New Jersey’s Helena Bogosian celebrates Hanukkah in polymer and illustrates how families of all faiths gather for the holidays.
Simple flat circle heads with a dot for eyes and the slightest dashes for other features still read very powerfully and clearly. We know those curly beards and hair! We recognize those foods and the menorah. Helena pares everything down to its wonderful essence.
New Mexico’s Geninne Zlatkis paints and decorates, illustrates, and photographs. Every once in a rare while, she works with polymer as in this bird mobile. Yes, they’re painted.
No complex techniques, just a love of birds, and an understanding of their shapes topped with an illustrator’s ability to translate feathers into lines and dots.
It’s a pleasure to see landscapes and architecture through her eyes.
Over at StudioMojo, this is what I look for. We cast a wider net to spotlight outlier artists who understand the importance of polymer as one of many tools in their toolbox. Come on down and see what surprises we’ve dug up for your weekend entertainment.
Kansas’ Carol Beal (beadunsupervised) was an illustrator and greeting card designer for Hallmark for many years.
If I’m reading right, Carol painted acrylic on polymer for these beauties. They’re loose and fluid. I can’t quite picture how she combined her illustrating skills with polymer to achieve this effect but I love it.
Carol’s hearts are a refreshing and romantic departure from canes, blends, and kaleidoscopes. There are many ways to speak of love.
Zoom in on this polymer dog portrait to see how Delaware illustrator, Joseph Barbaccia paints with extruded strings of polymer.
His polymer brushstrokes are layered over each other. It looks like he works from corner to corner. Joseph’s subjects are usually people. This fuzzy, furry pet provided a welcome departure from humans.
His in-progress shots are from Instagram while his finished work appears on Facebook.
UK’s Lizzie Campbell (Clay Disarray) created what most of us have thought about, a clay version of a Gustav Klimpt painting.
His glittering patterns and his geometrics are perfect for our medium. Lizzie brings off her complex painting in style.
Enjoy a closer look on Instagram (lots of in-process shots) and see her other polymer illustrations on her site. She’ll put this one on her Etsy site soon.
Join us on StudioMojo this weekend where we’ll find out where else polymer has crept into the culture. It’s everywhere!
It was a logical progression for illustrator and Zentangle enthusiast Anita Long (neeneeree) from Indiana to translate her drawings into polymer canes. The detail and dimension in this cane have given her enough material to last through the end of her 100 Day project. You can follow along on her Facebook and Instagram.
In the last few days of the project, she’s had a burst of energy and playing with layering translucent clay, alcohol inks, silver leaf, embossing powder, and acrylic paint. Her stunning progress may make you want to consider joining in the next 100 Day creative marathon.
Smile-worthy polymer from France’s Caroline Cornic Isola (Klick-art) feels awfully good.
Stripes, dots, a big mug and swinging legs. And what about those orange ears and mean teeth on her Happy Wolf?Caroline knows just how to tickle our fancy and start the week with a smile. Follow her on Facebook and shop on Etsy.
Caroline is an illustrator and comic artist who translates her art perfectly to polymer. What do you draw that could be translated?
What is it that makes this detail from Helena Bogosian’s clay illustration so calming?
The shapes and shades of the water are quite believable and soothing. The goldfish glide unperturbed through the water. The cat floats through the scene unaware. It all looks effortless.
Helen is terrific at reducing the scene down to its essential elements for us and you can watch the steps on her Instagram. What most of us want to ask is, “How do you come up with these remarkable scenes?” Illustrators are an entirely different breed of polymer artist, don’t you agree?
The UK’s Lizzie Campbell (Clay Disarray) shows us how little polymer it takes to throw a party. This polymer illustrator knows that a 3D sign always looks festive and brings in the new year right!
Lizzie’s campaigning to get FIMO listed as a vegan product again. Check out her change.org petition. And of course, her profile picture is a polymer one. Here’s her work at a glance on Instagram.
Let’s share a virtual toast to 2018!
Hang onto summer with these Tribute Earrings from a new collection by Philadelphia’s Vee Stevens (Veru Designs).
Each of the designs in her series is inspired by illustrators. In this case, the designs at Deny Designs provided the push to pinks and peaches which Vee reinterpreted in layers of graphic cutouts.
“Don’t let the earrings’ simplicity deceive you! They were more time consuming to make than I thought,” Vee admits. And yes, they’re big. These are 2.75 inches long and 1.7 inches wide.
See more of what Vee is up to and what inspires her on Facebook and Pinterest.
