FRIDAY FOLLOW – Sand Dollars meet Pantone

Caro adds Pantone punch to her molded sand dollars on polymerclaydaily.com

Austin’s Caro (Waraoclay) brightens up the beach with bright molded sand dollars in Pantone colors.

She includes lots of the usual shapes in her collections of earrings and jewelry. But she regularly veers away from ho-hum into uncharted water.

Caro has over 50,000 followers (how does that happen) so she’s not exactly desperate for our clicks but it may be interesting to watch where she goes next.

What comes next? What tools are worth it?

Over at StudioMojo we jam tidbits, tool talk, and treats into one luscious list that’s short on words and long on inspiration.

Bird in the snow polymer

Colorado’s Jenny Sorensen (WishingWellWorkshop) was inspired by a twig she picked up. The result was this charming cardinal on a snowy polymer perch. It makes a lightweight tree ornament or a visual seasonal treat hung from a shelf.

The trick is the smooth surface of the snow and the just-right color and shape of the tiny bird. A sweet and easy-to-make gift to start your week.

Feeling loopy

After years of white, Angela Schwer adds color to her wall sculptures on PolymerClayDaily.com

Oregon’s Angela Schwer swerved off her usual path and ventured into color for this loopy wall sculpture.

Don’t you wonder why after years of making wall art in white only, she was compelled to add pale pinks and yellows with a splash of black?

And she usually sticks to very natural and organic shapes, not mod loops. She says she doesn’t know what came over her.

We’ll have to follow along.

Benzon branches out

Why a branch on PCD today? Because it’s polymer and over the past year Jana Roberts Benzon has refined and refined her tools and technique for shaving polymer until it looks spiky. It’s remarkably durable.

Like yesterday’s Julie Picarello and her hardware store appropriations, Jana grabbed tools from a nail tech’s drawer for her new trick.

This is just one of the goodies from Jana’s Nature Walk workshop scheduled for March 17 and 18 in Texas. Taking classes from artists who have already done the laborious research saves you oodles of time and allows you to daydream about how you could integrate their research into your own style.

Hollow echoes

This week big, rough, natural-looking beads kept popping up all over the world. We’ve got Anna Krichevskaya (left) from Russia, Kseniya Iokhna from Belarus, and Danièle Moucadel in Italy all catching the same vibe. All different, of course, but with an emphasis on light and hollow (or with big holes which is similar).

Anna calls her necklace Jeans Forever and she sells her big, earthy, informal jewelry here.

Danièle (right) refers to her heavy cord as jump rope (or that’s how it translated). The heavy cord works well with this jumble of big rings. If you can get to her Facebook page you’ll see even more in this vein.

Kseniya (Xenia) Iokhna goes under the name of SolarBird and she lives in Minsk. She calls these hollowed out round beads Druid Stones.

Xenia pinpoints her influences – the architect Zaha Hadid and paper artist Jeremy May. It’s easy to see the echoes in her work. Whew, there’s so much to look at these days. Have an inspired weekend.