High fives to the dance parties and parades and celebrations at the polls. In the midst of terrible news, it felt good to be standing in line being proactive with lots of fellow voters.
I took apart a very old necklace to bring you today’s graphic. Isn’t it amazing how stars and stripes can be combined and recombined? Even the tail ends can be made into what looks like fireworks. There’s joy at the polls. Join the party.
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.
My brain’s all mushy and there’s nothing better than this cane reveal from Australia’s Robyn at Kaori Studio to capture a tired mind. That first slice is the equivalent of a cat toy for caners.
Robyn has pumped out one big batch of extruded dots! She has a baby so she works at night which accounts for the lighting. Doesn’t it make you want to try it? This is what we extruder types dream about. Watch her upcoming jewelry to see where this pops up.
Get the full slicing effect on Robyn’s Instagram (@shop.kaori). Now wasn’t that satisfying?
Don’t try to predict where your ideas will take you. Hop on Mari O’Dell’s magic carpet to see what I mean.
Mari’s journey started in the mummy section of the NYC Met Museum where she hung out as a teenager.
Recently she took my “Slots and Dots” online polymer class and reconnected with her Egyptian impulses. She learned to extrude narrow tube beads like those found in the layers of mummy wrappings. In Mari’s version, a scarab and beads dusted with metallics are interspersed with her imitative ancient faience tubes.
Beads are an ancient form of art and currency. Their echoes still ricochet around the globe. Please wait until the carpet comes to a complete stop before you leave your seat. Who says we can’t travel during a pandemic?
If you’d like to recharge your batteries, join us over at StudioMojo.
Many of Kristen Oxtoby’s designs (These Hollow Hills) rely on extruded clay laid down together to make corrugated shapes. Here, ball chain dangles from the bottom of her Farrah earrings. And in her Circa series, the polymer strings wind around circle cutouts.
Kristen’s pieces are big and bold. She calls it “…a ’60s-inspired aesthetic with a 90’s soundtrack.”
This North Carolina artist makes collections that have attitude. Get the full effect on her Instagram.
Belgium’s Nancy Blindeman (Art BeYou) has started making faces in polymer lately.
The illustrations of Patrick Nagel and the music of Duran Duran inspired Nancy to work in a new way and it suits her well. She builds up extruded strings of clay into a portrait.
She says of this character, “Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand.” When an artist can see and hear and her characters, we can sense that aliveness in the work.
I flinched when this necklace from Ontario’s Gail Garbe popped up on my screen. “That looks remarkably familiar,” I thought.
Then I had to laugh at myself when I realized that Gail took my Saturday Craftcast class and stayed up late coming up with her own twist on the concept. I must have done something right! Gail extruded the tubes and added the dots perfectly.
Then she added her own off-kilter gaily colored spacer beads. It all works!
This is what teachers hope to see – students who take their concepts to the next level. Gail has taught me a thing or two!
My dotted necklaces are all-polymer and fun to make. They’re so simple that I felt I needed to “up my game” for my Craftcast class this Saturday so I quickly (last night) made a Rex Ray, mid-century modern inspired version with colors I had on hand.
The design had been rolling around in my head. Do you have a design that needs to be brought to life?
Join us on Craftcast to learn my tricks and create your own look. For 30% off use the code: summer2020
You’ll note that I’m claiming a new hair color thanks to quarantine and mother nature. And I’ve adjusted cynthiatinapple.com to reflect my mentoring and class projects.
For more behind-the-scenes chatter, join us at StudioMojo for a weekly update each Saturday.
This is the final 8″x8″ wood panel in a series of four from Italy’s Alessia Bodini.
The mixed-media grouping is called “The Genesis of Euphoria and Discouragement: Circular Work in Four Squares “.
In the final square, the extruded strips come undone, unraveled…but in a joyous, freed way. The surfaces of the extruded strips are shaved to reveal more depth of color.
It’s kinda like our lives right now….coming unraveled in what we hope are interesting ways. If you search Alessia on PCD you can track some of the unusual, quirky ways she plays with clay. Here she is on Instagram.
Texas’ Deb Hart takes polymer back to its roots with these three hippie-themed tiles.
With regular retreats canceled, Deb is using her free time to indulge her inner flower child and make some class samples for next year’s events.
On her Facebook, you can see her in-process photos as she creates an outline with a string of extruded polymer and positions the main elements. She fills in later with colors and more patterns. The peace theme feels hopeful and right.
