Jumping through hoops

Cynthia Tinapple jumps through hoops on PolymerClayDaily

Extruding is my studio warm-up exercise. Polymer hoop earrings are selling like hotcakes and look easy enough. Since I’ve been peddling red, white, and blue all week, the palette was settled. I was off to try out hoops.

Lynda Gilcher’s repeat angle wedge extruder disks are perfect for striped canes. She does the math and each disk indicates how many you’ll need to make a complete circle. I assembled my 12 extruded wedge strips of color into a circle.

Insert the resulting cane back into the extruder to produce any shape you want. For the hoops, I extruded the cane through Lynda’s Arches #3 disk. Voila! Hoops!

The messy scrap is the beginning of a brooch (see Jana Roberts Benzon’s idea here). Something about this textured mess seems apropos of our current red, white, and blue. It needs an element that says 2020.

Did you notice that I slid right into tutorial mode? Friday is my day to scoop up the ideas and products that have floated by and turn them into juicy stuff for StudioMojo. Sometimes it’s a how-to, sometimes it’s a looky-looky. Come on over and see what’s in this week’s grab bag.

Polymer in Japan

Yukari Tateuchi offers a taste of Japanese polymer on PolymerClayDaily.com

Japan’s Yukari Tateuchi (ycollection) was introduced to polymer in 1995. That was about the time when Nan Roche and Kaz Kono were busy in Japan though there may be no connection. I like to think that’s when polymer seeds were planted.

On her class page, she notes that, “It is even better if you bring your own slippers. The workplace is small and dirty,” There are interesting stories here!

These disks covered with monochromatic canes have a soothing, minimalist and modern feel about them. Go explore her aesthetic on her pages.

Heishi how-to

Who doesn’t like to start the week with a free tutorial? You showed such interest in the mid-July PCD post that featured chunky heishi beads by Marina Rios that she responded with a 1-minute video on Instagram.

Watch carefully! She bakes the round tubes before she cuts the facets. She paints them and then splatters the surfaces with alcohol inks. A second batch she covers with several colors of stained glass paints.

She cuts the tubes into disks when they’re baked and off the rods. Thanks for the tricks, Marina!

If cutting cooled clay into disks becomes difficult, you can pop them back into the oven to warm again. They cut like butter when warm.

Disks dotted with energy

These dotted circle beads by the Czech Republic’s Eva Haskova may stump you. Zoom in and out and still you’d have to guess. Caned? Carved? Extruded?

The disks are part of a new “energy topography” class but the translation doesn’t explain much.

All that aside, Eva’s mind works in interesting ways and this new work is an extension of some of her distinctive earlier works that you can study on Flickr and Facebook. Can you follow the dots and unravel the mystery?

Polymer chips

Russia’s Maria Belkomor is drawn to disks too. Hers are usually thin and flat (unlike yesterday’s Bagels) and her most recent versions have chipped edges that increase their tactile quality. It would be hard not to play with these when you wore them.

It takes quite a supply of disks to make this East Lemonade necklace (that’s what the translation called it) which ends with carved beads and a matching button closure.

The best place to see Maria’s stackable creations is on Pinterest. She has more on Flickr and her blog, including a lovely way of knitting with extruded strings. Thanks to Eva Menager for the link.

Lots to nosh on

Thank you for all the notes wishing me Bon Voyage. I’ve left a few goodies in the blog freezer that will automatically emerge now and then. You won’t starve and there are plenty of morsels in the archives if you get peckish. (Scroll to the bottom of the right column.)

Stacking and unpacking

I’m sending you off to France to discover that By IC is Isa Castellano. I’m liking the way she stacks graduated polymer clay disks into a focal bead. Isa combines beads and colors and media with energy and abandon.

The translation is garbled but the pictures tell a great story.

I’m unloading my suitcase, bringing my head back into the right timezone and readjusting to what passes for normal life. Enjoy IC’s site and her DaWanda gallery while I catch up.

Prophater’s polymer world

Laurie Prophater is the owner of a large trade showroom for interior designers here in Ohio. At work she’s surrounded by a wealth of design and color from around the world.

Laurie’s begun to share how that environment informs her polymer clay work in her blog, Ornamental Elements.

She’s also bravely sharing some of her experiments and works in progress (like the swirls and simulated glass tiles here) on her Flickr site. She’s on the right track and it’s going to be fun to see what develops.

You can see her earlier polymer clay transfers here.

Frame’s polymer adaptation

Vacation mate Jan Frame strung and restrung the polymer clay disks she had created in a range of colors. She was dissatisfied with the weight of the finished necklaces and dismayed by her stash of beads that simply wouldn’t do what she wanted.

She restrung them again. This time they were in an 8′ strand that she hung from a tree in the New Mexico sun where they looked bright and sculptural. We’re encouraging her to try using the sculpture as a rain chain.

We’ve experimented, adapted and had fun with polymer this week. Adios, New Mexico.

FimoSaique’s stringing

No dog days here. The weather is so lovely that I haven’t wanted to sit in front of the computer and neither do you.

FimoSaique is a one-stop polymer clay link that will get you over the Wednesday hump and back to work or play in a jiffy. (Here it is already translated into English.)

Helene K of FimoSaique has been successfully experimenting with flat button disks, stringing them in every way imaginable. One scroll down her page and you’ll have a whole new outlook. And you’ll see glimpses of her French countryside as well.