River polymer

Wednesday is the last day of Gesine Kratzner’s epic exhibit, River Without End, at Albina Press coffee shop in Portland, Oregon. Gesine and artist Sarah Hall installed a 300-foot paper river around the shop’s eight walls. They mounted boats, animals, bridges, sea creatures, mermaids and dragonflies on the river.

The polymer, paperclay and epoxy characters tell a story that flows around the room. Each of the mounted characters was for sale…and sold briskly. Great idea! See all the photos of this imaginative show here.

Gesine is an illustrator, sculptor and animator (featured here on PCD). She also sells from her Etsy shop, Blobhouse.

Maggie Maggio and Laurel Swetnam told me about the show where they each bought pieces like this Father and Son.

Reminder tweet

A little birdie reminded me that tonight is I Love Tools night (8:00 EST) and if you sign up we’ll save you a virtual seat. I’m on the road and will have to join you from my hotel!

If you’re a lucky bird, you could win one of the many prizes!

This bird is from Bulgaria’s Mariia Kamenska and the combination of its caned feathers and Madonna face are intriguing. See more on Flickr.

Mischievous polymer

Ryan MacLeod is a self-taught polymer sculptor who sets his dragons down in the midst of the most unlikely and mischievous predicaments – from candy store to steampunk. His ornate miniature polymer piano was irrestible. American-born Ryan now lives in India with his wife and family.

His friendly dragons, like this recent Fire Dragon, will charm and delight you with his antics. This is a good way to warm up to the goblins and dark creatures that will be visiting PCD soon in honor of Halloween.

Perhaps the easiest way to appreciate all Ryan’s dense and complex creations is on Pinterest. You may also catch up with him on his website and on Facebook.

Susan Lomuto (Daily Art Muse) sent this link along. See what mischief she’s been up to with her new MAM and sample a free issue here.

Another Van Gogh discovered

Polymer-covered Altoids boxes logged nearly half a million views this week on Reddit. Another Van Gogh discovered!

A blogger named Qoth posted an album of his mother’s creations and they were an instant hit.

The footed boxes are heartfelt tokens made as gifts for family members. Small, humble artworks can still strike a chord in the hearts of online fans. Thousands were amazed at what could be done with polymer. The link came to PCDaily from Society of American Mosaic Artists trustee Sharon Plummer.

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.

Polymer funny things

Australia’s Debbie Crothers starts the week with some Funny Things. Together her series of wrapped natural items becomes a mixed media wall installation.

Debbie’s been experimenting with faux ceramic effects, wrapping white polymer around natural coral and palm fronds. Forged artistic wire and rounded cane slices accentuate some of the pieces.

Flip through Debbie’s pages of work to see how she’s progressed, improving her skills, circling back and bringing funny things to a whole new level. Anna Winter sent the link and encouraged me to look at Debbie again.

IPCA Awards

Beginning October 1, you may submit photos of your art into the IPCA’s Polymer Clay Awards, the world’s largest juried contemporary polymer art competition. The awards will be presented at the 2014 EuroSynergy in Malta in May.

Full disclosure: I’m one of the three judges and we want to dig up the best art possible. We’ll be hounding you from now until the submission deadline in January so you might as well get used to clicking on this call for entry icon.

Polymer I-Reliquary

If you love your electronic devices as much as I do, you’ll totally understand Georg Dinkel’s newest polymer I-Reliquary, a comfortable throne for your iphone.

This elaborate mixed media housing for an iphone is a shrine to technology (though Georg doesn’t own an iphone). He admits that his family uses ipads and Macs.

PCD featured his first shrine some time ago. He’s added more and more complexity to his pieces and skillfully documents how he builds the gilded fretwork out of polymer.

Georg was a photographer for Staedtler Products (the maker of Fimo) for years before he ever opened a package of polymer. You’ll also sense that he’s long been a student of architecture.

Georg’s work-in-process shots are fascinating even if you don’t know German. A 3-minute video shows his creations. Here’s one on YouTube. The in-process shots are on his website.

Hollywood polymer

Mike K. Viner's 10" polymer caricatures are so spot on that they compel you to stop and study them.

Replicating facial features in polymer (no paint) is one talent. Finding a defining gesture takes his portraiture to a higher level. This Russian who lives in Tel Aviv is hard to find online with a slim web site, a few YouTube slideshows and a newish Facebook presence. I keep gravitating back to his page. He'll be worth watching.

Back to school

Susan Lomuto (Daily Art Muse) starts another online web class in September. It's a dynamite course and the students' web sites are testament to Susan's great teaching. Her sliding scale price offer ends July 31.

Go fish polymer

Fishing takes patience and Rebecca Watkins shows us how patience pays off in this July holiday experiment.

She says of her 5″x7″ polymer plaque, “It started off as scrap clay, mostly pink and white on a muddy gray. I decided it looked like a bunch of wiggly fish but I didn’t like the gray so I cut the pink and white shapes out. I scratched some lines into the base for waves and added a few strings of seaweed.The fish were laid on top and burnished down lightly. I used a pointy tool to make the lines and then I covered the entire thing with black and metallic blue Perfect Pearls powder.”

After curing and sanding off the powder Rebecca didn’t like the faded color and started again. “I got out my colored pencils and went to town.” After more coloring, baking and buffing, she caught her fish.

If you’d like to read more about Rebecca, you can pre-order the Global Perspectives book where she walks you through one of her projects step-by-step.

Polymer pests

Utah’s MaryAnne Loveless found an old wire egg basket at the second hand store that was perfect for holding her selection of polymer insects. She admits that the display could be confused for a buggy hat.

MaryAnne’s colorful creepy crawlies are particularly alluring at this time of year. What a great use for tail ends of canes!

See all the caned and textured pieces that she’s been putting together.

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