Polymer Clay Daily

Let your fingers do the talking

Ron Lehocky's takeaway from Lindly Haunani's class on PolymerClayDaily.com

Ron Lehocky made this bevy of bowls after Lindly’s recent class in Kentucky. It’s comforting to know that even after he’s made 50,000 hearts, he still needs to practice just like the rest of us. Amazing!

Do your fingers need to wrestle the clay before you can you’re certain that a concept has lodged itself securely in your noggin?

No matter how many pages of instructions I have, my fingers insist on fumbling through the twists and turns.

Ron’s an overachiever, as you can see. I’ll consider myself a star if I can come away from Lindly’s Columbus class in October with a fraction of that. We have a few seats left! Come play with us.

See what outrageousness and oddities we’ve scooped up for this Saturday’s StudioMojo. Keeping up with our art medium is always surprising and fun. 

Game changer

Ron Lehocky gives his hearts a boost with the new Teal Premo on PolymerClayDaily.com

The new Premo teal can take your palette up a notch. Lindly Haunani and Maggie Maggio worked quietly for months with the Sculpey team to formulate a clay as close as possible to the industry standard cyan.

Here Ron Lehocky introduces the new primary into his palette and his hearts take on new life.

It’s not often that a product has this kind of impact. Read more in the series of posts from Maggie and Lindly on the Sculpey site. The new color is available online with free shipping on orders over $30.

I try not to promote products on PCD but I couldn’t resist sharing this development. We save tool talk for StudioMojo where we get down and dirty about promising new tools and must-have supplies. There are some delicious ones (and some duds) right now. Come and see.

No particular reason

Linda Loew lets loose with bowls of balls on PolymerClayDaily.com

As I sorted the posts and pictures grabbed for this week’s StudioMojo I realize I’ve collected exciting polymer works made for no particular reason. These bowls of balls are a case in point.

Baltimore’s Linda Loew admits that her bowls of balls aren’t very functional. She liked the colors…so why not add a few more? And some texture just for fun?

I take it back…there is a good reason. The pieces we’ll feature this week were made joyfully to please the artist. In Linda’s case, she was making bowls for a swap at an upcoming polymer conference. The point is that perfection can be tedious, driven, and controlled. Come on over to StudioMojo and watch polymer artists let loose, have some fun!

From the berry patch

Monika Busch picks her colors from the berry patch on PolymerClayDaily

Germany’s Monika Busch (Efmoni) consistently creates stunning colors in her striped polymer beads and buttons. “The luminosity of the colors and strong contrasts fascinate me,” she says.

The raspberry colors on these big-hole (7mm) beads are combined with reds, greens, pinks, and deep browns.

Monika makes what she calls dread jewelry for beards and hair and dreadlocks.

Don’t you want to try her juicy palette?

Spring bouquet

Bonnie Bishoff offers a spring bouquet at the ACC show in Baltimore on PolymerClayDaily.com

Bonnie Bishoff offers us a bouquet of buds with her latest brooch.

My heart did a little flip for the colors, the simplicity, the beauty of this piece that she’ll be offering at the ACC show in Baltimore this weekend. It seems to promise that spring is on the way. Don’t you want to brush your fingertips over the buds?

On StudioMojo we’ll be discovering other polymer artists in the ACC show. The emerging artist award went to a polymer artist who’s new to PCD. Come on over and see all the exciting stuff that doesn’t quite fit into the daily posts. 

Blurry polymer

Jorre de St Jorre on PCDaily

No need to wipe your screen or clean your glasses. It’s not you. Polymer has gotten blurry.

There’s Wendy Jorre de St Jorre and her Hedges cane that’s a pointellist’s rendition of Australian trees and bushes, the 45th cane in her weekly series. This one started at 4 inches square.

Read the excellent interview on Blue Bottle Tree and you’ll understand her intensity. Wendy’s cane designs have become more impressionistic as they’ve gotten more complex. Prepare to be awed by her canes on Flickr, Pinterest and Facebook.

Van Alphen on PCDaily

Then the UK’s Cate van Alphen (Fulgorine) put out what she’s calling her Spectrum beads with vibrant colors that move like an oil slick. They’re made with Fimo’s True Colors. The first batch was intriguing and successive offerings are more mystifying. Look at Flickr and Facebook.

Used to be we wanted crisp edges on our polymer designs and now we’ve gone all soft and blurry. Figuring out how is going to be fun.

Making rainbows

Golan on PCDaily

Sometimes all we need is color to brighten our day. Today Ronit Golan’s stacks of midnight rainbow colors will do the trick. Hint: she adds dark blue to her usual 24 colors for this version.

The cutout disks are ready to slide into the extruder tube. Ronit combines the resulting shapes into canes. She offers her color and stacking advice for free in this post.

Find out what Ronit makes with the extruded results on her Flickr and Etsy sites. Give yourself a time limit before you check out her Pinterest page or you could happily wander for hours. She adds her accidents and brainstorms to Facebook.

Maggio’s signature polymer

I love wearing this polymer clay gift from Maggie Maggio. All the soft sage green, slate blue/gray and soft brown shapes reverse to reveal more shades of the palette. The wearer can endlessly flip the pieces and change the look. It’s a stunning necklace and an entertaining toy!

The colors look uniform here. On closer examination you’ll see subtle patterning and Maggie’s signature black and white shadow layers. (Note: It’s the same necklace in both pictures…one in sun and one in shade. Her colors are difficult to capture.) See an earlier post here.

Maggie’s site crashed last week just as she was preparing to start posting again. I’ve begun resurrecting the blog for her. Don’t think Maggie’s lost her color sense, the web colors reverted to generic ones. They’ll be fixed and she’ll have new content soon.

Maggie and Lindly’s new book will be out in August. Pre-order now: Polymer Clay Color Inspirations: Techniques and Jewelry Projects for Creating Successful Palettes

Baker’s Yucatan polymer colors

The blinding white snow outside makes me search for warmer polymer clay colors on my computer. Betsey Baker’s work on her new 1000markets site hits the spot.

On her blog (Stonehouse Studio) Betsy talks a bit about her online experience and why she’s trying various venues.

She says her new “Maya” series was inspired by the vivid colors of the Yucatan – the azure blues of the ocean, the yellow/greens of the lush vegetation, the desaturated reds and oranges of old hacienda walls and the texture of Mayan artifacts – and that’s just what I need today.