Polymer Clay Daily

Beat-the-clock polymer

Japanese designers Yuji Kawauchi and Yuri Hamaguchi of Atelier Sango sculpted mini-portraits out of polymer clay (Bend and Bake) at the recent Dwell on Design event in Los Angeles. Twice a day they picked someone from their audience and created a portrait in 30 minutes.

The duo produce figures for claymation videos and presented their work as part of the Yakitate! (fresh baked) show of emerging artists.Watch the video in the right column to see Kawauchi in action.

Can you imagine sculpting a likeness in front of a crowd with the clock ticking? They’re used to working fast since a 30-minute movie requires approximately 21,600 stops to change the figures for the frames.

You can see their animations and more information about them on the DesignBoom site. The link came to us from DailyArtMuse/Susan Lomuto.

Allard’s life is grand

Melanie Allard is an illustrator/sculptor/animator from Quebec. I was mesmerized by her “Life is Grand” animation (even though it’s probably plasticine). She uses plenty of polymer clay in her work. (Look under “bricolage” which translated to DIY!) Much of her site is in French so I’m guessing again. Here’s her Flickr site and more of her animated work.

Summer living has cut into my research time so I’m happy when artists write in as Melanie did, admiring and linking through to another artist’s work. A bit of summer serendipity.