Polymer Clay Daily

It’s that time of year

The trees have hardly lost their leaves here in Ohio and we’re already gearing up for Christmas. Polymer artists like Sharon Sahl hold their annual sales this time of year. Sharon, like so many other fine artists, has no website and rarely enters juried shows. Instead she holds one open house and exhibits at three Ohio shows in October and November. Her works are collected and sought after. I’ll feature more of her works in the coming months. Her craftsmanship and attention to detail are remarkable.

If you know of other artists who, like Sharon, prefer to work out of the mainstream and the glare of the internet, let me know. They deserve some recognition and I’d like to give it to them.

Looking Elsewhere

For the past few days I haven’t wanted to look at polymer. I’ve turned my attention to rugs, jewelry, ceramics…art of other persuasions. There’s so much out there to inspire polymer artists. Take a look at some of these ideas and envision how polymer could transform them into something else.

I’m also priming myself for some quality color time with Lindly and Maggie. I’m thinking of this as homework but actually it’s just fun to immerse myself in new ideas as I surf the web. Join me at some of my latest finds.

Lentils

I’ve run across Ronna Sarvas Weltman in several magazines and articles. I’m attracted to her wavy lentil disks. She uses them both by themselves and with other, round beads.

Ronna lives in Bellevue, Washington. She works in silver, precious metal clay, polymer clay, glass beads, and other materials. Visit her site.

Crystals

I’m always browsing for designs and ideas. Check out the jewelry in the Ona catalog. It looks an awfully lot like rhinestones in polymer. Nice merging of crystals and mosaics. The description reads "…hand-molded from a patented clay and incrusted with swarovski crystals."

The Ona catalog has inspiring designs in other categories as well. It’s fun to mouse through.

Lorie Follett gets her fabulous rhinestones from rhinestoneguy.com. She says the selection is great and the prices are good. She recommends ordering the sample card to get ideas for sizes and colors.

Faux Drusy
Marie’s faux drusy
Natural drusy

Marie Segal started it at Shrinemont this year. She credits/blames Judith Skinner for starting the faux drusy craze.

Druse refers to a rock surface covered with tiny crystals such as are found inside geodes. Drusy has become popular in the gem world of late.

Drusy materials slowly appeared in the work of noted gem carvers and jewelry designers and, as a result, gained space in gem and jewelry publications.

Marie’s necklace pictured here is made by extruding cord and then making lanyards…like in girl scouts. The end pieces were made separately and baked and then glittered. The lanyard is then attached to the end pieces. The clasp in the center of the flowers is made from 20 gauge wire. Marie recommends glitter from Art Glitter.

Kato Explanation

In my stash of photos I found this one of a necklace by Donna Kato. It reminded me of Sue Smith’s earring holders I found on the New Zealand site yesterday.

Donna has developed a quick way of making these ikat-like canes. Her simplified version has very good pictures and clear instructions on the HGTV site. (The HGTV link no longer works. Try here.) Naturally there are many ways to achieve this effect but Donna’s is the easiest I’ve found.

Read the instructions carefully. It took my brain several readings before the concept registered. By putting a thin contrasting layer between the layers of Skinner blend (this isn’t shown in the tutorial), you’d achieve the striped cane effect.

Fern Frond Stands


I was charmed by the display stands for these Koru earrings. I bumped into them as I was cruising down under on a guild site which featured Sue Smith from Aukland, New Zealand.

Fronds are a theme throughout the guild’s site. Makes me want to go there to see the ferns.

There are lots of miniature fairies and sprites sprinkled in the members’ works too. Intriguing!