Polymer Clay Daily

Faux birch

Wendy Malinow was decked out in polymer finery when we met up. On one arm she wore her signature antler bracelet paired with an early pebble bracelet by me (yea!) and topped off with a new birch bangle with skull, teeth and bone dangles. She has long arms! Organic with a strange, delightful twist.

The branches look separate but form one incredibly realistic stack. She admits that the piece took at least four bakings with a metal armature under the main branch to provide stability. The textures fool both the eye and the touch.

These pictures were taken late at night in the kitchen. I added a couple more here and here to give you the full effect. Check out her bracelet of thorns on her Etsy shop too.

Faux Fordite

Dee Wilder educates and delights us at the same time with her polymer faux Fordite rings.

In big automotive factories, the overspray in the painting bays used to build up on surrounding surfaces. The layers of paint were baked as many as 100 times in the ovens where car bodies were cured. Paint build-up had to be removed from time to time.

Workers (and then collectors) salvaged the colorful layered byproduct, calling it Fordite or Detroit Agate.

No more Fordite. Cars are now painted using a process that produces no overspray. Then came Dee Wilder and her polymer clay experiments. Dee has mastered this bit of trickery. There are many more tricks on her dense and rich Flickr site. What will she think of next?

Faux oxidation

Inspired by the oxidized silver and gold jewelry at the Baltimore American Craft Council show, Donna Greenberg wanted to see if she could imitate the expensive metals in polymer clay. Here are her two faux oxidized gold Natura freeform bracelets with faux opal, quartz and hematite pearls. Her Facebook page shows even more.

She says, “I don’t have to tell you how seductive this material is. It’s always leading me down unexpected paths. I recently left my mural and decorative finish company after 22 years and I needed something creative to do as well as earn a living at. This is a lot easier than standing on scaffolding and ladders ten hours a day!” Have an easy weekend.

Delightful diversions

There’s nothing better to veer your week off track than a couple of interesting polymer techniques. If you’re facing serious deadlines and chores, stop reading right now.

The first tantalizing tutorial is a bit of Japanese-inspired faux lacquer from Nan Roche. Alison Torres reports from the CFCF event in Maryland that’s in progress this week. Nan briefly describes her method in this short video. (The picture is Alison’s work from Nan’s class.)

Then I happened upon luminous faux mother of pearl from LesEthiopiques. The text on Hélène’s free tutorial is in French accompanied by step-by-step shots of her discoveries. Wouldn’t that be fun to try?

I have deadlines and chores of my own that I’m avoiding. Perhaps if you trot off and try these tricks, I can focus. Sneaky, eh? You try them so I won’t have to.

Creating signature style

Tricia Dewey’s newest polymer beads hum with color and they come with a good story.

Tricia bought Christi Uliczny’s popular “Rocky Path” tutorial and modified the instructions extensively to create beads rather than pendants. Tricia used the tutorial as a launch pad to combine leaf and alcohol inks and mica powders on polymer in her own way.

Sidelined by an elbow injury, Tricia was taking a break from her fossil series of polymer/encaustic multimedia wall art to experiment with beads. Using a new set of instructions and working on a smaller scale, Tricia’s signature style still shone through.

Are your scrapbooks calling you?

The polymer photo pendants by Angie (HopeMoreStudio) tug at my heart. She adds bits of lace, ribbon, buttons and ephemera to family snapshots that turn them into sentimental treasures.

Angie specializes in faux glass slides that capture a glimpse of another time and place….all polymer transfers that have been photoshopped, sepia-toned and topped with coats of shiny finish. They make me sigh with pleasure and nostalgia.

Are your own scrapbooks begging to be given some studio love that will make them into pieces that can be worn, displayed and given the honor they deserve?

Cyber thanks

Thanks to cyberhostess Alison Lee and all last night’s class participants. Teaching extrusions to students from Italy, UK, Mexico, Australia, Canada and my home town all from the comfort of my well-worn computer chair is mind boggling. Thank you!

Polymer faux bois

The last time we spotted Hélène at Les Ethiopiques she was fooling us with polymer leather. Now she’s stumped us with wood lookalikes. Her polymer burls twist themselves into curved necklaces and bracelets embellished with copper wire.

Wood burls, deformed, worn and weathered tree growths, are prized by woodworkers and my cabinetmaker husband wasn’t convinced that this was polymer. But it is. Hélène will have woodturners scratching their heads wondering where she found such fine wood specimens.

Emilie at Lily’s Treasures brought the link to our attention.

Spring is online

Donna Kato is offering a terrific deal on her springtime hearts class at CraftEdu.com until noon today. If you’ve not seen Donna at work, now is the time for a cheap thrill. And speaking of thrills, I’d be thrilled if you’d join me for the extrusions chat on Craftcast.com tonight!

Faux felines from Ukraine

Is it enamel? Polymer is such a fabulous faux medium that this necklace from Polina and Sergey Muha could fool you.

The Kiev couple assures me that they use polymer for the base shapes, friends’ illustrations for images, and resin for the glassy effect. “We love to work in collaboration with different artists, illustrators, photographers,” says Polina. In this necklace 15 cat illustrations, the work of Russian artist Rimma Coffeee, hang together happily on a cord.

While the concept isn’t altogether new, the look of the thin shaped illustration beads is young and fashionable.

One of the benefits of polymer’s popularity spreading around the world is that new artists look at the medium with fresh eyes. Genevieve Williamson sent in this link saying, “I find it interesting when people use polymer clay to suit their own purposes instead of feeling obligated to use it in any traditional manner.”

Turns out, the couple have been regular visitors to PCDaily. Do you know artists out there using polymer in unusual ways?

Cracking the opalescence code

Liz Hall’s mosaic brass bangles jangle against each other and sing with shimmering color. Small iridescent pieces of polymer butt against each other with a devil-may-care attitude that’s punctuated by black and white stripes.

Liz has been working to create opalescence in polymer and it looks to me like she’s cracked the code. Wander through her Etsy shop and you’ll see her very believable results.

Learn to knit

UK’s Claire Wallis offers a “tada!” of her own with this knitted polymer cuff bracelet. She says that faux knitting was an experiment which she shares in a short visual tutorial on Flickr. My eyes had a hard time believing what I was seeing.

Claire used light cream colored polymer to keep the focus on texture in this piece. Imagine the possibilities that colored “yarn” would add.