3D celebrations

The UK’s Erica Sturla creates 3D colorful scenes from polymer clay setting her characters against painted canvas backgrounds.

Australian doll maker Shirley Dougan spotted Erica’s work and greeting cards in the gift shop at the British Museum in London and sent us the link. Small world, eh?

Here’s Erica on Facebook. Many of her works are commissions that celebrate special family events.

Retreat giveaway

All you have to do is “Like” Polyform’s Facebook page and you’re entered in a raffle for a free ticket to the Polymer Clay Adventure Virtual Retreat in January. Click before November 30 and you could win!

Polymer costumes

Reinhard Fritz’ people always look dressed for Halloween. He creates small polymer sculptures that capture his subjects’ essence…right down to the pink Crocs on this interpretation of a tourist.

Visit the party his characters are having on Flickr and read more on Facebook.

He shows how he works over foil and wire armatures. Everyone is fair game (including himself) and he loves looking at the world with a wink and a smile.

Balancing composition

Tory Hughes has long been fascinated by linear compositions. What better place to play with balance and color than in making mobiles? Tory is working on an edition of ten Red Dot mobiles that measure 24″ across. The first one sold to a Santa Fe collector.

Another of Tory’s mobiles was suspended in the exhibit at Carthage College. It fluttered like a celebration of colored wings above guests at the show.

See more mobile photos here and here and on her Facebook page. She will teach in Portland, Oregon November 7-9 with a few seats still available in one of the classes.

Speechless Friday

The first peek at the Racine Art Museum (in)Organic show left me without words. I didn’t even catch the proper title of Jeff Dever’s creeping polymer vine piece. Here’s the front and the back.

Jeff’s was the first jaw-dropping work I encountered in a stunning show.

This is going to be a mind-blowing weekend. Yikes! I need some time to soak in the fabulous polymer art before I try to explain it to you next week

Enjoy a quiet, speechless Friday.

Your vote counts

I need your vote! Every Fall, Crafthaus awards a micro project grant and my application is in the running.

Prison Polymer: Art as a Lifeline Back to the Community is a project I’d like to nudge forward. This summer Leslie Blackford and Tammy Dye taught one class in Ohio prisons, Maggie Maggio and I taught another. We were all surprised and fascinated by the impact that our medium had on inmates.

What could we do with polymer in prisons that would make a difference? How could our community help? That’s what I’ll use the grant to discover. Please vote for Project #2. Thank you for your help.

It’s hard to look at Leslie Blackford’s Elvis and not smile at his gold leisure suit and sparkling belt buckle. Here are the characters from one afternoon’s class. You can follow her on Facebook too.

Catalog giveaway

Would you like to have a memento from the ground-breaking Carthage College Re-Visioning exhibit? In the show catalog Rachel Carren writes eloquently about how polymer art is expanding and reinventing itself.

This slim full color publication would make an elegant addition to your bookshelf. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment below. I’ll pick five lucky winners on Monday.

Polymer deviant

Nicole Johnson’s Mealy Monsters may have caused the outage at PCDaily yesterday. Some serious gremlins pawed through the server and partied on the database. These guys look like they might be the culprits.

Each of Nicole’s buggy-eyed polymer creatures comes with a story and issues and a nose for trouble. Even if monsters scare you, it’s hard not to fall for these misfits.

The Lowbrows were born from that sludge at the bottom of the tea cup and gave Nicole an excuse to shop at antique stores.

You can find the critters at Facebook, Instagram and Flickr. It’s most enlightening to check out Nicole’s Pinterest page and see what steers her to polymer deviants.

We chased them out of the server. PCD is back up and running fine.

Fantasy polymer

We’ve had our spook on all week and Jane Priser’s alien takes us to the weekend in style.

Her latest cosmic creature is 15″ tall with colorful skin made of twisted polymer and painted glass eyes.

This Colorado nighttime artist calls her work visionary and fantasy. ” I have found that creating in the night hours allows me to harvest dream time,” she says. Lots of cats creep into the dreams of this former potter.

Here she is on Etsy and Flickr. Have a fantastic weekend.

Visionaries

Do you have your own vision for where you want to go with polymer?

Sign up for my premium weekend newsletter over at StudioMojo.org if you’re ready to take a more in-depth look at where your art and your community are headed, join us.

Undead polymer

Don’t look now but monsters are beginning to creep into the polymer pages online.

Melissa Terlizzi’s trio of Zombie Brooches: Accessories for the Wicked and the Undead (above) are very weird and wearable.

Melissa’s from Virginia and you’ll find her on Facebook.

Denise Baldwin (left) cooked up a batch of exotic creatures on Flickr. She’s identified herself as ODDimagination so this line of creepies shouldn’t be a surprise. She’s on Etsy. Denise is from Virginia too! Coincidence?

Weighty polymer

You may enjoy reading about the birth of this sculpture from Latvia’s Diana Sh. Palma.

Diana envisioned this as her first polymer purse and decorated it heavily with what she imagined as underwater blooms. But the result was so weighty that carrying it presented a problem..

She decided instead to consider the creation a keepsake box. But Plan B didn’t work because the top and bottom had baked themselves together (probably due to the weight again).

Please admire her lovely objet d’art!

You can see more of Diana’s polymer work (including tutorials) on Etsy and on Facebook. Browse her impressive collection of flowers on Flickr. She has a board devoted to art purses on Pinterest and she plans to make another attempt.

Keep calm and go 3D

Celine Charuau’s Empty Flower has a chiseled freshness that’s both organic and sculptural. It’s part of this French artist’s promotion for her Organic Forms 3D workshop at the September 11-13 Staedtler Symposium in France.

Need more calming influences? Browse her whole series of petal groups on Flickr and keep up with her on Facebook as well.

Calm and lucky

Five winners will be chosen every week in September by Staedtler, makers of Fimo. They’ll each receive 200 Euros (that’s $262.60 dollars). To be eligible, enter online on the Staedtler Facebook page.

‹ 1 … 17 18 19 … 43 ›