France’s Sonya Girodon calls her spare, minimalist, mixed-media brooch Silent Night.
It’s made of wood, paper, polymer, acrylic paint and stainless steel. Sonya is addressing issues with its waterproof qualities and new brooch mechanisms.
As the season ratchets up to a frenzy, it’s a relief to consider Sonya’s calmer view.
France’s Christine Pecaut (chifonie) stacks a collection of intense red focal pieces and companion beads onto spirals of tube-covered memory wire for a festive bohemian look.
Here’s a closer view of how her bracelets wrap arms with color and patterns. What a great way to use a favorite focal and surround it with pops of colors.
This Saturday’s StudioMojo newsletter will ease us into the holiday week with a celebration of what we’ve done this year. Pats on the back all around and a look at where polymer will take us in 2020. Come join us.
Virginia’s Wiwat Kamolpornwijit gives us some new twisted garlands for the holidays.
He was an environmental researcher in his former career. Repeating shapes with interlocking connections still dominate Wiwat’s work.
These new links are based on two-sided flat ribbons of polymer that twist themselves in opposite directions. His interconnected and wired designs are pleasant puzzles for the viewer’s eye.
Madrid’s Cristina Garcia Alvarez (espiralarte) says Feliz Navidad with polka dots and extruded strings that wind up to form a delightfully minimalist Christmas tree.
No glitter or glitz just blended pastel color lines and dimensional white dots with a faux wood tree trunk.
“Home is the memories we make on the inside. The outside is a symbol of those memories,” explains Nashville’s Lindsay Black (oddlyand company).
She specializes in polymer home portraits and she’ll even put up your decorations as she did here.
You can imagine why Lindsay limits her custom homes with their precise details to just a few. She’ll re-open her shop on Etsy in February for next year’s orders.
Melbourne’s Michelle Sansonetti (Zedembee) can’t predict what polymer creatures will take shape in her fingers.
Here it’s a bemused cat with a bird on its head.
It made me smile and that’s the main criteria for a Monday post. The cat’s stripes are comfortably rumpled and the expression is satisfyingly silly (Felix and Philomena). It’s a good way to start the week.
Simple designs contain great charm at this time of year.
Ohio’s Jan Montarsi gives dimension to the snowmen pins he made for a swap by shadowing their rounded edges. To give them personality he splurges on scarves, hats, and earmuffs.
Anita Kennerley builds her angel earrings by wrapping a circle and using hearts for wings. Using only a red circle, white belt, and black belt buckle, her earrings say that Santa is coming.
It’s the merry attitude in these designs that captures the spirit of the season.
Slip over to StudioMojo if you want a weekend helping of festive polymer ideas and insider news. StudioMojo comes right to your inbox each Saturday.
Croatia’s Nikolina Otrzan (Orsons World) tempts us with a new downloadable tutorial coming out at the end of the month. On her slim collaged tube pendants, dots join stripes along with distressed solids.
Her tutorials are full of surprising methods, copious photos, and sophisticated designs. This could be an end of the year gift to yourself that will properly launch your skills into 2020.
Here she is on Facebook and Etsy.
Florida’s Lynn (WhimsyAtWork) offers us Love and Peace with this outstanding mixed media wall piece.
Layers of handmade papers and fibers become the background for the central polymer face which looks like it’s sewn on.
Big lips, sultry mismatched eyes, tattooed nose. Love the loops on the left
She says of her work, “I breathe art. I didn’t always. I held my breath for a long time waiting for life to smack me. And when it did… WOW what JOY!! I hope you can see what I feel.” On Facebook here.
How did Texas’ Joey Barnes happen to have a spare Lucy clay roller that she donated to the women at the Ohio Reformatory? She explains that “When these machines came out several years ago, lots of customers were having difficulty understanding the machine’s roughly translated Czech/English instructions.”
Joey offered to improve them. That led to her translating their teachers’ contracts and operators’ manuals. When she refused payment, Lucy Tools sent Joey their biggest “Elephant.”
But the Elephant was too big for Joey’s workspace so she set it aside waiting for the right use.
When she saw that the ORW students needed a second Lucy Elephant, she thought, “Beshert!” That’s the Yiddish word for “meant to be.” The funds raised on PCD will go to other needs of the prison program.
Ever the collaborator, Joey credits Carol Simmons, Ivy Niles and Corrie Beth Hogg for giving her inspiration for her flower box (shown here) and garden series.
