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!

Put your heart in it

Time flies and it’s time to start making hearts. No need to stick with traditional reds, however.

Israel’s Orly Fuchs Galchen (Hollowology) shows us her best blues and greens dressed up with carved dots and lines. She shares hollow heart tricks in a tutorial on Etsy.

A look at Orly’s unconventional approaches shown on Instagram and Facebook will have you skipping to your studio to try your hand at some romantic mementos of your own.

Pencil me in

Italy’s Alessia Bodini used colored pencils to give these hollow polymer beads their vibrancy.

Surface treatments on polymer are becoming more plentiful (see yesterday’s pastels) and more interesting as artists take more painterly approaches to our small canvases. You can follow Alessia’s experiments on Facebook and Flickr.

Have paints and pencils showed up in your toolbox?

Hollowed beads revisited

When teachers begin to prepare for their 2016 classes, we get an early look at what’s ahead in polymer. Here Eva Haskova shows off her January 31 class samples with their graffiti-like marks and hollowed out interiors.

Eva and her students will be pushing the boundaries of the bead in her class in Prague. Wouldn’t you like to know how she uses embossing powders to achieve those spotty edges and slashes of color? See the other classes here and more of Eva’s newest work on Flickr and Facebook.

Collaged transfers

These glowing hollow beads from Claire Maunsell are patterned with collaged pieces of laser transfers. The elegant mix of patterns shine through dark and distressed surfaces. The combination lends her beads an aura of a rich and mysterious past.

Claire’s added a number of collaged and hollow beads on her Flickr pages. Go there for your first-of-the-week jolt of inspiration.

We happened to be working on laser transfers in our weekend class in Minnesota. See how Maureen Carlson turned the transfer of her sprite into a sculpture and see some of our class pictures on Instagram.

Polymer surface design

Vickie Turner has moved to the east coast of Canada and writes a lovely post (on her polymer blog, Claymagination) about her new home and the work she’s doing in her studio. The tour of her area provides a dreamy diversion.

She took a class in polymer surface techniques with Claire Maunsell in Montreal before the move and used it as the starting point for these very distinctive and painterly beads.

Vickie says that she finds herself in the studio – usually by painting. You can easily see how she brings her “process painting” to polymer with stunning effect.

That’s two dynamic teacher/student matchups this week.

Cracking the code

This very large hollow crackle pendant with a carved edge from Canada’s Claire Maunsell bursts with color, texture and excitement. Claire teaches the first class at the new Galerie Freisleben in Ubersee in August.

She says, ” I think you’ll agree that we can expect this gallery to be an exciting hub for all things polymer now and in the future, and I’m just so excited to be part of it!”

Claire is teaching surfaces in Ubersee and traveling to other venues to share her own brand of hollow forms. Claire comes from a background in hot glass so her approach to surfaces and hollow forms in polymer is quite different from others.

I’m returning to Ohio from Canada today with a renewed appreciation for the mellow Canadian vibe. My 3-year-old grandson is floating on a cloud after a visit to the top of the CN Tower in Toronto. Who knew that tickets to a tourist attraction and a ride in a glass elevator could bring such happiness? Ah, the joys of grandparenting.