Vancouver Island’s Janet Bouey is experimenting with the veneers she made in Claire Maunsell’s recent class.
If you stack up squares of clay and then cut out the centers with a smaller square cutter, you can add a veneer on the top and bottom of the stack and have yourself a cool and simple hollow bead. The bead will be loose, light and lovely.
Janet puts her own spin on Claire’s ideas and documents interesting results on Instagram, Flickr, and Facebook.
Melanie Muir created three major neckpieces for a competition to choose twelve Scottish makers to exhibit in the SOFA Chicago fall show. “Even if I don’t get in,” she says, “I will have pushed my own boundaries which is a good thing.”
This entry is called her Cairn Necklace which was inspired by the stacks of stones traditionally placed on paths and hilltops by walkers. The colors reflect the ones she sees on a beautiful summer’s day on Scotland’s west coast.
The beads are all hollow which makes the necklace easy to wear despite the size and length.
You can see the other two entries, Arrowheads and Flight Waves in her Facebook photos and on her website. Be on the lookout for her new shapes and textures as well. She’s added several new designs and sells them on her Etsy site.
Melanie teaches her Rock Cuffs in a popular downloadable class at Craftcast and she’s preparing a second session on 3D Beads for a May debut.
Five lucky readers have won a copy of the Fire issue of From Polymer To Art magazine. Watch for it in the mail Cindy Bielefeldt, Laura Lee, Ashleen, Alene Cope and Randi Bystrom! Congratulations.
Spain’s Sona Grigoryan starts your week with a new way to create transparent hollow beads like the ones pictured here. See all her works on Flickr.
She has generously uploaded a few photos that give you the basic instructions.
Her method involves fine wire and small balloons! The deflating balloon pulls the raw clay inward and the wire helps keep the shape.
It’s tempting to try a trick with such easy ingredients. A few hours after it was posted Texas’ Joey Barnes already put her spin on a test bead (a great diversion during the Super Bowl).
These interestingly shaped hollow beads from Elena Fadeeva from Belarus were made using the free Strata tutorial by Claire Maunsell in Quebec. The symmetry of the beads is enhanced with subtle patterning and hole detailing.
Elena’s rough geometric stamps are homemade and a wash of paint or patina makes her work look ancient modern. Her pieces are for sale on the Fair Masters site and there’s lots more to oggle on Flickr.
While Anke Humpert is excited to bring her work to America (like these new distressed hollow Wheely beads) and visit the U.S. for the first time, we Americans are excited to meet our European counterparts.
Anke is speaking at the IPCA Synergy conference in Atlanta, talking about the European scene and the German polymer clay group, Polyclaykunst.de. She’s trained as an architect and has published a number of books and classes. Read more on Flickr and Facebook and check back here for the next few days to see what I see at Synergy.
