Strutting forward

This proud, colorful rooster from illustrator/artist Linda Webb (CreeksideStudio) brings our first week of the year to an energetic end.

With ruffled orange feathers and touches of gold, her wild polymer creature struts forward. Linda’s given him the can-do attitude that we’ll need as we barrel into 2017.

Linda brought a big plastic bag filled with failed projects to a fall show and her rejects became a hit. To her surprise, everyone was fascinated by her mistakes.

“I brought this ragtag bag of duds with a goal of showing the young people at my creation station that the mistakes I made while learning are not complete failures,” she says. “The things that went wrong for me while I perfected my art and the hard work are part of the process.” Good thing to remember.

Here’s her failure blog post. Linda’s been building an Instagram gallery of her mosaics along with her website and Flickr.

Flying high with polymer

Linda Webb’s little 4″ polymer mosaic butterfly, Monarch Migration, won the People’s Choice Award in the Peoria, Illinois ArtPop contest and grew into a 49′ billboard where it will be featured for a year.

The inspiration for this piece came after Linda learned about the Monarch Butterfly Task Force, a local group that educates the public about the rapidly declining numbers of Monarchs. The group plants milkweed and other host plants for pollinators.

“My hope was to create an appealing piece of art that could assist the Task Force’s efforts,” she explains. By giving them the reproduction rights, Linda allows the group to produce bookmarks, cards, t-shirts, posters and other fundraising items.

“The positive feedback I’ve received encourages me to think about more ways I could use my art to help local groups,” she says. Makes you think, doesn’t it?

Unveiling polymer

Take one television show, 5 pounds of clay, 50 patterned canes, 4800 slices, a 30″x 40″ canvas and what do you end up with? A lovely portrait of actress Sophie Turner from the Game of Thrones television series.

Well that’s what you end up with if you’re Julie Eakes. She brings plenty of intensity and expertise to her latest project…to say nothing of the hours and hours she spent assembling it. The subtle skin tones were a big challenge.

Not only is this Julie’s most ambitious mosaic piece, it’s also the one she’s most proud of. Follow the in-progress shots and explanations on her blog. Then fast-forward through the construction on YouTube.

Julie’s also been unveiling her work on Facebook. Thanks for letting us look over your shoulder, Julie.

Watchdog Wednesday

Cynthia Toops has added several 2015 works like this micromosaic Watchdog to her website. She lists a full lineup of spring/summer exhibits which have spurred her production.

Some of the items were created for a July/August Matter of Materials exhibit at Facere Gallery in Seattle.

From June to October she and her collaborator/husband, glass artist Dan Adams, are part of an exhibit of familial artists at the Racine Art Museum. All in the Family investigates how artists are influenced at home or in shared environments.

Cynthia’s carries her palette of prebaked thin threads of polymer in a divided plastic box. When I went to Philadelphia for a class, her teacher’s traveling studio fit in a small duffel bag while we students lugged large rolling carts of bulky supplies. Oh, to work small and with such concentration.

Vacation polymer

Because her camera battery had died, Angie Wiggins had to rely on her eyes and her memories to bring her vacation in Wyoming’s Red Desert back to life.

This mosaic bowl was inspired by sand dunes, petroglyphs, wild horses and antelopes topped off by a picnic lunch.

The textured square tiles on the inside of this wooden bowl are polymer. She’s decoupaged papers onto the outside and added polymer legs. Could you make your own version of this with inchies?

Angie mixes polymer with paper, felt, beads and whatever else strikes her fancy. She was taught to embroider at age five and has been a detail freak ever since. You can sample some of her details on her site, Facebook, Pinterest (love looking at her inspirations).

Tight formations

Jael Thorp’s small polymer compositions combine caning and mosaic and texturing in intense formations. Every space is beautifully covered.

There’s a tiny bit of collaboration cane from Ivy Niles (IKandiClay) in these busy scenes. My favorite is the stones and stream-themed shape.

Look for more of Jael on her blog, Flickr and Facebook.

I’m off to the Buckeye Bash that’s held at Wright Patterson Air Force Base (speaking of tight formations). What treasures will turn up? Check tomorrow!

Seeing polymer birds

Cynthia Toops combines large lentil beads covered in millefiori cane slices with small insets of micromosaic bird motifs for this new necklace called Seeing Birds.

The birds are all native to Washington state and the piece is featured in the Of a Feather show at the White River Valley Museum located between Tacoma and Seattle. Read more about the exhibition here .

I wish we had a higher resolution photo so you could dive in for a closer look at her magical images made from super fine threads of polymer.

For a better example, zoom in on this brooch that Cynthia made for last fall’s Tilling Time/Telling Time show at Facere Gallery. Keep in mind that the brooch is only 1 1/2 inches square! Silver bezel is by Chuck Domitrovich.

Doodled polymer ornaments

Filigree meets mosaic meets polymer in these ornaments from Jael Thorp. The dark reds and bright accents add richness, hinting at traditional patterns and including canework then veering off into more contemporary doodles in clay. Their meandering intensity winds around to weave a complex story.

This style started when Jael was doodling with clay as she made a batch of inchies. Read more about how she got carried away in this post and on her blog, on Flickr and Facebook.

Banner polymer

Laurie Mika provides us with a heraldic banner to start our festive Thanksgiving week. Historically, people displayed their coat of arms and other designs to identify and celebrate the family. This banner is a promo for her classes at the Tucson Art Retreat In the Desert (scroll down to her February 5 class).

Usually Laurie uses her techniques on polymer for shrines or jewelry. In this class she’ll show how the same stamp, paint, collage, embed, layer, transfer methods combine into a mixed-media mosaic that can be used to make banners and other artworks. The banner becomes the vehicle for a modern family narrative.

Laurie is just back from her Day of the Dead workshop in Mexico that you can read about on her blog. You’ll find more of her story on Pinterest and Facebook.

Showing off polymer

If counting the number of artists using polymer in a prestige art show makes us more credible, we’re doing well. According to this year’s roster at the San Francisco ACC show, polymer pops up frequently in the roster.

There’s Wiwat Kamolpornwijit, Jillian Moore, Ford/Forlano, Debo Groover (the birds polymer painting here), Mary Filapek, Anne Klocko (the bicyclists at right) and I’m sure I missed someone.

We span categories from jewelry to painting to mixed media to sculpture. The show runs August 8-10, but if you can’t hop over to SF, thumb through the exhibitors.

(You’ll get a better sense of the size of Debortina’s paintings on their Facebook page.)

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