Lampworking sleight of hand

Anna Nel's canes imitate lampworking on PolymerClayDaily.com

Anna Nel’s hollow beads look remarkably like lampwork. It’s Friday so you have the weekend to sit and study her beads and the cane they came from.

Anna Nel readies her palette on PolymerClayDaily.com

She uses some ingenious combination of mokume gane and Skinner blended bulleyes to pull off this sleight of hand. Anna says she was inspired by Arizona’s mountains. She even offers a photo of her luminous palette. Look on Facebook and Instagram.

Come on over and join us on StudioMojo, a Saturday morning in-depth look at the week in polymer. Grab a cup of tea, open your newsletter, and create yourself a wonderful weekend!

Conversational polymer

Barb Handy's hearts are conversational on PolymerClayDaily.com

Nothing says Valentines Day to me more than old-fashioned conversation hearts. Arizona’s Barb Handy (barbiesbest) makes an exact copy in polymer that’s hard to resist.

They’re perfectly simulated from the chalky colors to the pink ink to the typeface. Her charms are made 1/4″ thick and drilled either vertically or horizontally. Barb has it down perfectly.

Happy Valentines Day!

Trickster polymer

Leila Bidler celebrates in stone with a touch of tribal #polymerclaydaily

We might as well stretch this holiday weekend for one more day with Leila Bidler’s Kokopelli, the Native American trickster god. Leila’s carved imitative stone gives New Year’s a touch of tribal. The how-to pictures on her Instagram show her methods.

Party’s over. It’s time to get busy again but no reason you can’t slip a memento like this in your pocket to remind you of what good times you intend for the year.

Polymer flattery

The UK’s Claire Wallis builds a cane pattern, backs it with white and shapes it into an imitation cone shell. A bit of weathering with paint and sand paper completes the effect.

Claire Wallis rolls polymer cane slices into shells

Claire loves to simulate nature. PCD has featured her water cane, her faux agate, her polymer knitting and now shells.

Mother Nature must be flattered with all Claire’s imitations.

Crackle to the max

Polak's maximum crackle on PolymerClayDaily.com

It’s no secret that crackle has crept into polymer art. There was fine and faux, painted and pulled. All kinds of variations. And now maximum crackle from Serbia’s Ursa Polak appears.

If you’re a crackle fan, you probably love it all. Ursa’s version glints with gold and has a distressed relic feel about it. You’ll have to guess how she did it. Look her up on Flickr and her blog.

How cracked up are you feeling?

A tangle of polymer

A pretty tangle of polymer flowers from Greece’s AnarinaAnar rounds out PCDaily’s week.

Her pieces have a distinctive look with ceramic-like speckled finishes and dark edges that provide contrast. These flowers bobble on thin wires.

There’s a spontaneous quality about her work that starts the weekend on the right foot. Check Flickr, Facebook and Etsy if you need to soak up more of her cheeriness.

Polymer envy

When you can’t get into the studio, looking at what others are producing is especially inspiring. “Yes, that’s what I’d be doing if I had my taxes done,” I tell myself.

Look at how Angie Wiggins layers silkscreens over a juicy blend of colors. But Angie can’t stop there. Her inner embroiderer has to add a few bits that look stitched on. Oh, I’d much rather look over Angie’s shoulder than add up columns of numbers.

Or maybe I’d rather follow Nadia (NadVals) lead and whip up some imitative turquoise. Those strands of tiny faux beads embedded in the middle of the pendant give the stone a more arty and authentic edge.

You go look, I’m pretending I’m a bookkeeper today (sigh). Some days are like that.

Magic carpet polymer

Madrid’s Elena Fernandez has a wandering eye and she uses polymer to explore and recreate ethnic designs in contemporary jewelry. For this mixed media necklace, she reinterprets an African design adding seed beads on felt that hang from a deeply inscribed and weathered focal bar and dark simulated stones.

Ethnic designs have long appealed to Elena and you can follow along with her collections of tribal works on Flickr and see her collection of inspirations on her Pinterest page.

Polymer’s ability to imitate other materials lets us explore cultures and imagine travels from the comfort of our studios. Where would you like polymer to take you?

Polymer stash jar

Who doesn’t need a Stash Jar like this one by California’s Brandee Blank?

She’s covered a lidded glass jar with imitative succulents in polymer. The wide lip of the pot camouflages the top of the jar and makes it a perfect hiding place for whatever small treasures you’d like to hide.

Brandee started making them for her friends who admired her live succulents but couldn’t seem to make the real ones survive. What a terrific holiday gift for garden-challenged friends.

See more of Brandee’s hiding spaces on her blog, Etsy, and Flickr.

When ideas crystalize

Stephanie Kilgast didn’t intially reveal where she was headed with her collection of polymer crystals. She offered a great little YouTube video of how she made these other-worldly minerals. She usually creates incredibly realistic miniature foods. Crystals pointed to change.

Her clusters of cave growths reappeared mounted to a dimensional canvas trailing a blue wash of color. Stephanie explains her sculptural painting and talks about her burst of creativity on her site. She hints at more changes to come.

See what other big steps Stephanie is taking on Patreon and Instagram. They’re brave and inspirational steps!

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