And the Oscar goes to…

My slightly wonky bowl from a slightly wonky and very snowy weekend at the combined Ohio guilds’ event (Buckeye Bash) weekend. I cheerily combined stripes and chevrons from scrap plus extruded flower slices. No sanding and not a bit of worrying went into this little pedestal bowl. I’m adding this to my growing collection of playful objects which make me happy.

Meanwhile I ignored the computer and didn’t troll through your latest work. I have no choice but to feature myself if I want to watch the Oscars on tv with my husband.

The red carpet wins. You’re oggling the gowns and the jewelry too, right? Back to work tomorrow.

Celtic cutout bowl

Vermont’s Mags Bonham has some techno tricks up her sleeve that she’ll be teaching on Friday evening at the Cabin Fever confab in Maryland. The polymer layers for this 4″ green bowl were drawn on her computer and cut with her Silhouette machine.

Here she builds up contrasting layers to boost the thin clay’s strength. The bowl has a Celtic look perfect for St. Patricks Day.

Mags started running polymer through her cutter in order to make the hops charms that she creates for her beer gear. She sells beer-themed items on Etsy and on the artisan beer circuit.

Mags expanded her repertoire to flowers and has taught a Silhouette/polymer how-to lesson on Craftcast. Now she’s adding bowls. What next? Read more on her Facebook page, on Flickr and on Pinterest.

More than one way with polymer

No cane slices were combined to create Barb Fajardo’s latest experiment! For this 4″ diameter bowl she’s using her Mandala Flora technique that includes a clever mix of cut and replace plus texture and paint.

It’s a welcome departure from the usual. (Remember her last bowl experiment?) We sometimes forget that with polymer there’s always more than one way to get the results you want. Start a week full of possiblities.

While her site is undergoing a makeover, you can find Barb on Flickr, Pinterest, and Facebook.

Bowled over polymer

Slovenia’s Claudia Kurent has stockpiled an impressive stash of bowls. She’s taking a few days to admire them before they disappear at the holiday artfair. You can examine these little beauties on her blog. It looks like she’s built them on glass liners.

Seems PCD always gravitates to Claudia during the holidays. Here are her snowflake ornaments from last year.

You may particularly like her Tips and Tricks album on Flickr. She’s also on Facebook.

Homeland polymer

Madrid’s Sona Grigoryan has been experimenting with strips of newspaper coiled to make forms. Here she shapes the paper coils into a shallow round vessel.

She tops the paper bowl with ribbons of polymer wound into a traditional design that becomes a lid.

Memories of her homeland are never far from her thoughts and historic Armenian designs often appear in Sona’s works. Here polymer is braided and curled into a lovely pattern that is then textured and antiqued to look ancient.

“I’m a free artist,” she says. “I don’t live a single day without making beautiful things or thinking about them.”

Her growing body of work is cataloged on Flickr and she posts regularly to Facebook.

Bowl bandwagon

Suddenly (or so it seems) polymer vessels and furnishings are popping up online.

Angie Wiggins has long loved mixing paper and polymer and beads into embellished delights. See the legs she adds to her little ring pots using an antique ice cream mold for her form.

Kate Tracton covers wooden boxes or creates platters from pure polymer, topping them off with cane slices and tiles.

And Jon Anderson found a metal strainer that worked well as a form to build this new lighted dome at the top of a lamp (left). You have to visit him on Facebook to see it light up.

Just yesterday, Barb Fajardo jumped on the bowl bandwagon with this blooming bowl.

Artists are seeing more possibilities for mixing polymer into their art and adding it to their home furnishings.

StudioMojo

Ever wonder how other artists pull such long square sheets of polymer through their pasta machines? Are yours always dog-eared and mishapen like mine?

Lindly Haunani has the answers that will be revealed in a video on Saturday’s StudioMojo. You can sign up for the premium weekend newsletter here.

Inspired bowls

Encouraged by the progress that Donna Greenberg enjoyed with her series of polymer bowls, Gera Chandler decided to have another go at what she calls her segmented bowls.

Gera says of her first efforts, “A few days ago I saw the amazing holey bowls that Donna Greenberg is making. It was an epiphany moment. I got the inks out again and made this petite prototype (right).”

That led to Gera’s Segmented Vessels (left). ” It is always good to switch things up every now and then,” she says.

Supermoon viral spiral

Last night’s supermoon gives us a great opportunity to feature these lunar like polymer constructions from Donna Greenberg.

Her bowls have progressed over the last six months from palm-sized spikey cups to larger, shallow vessels with spiraling textured interiors riddled with holes. This 10-inch wide one she calls Viral Spiral.

Donna’s documented her lunar explorations on Facebook and Flickr. Her work has encouraged others to revisit polymer bowl designs as Donna moves on to incorporate metal clay into more complex designs.

She collaborated with metal clay artist Kathleen Nowak Tucci for the series of small bowls that were featured on the cover of the Fall 2014 edition of Metal Clay Artist magazine.

Kickstarting Oozeq

Oozeq has 5 days left to raise the seed money that will help launch production of its starch putty that can be used for hollow forms. Manipulate the putty into any shape and bake it hard. Wrap the baked shape in polymer and bake again then soak in water to wash away the putty.

Kickstarter tells the whole story and you can be in on the ground floor. Will you support this exciting development?

Polymer shards

This bowl that looks like a mosaic construction assembled from pieces of Delft pottery is Wendy Malinow’s lastest in her series of nests.

The pieces in the China Shard Nest are made from polymer on which Wendy as drawn blue images. The piece isn’t finished, she says there’s a honey covered egg to come.

Wendy’s style is unmistakeable. Here I am modeling one of her wonderfully strange dolls at the Buckeye Bash. Surf through her world on Tumbler and on Facebook. Have a wonderfully strange weekend.

Tide pool polymer

Along with the photo of her spectacular Tide Pool Bowl, Carol Simmons offers the details of its construction on her blog.

You can see the components she amassed and follow along as she slices them to precise and consistent thickness. She assembled the patterns into a pleasing collage, pushed the edges together and flattened the whole sheet.

It’s nerve wracking to hear how she lifted the delicate thin sheet and placed it into a thrift-store bowl that served as a form.

Carol’s years as a biologist/ecologist certainly contribute to her ability to replicate botanical colors and diversity. In her career she spent months mapping vegetation in California, the Rocky Mountains and the Artic.

Zoom in and you’ll feel lost in a tide pool. What a masterpiece of color and form! See more samples of her work on Flickr and stay in touch on Facebook. Carol has collected quite a treasure trove of colors and designs on Pinterest as well.

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