This beachy necklace from Michigan’s Sandra Niese (DandyBeads) could have floated off from the beach I visited this morning. See Sandra on Facebook and Pinterest.
“What day is it?” asked Pooh.
“It’s today,” squeaked Piglet.
“My favorite day,” said Pooh.
Still on vacation
Who says you can’t wear holiday decorations? Kansas’ Becky Miller wears her polymer flower creations year round. This Heavenly Holly necklace was featured on Fire Mountain Gems’ site as a finalist in their 2015 Jewelry-Making contest.
Read more about Becky’s garden-inspired works on Facebook, her blog and site. Click here to see how the model looks decked out in Becky’s polymer.
This picture from Sylvie Peraud’s sketchbook stirs up feelings of admiration touched with jealousy.
Isn’t this how you meant to work? Draw your idea and then render it in polymer? Yeah, that’s how we mean to work but it doesn’t always work out that way.
Sylvie shows us the results of her careful planning in this earring design. She drew the suspended pod (it began as a pin) and colored it in weeks later.
You’ll be relieved to know that even with this level of intention, Sylvie had to modify the earring to make it hang properly.
She worried about making two matching pieces and (if I’m translating correctly) opted for the second earring to be a post design. She admitted in an earlier blog post about how she spends too much time on Pinterest. (So she’s not too different from the rest of us.)
Enjoy this look over Sylvie’s shoulder and see more of her work on Flickr and Facebook. Learn more from her on CraftArtEdu.
Tennessee’s Veronica Hahn spent summers working in the garden with her grandmother as a child. Those days had a big effect on Veronica and now she sculpts in polymer what she learned among the roses and at the pond’s edge.
Vines and flowers and ferns cover the shutters which open to reveal her Meadow Mirror at the right.
Her Feathers and Pinecones Bowl (below) is encrusted with leaves and branches. Here’s the side view of the bowl. Veronica’s polymer jewelry is covered with dense foliage as well.
Thanks to Kathy Bradley for leading the way to Veronica’s site which doesn’t link to any social media and would have been difficult for me to find without help. The responses to yesterday’s request for links makes means I can back away from the computer, head for the studio and enjoy a mini summer vacation. This is great. Keep those links coming.
Barb Fajardo is from New Mexico, the dry southwest where they don’t have many barnacles but she’s smitten with them anyway and she’s making them bloom in polymer. Her organic clusters sprout into earrings and brooches. She groups and stacks and gathers them into all sorts of colorful formations.
Even if you can’t head to the seashore, you can encrust your neck with some ocean remnants.
See how Barb uses hers (she teaches a barnacle class) on Flickr, Pinterest, her site, and Facebook.
Jeff Dever’s luscious leaf, bulb and petal shapes echo the bright lilies and foliage in painter Marquita Fowler’s oil on linen panels. The 2012 collaboration is called Triptych Interrupted and stretches 76″ wide.
Jeff’s website has languished for years (we all know this feeling) and he’s recently launched a beautiful site that gathers his works and gives you a wonderful overview. The site primarily represents the last ten years of Jeff’s 20+ years working with polymer.
You’ll want to set aside some special time to savor all his galleries. Jeff’s also on Facebook. (My site’s alarm clock didn’t set properly…hence the lateness.)
A bunch of dried pussy willows in a booth at the farmers market caught my eye. What if I picked off the fuzzy blooms and replaced them with polymer ones?
This bunch of blossoms in my living room would provide a splash of color and a clever visual pun. Here’s a closer look.
I raided my old canes and piles of color scraps, recycling them to make hundreds of little ovals. I baked them and fired up the hot glue gun. The worst of the whole process was removing the fine webs of glue threads that draped themselves on the branches.
I considered saving this idea for my class on polymer and power tools at Maureen Carlson’s facility in Minnesota in late July. But by then all the pussy willows will be gone.
Besides, I have plenty of ideas for tweaking our medium with the help of simple tools and an adventurous decorating spirit.
The Poly Willows may never make it to our living room. The other artists want them to stay on display in the studio.
Melissa Terlizzi’s tropical delights end our week with a hit of color and a touch of whimsey. The tropical business card holder (left) was commissioned. The structure wraps around the cards with a bouquet of flowers and frogs added for a happy effect.
The Feathers and Foliage piece was created for a 3D show at her gallery. Enjoy progress pictures of the scarlet macaws on Flickr and follow her antics in polymer on Facebook.
Have a colorful weekend.
My heart did a little spring flip-flop when I spotted the work of Italy’s Monica Rotta on Facebook. These pieces come from her Tribute to Claire (Maunsell) series. The further I clicked through her photos, the more delighted I was. Transfers, textures, appliques with startling colors and a look all her own.
“In my case the geographical context in which I live (the hills of Brianza) flavors especially my sensitivity to respect and to wonder at the marvels of nature,” she says in an interview. She satisfies her need for organic materials by mixing leaves, black rice, stones, wood, dried fruits, shells, paper and other objects with polymer.
Monica worked for 6 or 7 years with no formal instruction until she took her first classes in 2013. Here she is on the Ganoksin website and on Flickr. On Pinterest you’ll see work-in-progress shots from an exhibition of works in collaboration with the painter Annare Gioielli. Now Monica teaches and she has a couple spots left in her Trees of Life class this Sunday.
Genevieve Williamson’s 16″ Buoyline necklace is part of retailer Anthropologie’s new arrivals in their spring online exclusives.
You can witness Genevieve building her inventory on Instagram and her blog. Her husband and mother packaged and bar-coded to meet the deadline. Stay tuned as Genevieve reveals what she learned about wholesaling, about business and about herself from this big venture.
In case you need some fashion advice, Anthropologie’s designers say,” We’d pair this neutral strand with skinnies and a boyfriend buttondown now, and with a strapless sundress when the weather warms.”
You can also shop for Genevieve’s works on Etsy. I smile when I remember that she’s one of the featured artists in my book, Polymer Clay Global Perspectives.
