From this angle you can hardly tell what Julie Eakes is up to with her extruded polymer mosaics. If you tip the bowl a delightful secret is revealed.
Read about how cane ends from one face project propelled Julie in a more sculptural direction. Of course she encountered problems she hadn’t planned on and found there was no turning back once she started.
This one-of-a-kind bowl is 9″ in diameter by 3.25″ deep. She plans to go bigger next time.
We’ve been on an extruding craze lately and here’s one more for you to try while it’s hot and the clay is soft.
Fanmaus (Tatiana Begacheva) from Russia brings us this cheerful jumble of pyramids covered in extruded strings of clay.
I’ll guess that she baked the base forms first, then she adhered the strings to the triangles and fired again. The chunks move and the colors spiral to give the necklace movement and interest.
All signs point to extruding. Get out your gun and try this new trick from St. Petersburg’s Maria Belkomor .
Her twisted bracelet comes with an easy tutorial in Russian but you won’t need written instructions to get the gist of it. The pictures show you everything.
Notice how the soothing colors of her bracelet match the colors in the street view on her blog.
Some fun for your weekend! It’s still hot which will make the clay softer and easier to extrude.
Bettina Welker’s clever extruded cane that was featured last week has gone viral already. Some of the most imaginative versions of Bettina’s tutorial showed up on the blog of tmariefrance (Marie France Tournat).
Marie used Bettina’s multi-colored extruded cane as a launch point for other experiments that you can browse through on her site and shop.
If you’ve never extruded before, this cane can give you instant success. Let me know if you come up with your own interesting versions. I’m going to have to try this too. You can use the off-cuts and leftovers for that other viral tutorial, the Stroppel cane.
Get out your polymer clay extruder (our warm weather will make extruding easier). Germany’s Bettina Welker has generously uploaded the instructions for her Pixelated Retro Blend Cane.
Bettina’s come up with an easy and clever method. I look forward to seeing your versions.
Doesn’t this necklace from Cecilia Botton look charmingly simple? A no-brainer!
Extruded square black tubes of polymer are interspersed with shorter sections of tube that have been embellished with simple flower cane slices. The colorful slices pop out against the black background.
Cecilia is French and works in Hong Kong. As a fabric buyer she has lots of experience with what does and doesn’t work in patterns. Her web sites are a riot of experiments and playing with patterns in ways that catch the eye. See what she’s done with the Stroppel cane. When she’s not traveling, Cecilia gets up early to fit in some polymer work before she begins her job and it’s easiest to track her work on Flickr.
Giving myself a long weekend! See you here on Monday.
Need a taste of summer? This is Moscow summer from Juliya Lauhina. Not only are the colors like sorbet and salads, her techniques contain twists and turns that will leave you scratching your head. How did she do that?
Plus you get to see Juliya at her booth in the market.
Soutache is a skinny flat decorative braid that is usually used as drapery trim or on military uniforms but lately it’s been showing up in jewelry. Polymer faux soutache turns up on the FaceBook page of Italy’s Olimpia Corvino in some interesting shapes.
Fans of polymer extruding will love trying this new twist. The link was sent in by Ronna Weltman.
My studio time has dwindled and my head is full of ideas. My fingers are itching to do something other than type. I’ll be cutting out a couple of days of PCDaily posts each week to get reacquainted with polymer.
There’s plenty here to explore. Just enter your desire into the search box in the right column and you’ll be surprised at what you find. Of course there are delightful videos and inside tips on StudioMojo every weekend for those who want to take our relationship to the next level.
Germany’s Cornelia Brockstedt shows us another extrusion trick with these string earrings.
Thin spaghetti-size strands of polymer have been gathered at the top and bottom and formed into a pod shape. Hand-formed wire bead caps join the pod to the findings.
Cornelia’s Flickr pages are full of experiments and research. She has a background as a goldsmith and graphic designer.
Cornelia’s built an impressive repertoire of textures and shapes, submitting one each week for the guild’s Club 52 project.
Are you ready to try extruding?
Bette Jo Hendershott offers a free and straightforward tutorial for creating tidy extruded canes.
Borders have a variety of uses and can easily be combined into more complex patterns. They’re handy to have on hand.
Sometimes the predictability of stack and repeat can make for pleasant polymer play. A little math and geometry fun for you. Thanks to Jeannie Havel and others who sent this link along.
