Crocheted polymer

Cut out and texture a polymer slab, pierce the clay with a few small evenly-spaced circles. Consider adding a second layer and more holes. Fire the design. Sew contrasting threads in and out of the holes, wrapping the edges and adding colorful touches.

Madrid’s Fabiola Perez Ajates developed this simple decorative mixed media technique that simulates popular crocheted fashions.

See how quickly her students added their own touches to Fabi’s concept and include this idea in your holiday project stash. Fabi is featured in the Polymer Clay Global Persepctives and her projects are inviting and ingenious.

Stepping out in polymer

Eve Lynch create the perfect accessory for your Day of the Dead outfit with these polymer-covered shoes. Eve is a Florida mix-media mosaic artist who gleefully mixes polymer bits among her glass. Here’s her Flickr page for your browsing pleasure.

Look out! I googled polymer clay day of the dead and squandered my computer time today. No time for further research, you’ll have to go and explore these wonders for yourself. Enjoy your weekend.

Holiday polymer

Pennsylvania’s Beth Petricoin has created a polymer acorn with a surprise inside.

This little beauty (formerly a small plain glass jar with a screw-on lid) contains a battery-operated tea light. A thin layer of tinted translucent clay over the jar gives the light a warm glow.

Wouldn’t these look great on your holiday table? Beth shows more on her Flickr page. Don’t miss her polymer quilling experiment.

Bisected polymer

If you’re feeling bored with your round polymer beads see what Dimitra Chiamanta (DemiArti) is doing with hers. This Greek artist who now lives in the Netherlands, bisects her brightly patterned circles and inserts felt disks in the middle.

She also combines leather, silver, wool and other materials with polymer. When the skies are gray and the winter long, Dimitra uses polymer’s colors to remind her of sunshine and spring. She knows how to breathe new life into common shapes.

This exhuberant design approach shows up again and again in the New Label Project store photos in Amsterdam (it’s considered one of the city’s cool shops) that you can track on Facebook. Here’s Dimitria’s own FB page too.

Sewn-on polymer

Virginia’s Angie Wiggins mixes handmade paper, felt, beads and polymer with colorful abandon and an embroiderer’s precision.

Following her on Facebook will give you the latest news about her creations. The pattern and texture pictures posted on her Pinterest boards show what catches her eye and influences her choices.

After she embroiders beads and polymer slices onto the bowls, Angie often elevates her vessels with a tripod of whimsical polymer legs.

When she tires of bowls, she moves to platters or switchplates or buttons or jewelry – all with her signature mix of sewn-on delights.

Adding polymer

You won’t find any polymer on Karen Totten’s Etsy gallery…yet. This artist usually works in ceramics and metals but she recently took an ArtBliss class with Christine Damm and polymer is creeping into her sketches.

On the ArtJewelryElements blog she explains, “I have long wanted to blend my painting skills with my newer dimensional work in ceramics and metal. I have been toying with layering and blending of glazes, underglazes, and wax patinas, but have never been fully satisfied with this. At ArtBliss I was introduced to the world of polymer. But what really got me jazzed was how well it took paint media.”

These are Karen’s samples from Christine’s class in Virginia. Here she is on Facebook and here’s her Etsy shop (stay tuned for polymer).

As more artists add polymer to their media mixes, it makes my job harder as I squint to figure out what material they’re using.

Looking forward, looking back

My husband and I need deadlines to motivate us to finish new work. This week we had to hustle to finish some walnut pieces for a woodworkers gallery show. Deadlines help us stop thinking and get it done!

The striped polymer inlay idea has been marinating since I took a class with Carol Blackburn in Santa Fe where she taught us to make big sheets of variegated colors.

If I seemed distracted this week, it’s because I was awash in color. Here’s my husband’s complex turning project.

Gwen Gibson

One of the first bowls I ever inlaid was in a weeklong class on Whidbey Island with Gwen Gibson who passed away this week. She was a marvelous artist and a lovely person with a huge sense of style and a generous heart.

PolymerArtArchive chronicles several periods of Gwen’s works. Read about her early work, her wall pieces and her cuff bracelets. La Cascade, her home in Durfort, France remains a jewel that draws artists from all over the globe. We will miss Gwen and were lucky to have her creative spirit among us.

Painted polymer

“I find beauty in the unbalanced arrangement of elements to create a harmonious mess,” says Singapore’s Cynthia Marizhka. Harmonious, yes. But mess? Not so much.

Marizhka’s asymmetrical compositions are simple and sleek and since her background is in painting, they’re painted!

Look out, her Tumblr is full of a wonderful mix of unusual materials that’s turned into alluring jewelry. Keep your eye on her on Facebook too. The link came to PCD from Cassy Muronaka.

Embroidered polymer

Angeli Sobrepena from the Philippines rekindled her childhood interest in cross-stitch by integrating it with polymer! She creates her design, leaves holes for stitching with embroidery floss, and bakes the clay.

It looks like Angeli finishes her pieces with a backing of felt to hide the thread on the back (or the backing could be an oval of polymer that she rebakes).

These make cute crossover projects for our embroidering friends who have a hard time putting down the needle! Find more of Angeli’s work on Flickr.

Lap studio

Do you use your lap as your easel? At the retreat, Heather Campbell’s work space was crowded with the ephemera she used in her mixed media work plus tools and glue and wire and such. So she worked on her lap. She wisely wore an apron.

You had to wonder how the iron trivet, table knives, rhinestones, dolls and other repurposed items would fit on this 12″ x 12″ canvas. The trivet made an interesting design element but on my next visit, it was buried beneath polymer, paint and ornate trim.

Old table knives took on a new life wrapped in polymer and treated to a coat of paint with metallic highlights. More is much better in Heather’s vocabulary. This piece is entitled Peace Making.

Heather’s sumptuous style belies the unvarnished messages buried beneath her avalanche of ornamentation. See her sales page on Artful Home and her blog here.

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