beads. Using a new set of instructions and working on a smaller scale, Tricia’s signature style still shone through.

Are your scrapbooks calling you?

The polymer photo pendants by Angie (HopeMoreStudio) tug at my heart. She adds bits of lace, ribbon, buttons and ephemera to family snapshots that turn them into sentimental treasures.

Angie specializes in faux glass slides that capture a glimpse of another time and place….all polymer transfers that have been photoshopped, sepia-toned and topped with coats of shiny finish. They make me sigh with pleasure and nostalgia.

Are your own scrapbooks begging to be given some studio love that will make them into pieces that can be worn, displayed and given the honor they deserve?

Cyber thanks

Thanks to cyberhostess Alison Lee and all last night’s class participants. Teaching extrusions to students from Italy, UK, Mexico, Australia, Canada and my home town all from the comfort of my well-worn computer chair is mind boggling. Thank you!

Polymer faux bois

The last time we spotted Hélène at Les Ethiopiques she was fooling us with polymer leather. Now she’s stumped us with wood lookalikes. Her polymer burls twist themselves into curved necklaces and bracelets embellished with copper wire.

Wood burls, deformed, worn and weathered tree growths, are prized by woodworkers and my cabinetmaker husband wasn’t convinced that this was polymer. But it is. Hélène will have woodturners scratching their heads wondering where she found such fine wood specimens.

Emilie at Lily’s Treasures brought the link to our attention.

Spring is online

Donna Kato is offering a terrific deal on her springtime hearts class at CraftEdu.com until noon today. If you’ve not seen Donna at work, now is the time for a cheap thrill. And speaking of thrills, I’d be thrilled if you’d join me for the extrusions chat on Craftcast.com tonight!

Studying shapes

There’s something endlessly fascinating about triangles and the way they fit together in so many ways. The triangle-obsessed artwork from Greece’s Eva (NoMilkToday) explores the shape’s variations in polymer. There are more on her Flickr pages and her blog.

As a child Eva remembers shopping for beads in the Athens markets with her mother and collecting shells and trinkets with her best friend to sell in their own kids shop. She tells us that, “Polymer is my favourite material to work with even now because it reminds me of my childhood and gives me new ways to express my ideas in the most playful way!”

Genevieve Williamson sent in the link saying that Eva, “…is quite hip and it’s interesting to go back to her first sales and trace how her style is emerging. I like the lined textured on some of the newest pieces.”

You’ll see echoes of origami and quilts in Eva’s artwork. Of course I see extrusion ideas as I countdown to my Wednesday night Craftcast class. Join us!

Tuck in a love note

Berlin’s Conni Filip tucked gift Euros into thin slots in polymer hearts designed especially for a friend’s wedding. She suggests that the hearts could later be filled with the couple’s personal love notes.

Conni’s site is full of sculpted, painted, wild ideas from an unleashed creative spirit. It’s a perfect place to start your week.

With this year’s bumper crop of polymer hearts, I couldn’t possibly bring you all the great ones you created. Here’s one last look at just a few more.

Your recent emails about why you work with polymer have been touching and heartwarming. Please keep tucking your stories in the PCD comments.
Amy Wallace Valeriani Solaris Iris Mishly
Cindy Gimbrone Kristen Winter Georgeanne Galante

Freezing a moment with polymer

Vancouver’s Joan Tayler likes to make polymer art that is both decorative and useful. It’s not surprising that she’s recently turned to inro covered with cane slices. This refreshing blue and white series shows how much interest and variety can come from a repertoire of patterns in a simple color palette. “My favorite patterns are greatly influenced by the eight years I spent in Japan,” she explains.

She shares a poignant moment when as a child she proudly sculpted a perfect horse sculpture. Joan’s elation was immediately followed by disappointment when she realized that the soft play clay wouldn’t survive.

You can imagine her pleasure when, years later, she discovered polymer clay. She says, “Polymer clay, like most visual art mediums, attempts to freeze a moment. For my purposes it does it very well; it makes me happy.” Joan still makes horse sculptures.

Can you relate? Why do you work in polymer?

Edgier romance, easier extrusion

This Lovely Bones pendant from Georgia jeweler Jenny Baughman reminds us that not everything romantic has to be hearts and flowers.

Jenny often uses polymer to fill her deep bezels and add color to her modern primitive metal shapes.

See more of her work on her Etsy site and on FaceBook. The new link comes from another polymer artist with a primitive bent, Ronna Weltman.

Extraordinary Extrusions

I’m gathering my tricks to teach an online class on Alison Lee’s Craftcast next Wednesday called Extraordinary Extrusions. I find polymer extrusions fascinating and have made it my mission to assemble the most easy-to-use and easy-on-the-joints equipment.

I’ll even share my bulging file of design ideas from sites around the world. Alison’s a terrific hostess and you’ll leave with secrets, links and videos. Join us. Sign up here.

Designs that share the love

If it’s nearly Valentines Day, we must pay a visit to Tejae Floyde and her gallery of polymer hearts of all varieties…nested, pocket, winged, encased and more. “My passion is sculpting hearts with meaningful messages woven into the design, for others to share with those they love,” she says.

Tejae’s a heart expert and you can find instructions for her methods online at CraftEdu and in a number of publications including my dog-eared copy of the October 2008 Polymer Cafe magazine.

Faux felines from Ukraine

Is it enamel? Polymer is such a fabulous faux medium that this necklace from Polina and Sergey Muha could fool you.

The Kiev couple assures me that they use polymer for the base shapes, friends’ illustrations for images, and resin for the glassy effect. “We love to work in collaboration with different artists, illustrators, photographers,” says Polina. In this necklace 15 cat illustrations, the work of Russian artist Rimma Coffeee, hang together happily on a cord.

While the concept isn’t altogether new, the look of the thin shaped illustration beads is young and fashionable.

One of the benefits of polymer’s popularity spreading around the world is that new artists look at the medium with fresh eyes. Genevieve Williamson sent in this link saying, “I find it interesting when people use polymer clay to suit their own purposes instead of feeling obligated to use it in any traditional manner.”

Turns out, the couple have been regular visitors to PCDaily. Do you know artists out there using polymer in unusual ways?

Polymer studio in a box

San Diego’s Meisha Barbee shares her new spring palette, the result of a whirlwind color mixing fling (check it out). Once the polymer colors were mixed and conditioned, she carefully stacked the sheets into thick and thin layers that play off each other’s intensity. Her stripe canes grab attention.

With a box of companion bullseye canes and another box of mica shift textures, she’s assembled the raw materials for a fresh line of brooches, pendants and earrings.

Since Meisha works both in her home studio and at her Spanish Village Art studio, she needs to transport her canes from place to place. Doesn’t this tidy arrangement make you want to develop and organize your spring palette? See earlier pictures from this Niche Award winner here and here.