Italy’s Alessia Bodini makes spiral beads with a sideways mokume gane twist. She nicks off bits of the sides of the beads to reveal the layers underneath.
Could be a triangle extruded shape. Are you itching to figure it out too? Alissa likes to tease us on her Instagram and Flickr and Facebook.
The brains that Bordeaux’ Marina Sabio (TinySparks) sculpts in polymer appeal. I find myself trying to think up clever words to justify why her art tickles me.
No reason, no words. Sometimes we just like what we like. Maybe it’s because my extrusions often end up a ball looking suspiciously like one of these without the personality. She offers her brains in bloody and galactic.
If you need to give yourself a smile, explore further on her site, Etsy and IG.
Switzerland’s Anouk Stettler (Habetrot) looks like she’s having fun as she bends and twists ropes of polymer into earrings like these.
She explains, “I make costume jewelry. I do not use gold, silver, and gems. I am not a goldsmith. My works are made of polymer clay, leather and brass – beautiful to look at and memorable for its wearer. Its value lies in the individuality, the creative process and the time I invest in each piece.” Get Anouk’s full effect on Instagram.
After pushing ourselves toward increasingly complex shapes and techniques, it’s good to circle back to simple and delightful ideas.
If you’re looking for more info about the quirky and weird paths your fellow artists are taking, join us at StudioMojo on Saturdays where we gather the most interesting ideas, tools, and trends I run into so that you can round out your polymer education. Join us!
Katya Karavaeva’s (nikamiart) pendants glow with colors that are both dark and clear. Her pendants often have rings buried on the top from which she strings them to flatter each design.
This is not your usual drill-a-hole-and-grab-a-cord approach. Look at the multi-strand and braided cords that she’s paired with her beads on Instagram.
The catalog from the Into the Forest exhibit is a keeper, a souvenir of a monumental event. You can now order one online by following this link.
You might also want to click on Dan Cormier’s new online Single-Slice Mokume MasterClass which debuts in January. The pre-launch, early bird pricing ends at midnight tonight (Wednesday).
The Sculpey.com store is now open and PCD readers can get an extra grand opening discount by using the promo code PCD20%
It’s true, happiness can sometimes be found in an empty Cheez Whiz jar.
Iowa’s Lynne Rutter Gummert swears that she doesn’t know exactly what she’s doing but what comes out of her extruder shows that she understands more than she admits.
Her colors are Klimty and bright. She mixes and matches a selection of extruded patterns. Slices are applied to a glass form that gets popped into the oven and emerges as a treasured desk accessory.
It’s a no-fail approach and a daily reminder of the her creative super power. Do you have a treasured piece that reminds you of your polymer superpower?
Loose, colorful, happily twirled polymer beads popped into view this week.
Kathryn Corbin’s necklace starts with big textured peach-colored tubes on a thick cord.
In the center, bigger loops of random surface textures in springy colors overlap and crowd against each other. It’s a fresh and spontaneous look that kept catching my eye in Claire Maunsell’s weekend surface techniques class in Boston. What a great use for the samples we were accumulating in class!
Then Jean Rutka posted pictures from a weekend group event in Morrisburg, Ontario.
One photo featured thin extruded polymer strings that Lyn Tremblay twirled into flat round disks and strung into a fabric-like necklace. On her Facebook page Lyn shows a number of other fun designs that come to her when she lets the clay “speak to her”.
Is this fascination with easily twirled bits of clay a trend or just a reflection of the exuberance of spring?
Yesterday we spiraled extrusions around an egg. Today we watch Germany’s Jana Lehmann (Feeliz) as she winds around the centers of her series of Spiral brooches.
The colors blend into each other as the layers build. White dots and black and white accents provide a diversion from the strong colors.
Jana’s debuted a series of graphic dolls that are also decorated with spirals made of subtly blended colors.
You can catch Jana on Facebook and Flickr. Don’t miss the pen/pendants before you go spinning off to your weekend.
And if you’d like an even closer look at what happened in polymer clay art this week, join us over at StudioMojo for the inside scoop in the weekend newsletter.
What may look like a modern painting with layers of wire over watercolor is Alev Gozonar’s latest exploration into using polymer extrusions.
This Istanbul artist’s long flat strings of black polymer curl across the surface, ending as faces in silhouette. On the paper Alev has drawn circles of watercolors that overlap, creating a shadowy background.
If you look back through Alev’s Instagram shots you’ll see how she played with these forms and arrived at this latest iteration which combines polymer and watercolor and takes both in a new direction.
What crazy idea is stuck in your head that need to be played with and explored?
Pre-holiday jitters? Nope, that’s Gene Wilder during his famous “It’s alive!” moment rendered by Washington, DC illustrator Joseph Barbaccia and made entirely of extruded strings of polymer.
You’ll have to look closely to see how the intricately interwoven colors blend into a dimensional mosaic.
A powerful portrait of a soldier (pictured here) was selected to appear in Lurzer’s International 200 Best Illustrators Worldwide 2016/2017.
Read more about Joseph on Facebook, SaatchiArt, and his site.
These wintery leaves from Germany’s Vera Kleist-Thom rely on extruded polymer strings for their color. The oblique cuts at the edges reveal Vera’s palette of dark reds and blues highlighted with a dash of bright yellow. Like the leaves at our feet, seemly simple leaf earrings are more fascinating upon examination.
Look at her Flickr pages and you’ll see that cut, gouged and sanded extrusions figure prominently in all Vera’s experiments. She likes to reveal what’s under the surface. Look on Etsy and Facebook too.
Yes, you could cut this shape out by hand, slowly, carefully, patiently in polymer. But once you see what a die-cutting machine will do, you may reconsider. Join me on Saturday at Craftcast to see what’s happening in the world of die-cutting.
