Sometimes a neat, tidy, geometric polymer pendant hits the spot.
Spain’s Zazu Polymer Clay Jewelry convinces us that everything is under control when the news and the weather tell us anything but that.
If you need safety and predictability, see how Murcia Aranzazu (Zazu) creates sleek, bright, controlled jewelry on her website, Facebook and Instagram. Her Pinterest page lets you roam around in her inspirations.
This cosmic-looking mokume gane brooch from Moscow’s Juliya Laukhina stopped me in my tracks. Turns out, a while ago Juliya’s home caught fire and she and her family moved to another place. She’s finally feeling settled and safe.
“The tragic mood has already passed, everything will be fine. I will sculpt here, but it takes time while we settle down. A beautiful night like this I wish to all. Sculpt, create, create! It is not so important that others buy or not, appreciate or not, it is important for the tranquility of the soul to create something,” she says.
Juliya’s Instagram and Etsy are full of pieces that reflect her gratitude and tranquility.
New York’s Nicole Johnson (MealyMonsters) is coming up on her favorite time of year. Her witches have taken up residence in their teacups. The pumpkin heads are everywhere on her Instagram
Note new details like dripping noses on her popular witches. Where will the monsters show up in your studio? In the spoons perhaps?
Maryland’s Lindly Haunani debuted her new class Telling Your Color Story: Harmonious Color Schemes at Creative Journey Studio’s new facility in Georgia over the weekend.
Students’ undulating patterns wave you gently into the week. Lindly taught techniques for a series of veneers that serve as fabric for polymer Half Square quilts.
This design is new and mouthwatering. You can see more class work on Lindly’s Facebook and on Creative Journey’s site
Oklahoma’s Katie Way made stripes in her own distinctive palette using Carol Blackburn’s clever instructions. By cutting slim slices and incrementally jogging their positions, Katie re-assembled her stripes into a veneer that looks like a miniature afghan. It could provide warmth in some dollhouse this winter.
The result is so alluring she probably hates to cut it to make her holiday jewelry line. Go to Katie’s Instagram to see what her veneer becomes.
Over at StudioMojo this weekend, I’m taking a deep breath and revealing the subject of a new book I’m writing. I won’t be alone. There are several other polymer artists who are writing this fall. Join us to read about the bumper crop of books and the trends that have started a buzz.
More often these days polymer artists are holding designs up to the light to see what new effects we can create.
Here Brisbane, AU’s Lyne Tilt (lynetiltart_lyneartdesigns)holds a little experiment up to the window. “Experimenting! This little piece makes me so happy! Joy comes from the journey,” she says.
First, she created small canes with translucent centers and mounted thin slices of those canes on another translucent background layer to create earrings. See her Instagram for the in-progress shots.
Can you imagine the stash of small canes that Utah’s Mary Anne Loveless has at her fingertips when she starts to assemble her covered pens? And the coordinated tops are slightly flattened beads.
Little delights like this around the house bring smiles for years to come every time someone jots a note. See the rest of them on her Flickr page.
All this begins with an inexpensive Bic pen and some small canes.
Chicago’s Marina Rios (FancifulDevices) creates rustic, Victorian, tribal style mixed media assemblages. Her antique and vintage materials are heavily altered and combined with artisan components to create evocative objects.
Marina adds sand, ground and dyed oyster shell, embossing powders, pre-baked and chopped polymer and more as inclusions in the beads that stack up into this Regolith totem.
After firing, she begins painting – back-painting, resist, dry brushing, glazing and more to give this 3.4″ stack of beads its history and mystery.
If you like it when cosmic collides with tribal in polymer, check her out on Instagram and Etsy.
Take a closer look at how Maryland’s Linda Loew uses up her bits of veneer from a recent Lindly Haunani “Shale” class.
Linda adds cutout beads that zig and zag across patterns. The shapes add up to an exciting visual mix of companionable colors.
Do Linda’s necklaces make you want to reconsider what treasures can be salvaged from your experiments? Here she is on Instagram.
These beads from California’s Leslie Aja ease us back to fall. Leslie was inspired by early beads created by Cynthia Toops.
On Leslie’s Instagram, she features several groupings of simple beads in striking colors. Their simplicity and strong colors strike just the right note as the season begins to change.
Need more? Come on over to StudioMojo this weekend where we’ll finish our wrapup of fall events and look at what products and ideas are on the horizon.
