Polymer Clay Daily

Halloween hearts

Ron Lehocky takes a more benign approach to Halloween with his heart pins that support the Kids Center for Pediatric Therapies. Ron works on heart number 20,203 as he sits across the table from me at the Kentucky gathering. Artists generously send him their scraps and cane ends which he upcycles into new creations.

Guild members are also working on Beads of Courage and Bottles of Hope. Tonight I regaled them with stories of the Samunnat project. You can take pride in the amount of heart shared by polymer clay artists. We’re playing….see you Monday. Look, Ron added a few Nepali mirrors to his latest heart!

Penciled polymer brooch

Bonus points are awarded to polymer artists who make work that looks good with the PCDaily colors! Today’s mixed media Phagocytosis from Annie Pennington is surely a winner. Annie’s also Associate Editor at  Art Jewelry magazine.

Her brooch combines sterling silver, copper, polymer, handmade wool felt and colored pencil. The richness of her strokes on polymer will have you digging through your art supplies for your long-forgotten pencils.

Raking the polymer leaves

Prague’s Pavla Cepelikova captures the feeling of autumn with these graceful multi-layered polymer leaves. She calls the method Fimo Batik and is preparing to teach a workshop about the process.

Ease yourself into a new week with a browse through Pavla’s Flickr pages. You’ll rake in some new ideas.

Polymer housing

Housing starts are on the rise, at least in the polymer world. Two new ones – Inessa (smfactory) from Kiev with her Halloween houses and Slovenia’s Marjana Cajhen collections of buildings got me house hunting. You may remember a few others featured on PCD:

These nostalgic and stylized designs make popular wearable and decorative reminders of simpler times and places.

Polymeow

Perhaps a polymer version of lolcats will brighten your mid-week. This feline brooch from TZ is bright and simple and fun. Spiraled extruded strings of clay are cut out in a kitty shape and enhanced with texture. A few dabs of clay form the cheeks and eyes. Add a tongue and whiskers and voila.

TZ shows off other cats on his site. It takes a while to load but it’s worth the wait.

The cat’s away today. You mice play in your studios.

Note: The translation confused me and I originally attributed this incorrectly. There’s much more art and a proper explanation on the artist’s site here.

 

Jumpy colors

This worktable full of polymer pin variations makes fabulous Friday eye-candy. You can get lost in the textures and colors tucked into the layers of these Ford/Forlano O’Keeffe brooches.

These variations came from a technique the duo developed for their Shell series. “We like the jumpy colors and textures,” says Steve. You can see the pins mounted in their bezels on their Facebook page.

Polymer artifacts

“I make all kinds of artifacts,” says New Hampshire’s Luann Udell, “I imagine myself an ancient artist working in ivory and soapstone. I dream of giving these to people I love, people who wear them daily until they are worn smooth by the touch of human hands.”

These polymer faux stone masks kept calling me back to study them along with Luann’s ancient horses, bears, fish, birds and talisman. Resonances of both primitive and digital cultures come through as Luann retells ancient stories in our very modern medium – a cyber tribal effect.

“I tell stories with my art, stories to honor and encourage others who are making their own place in the world,” she explains. Check her links and see for yourself.

Listening to polymer

Minnesota’s Jan Geisen calls herself an improv artist. “I just capture what the art piece I am working on tells me it wants to be,” she says. She comes to polymer after years working with photography and silkscreen.
Jan tried caning but had more fun collaging the scraps and followed her instincts.

If you find yourself isolated and far from other artists, read how Jan reserves her Tuesday nights for a Skype date when she works and chats with a polymer artist who lives 600 miles away.

See the results in Jan’s Flickr site and her Etsy shop which is full of her collages and tutorials.

Simple solutions

Ann Dillon pulled out a selection of her latest brooches, simple and elegant design solutions in polymer. Slices of extruded cane patterns cut at different heights stand next to each other on top of layered, textured bases cut into loose shapes. What took the most time, Ann admitted, was deciding which extruded circle patterns looked happy beside each other.

Ann doesn’t often refresh the pictures on her site and Facebook so it’s a treat to rifle through her latest works here in Virginia and give you a peek.

Carving tools and tricks

McNall carves

All your resistance to carving polymer will vanish once you thumb through Page McNall’s latest examples of her work and pictures of her tools.

McNall cityscape

Page shows how she often makes silicone molds of her carvings which simplifies creating subsequent similar pieces.

It helps that as a dentist, Page has plenty of access to drills, sharp tools and mold-making materials. She has a painterly way with color that’s stifled at her day job.