Is your wavy blade feeling neglected? Is it calling to you from the back of a crowded drawer?
UK’s Nadege Honey gives ho-hum stripes some zig-zag pizazz by setting the straight blade aside and using a wavy one instead as she creates a slab of pattern.
Not rocket science but a welcome change.
This Mendocino bowl brings back memories. I made it while on vacation with friends in California some years back.
I loved that walnut bowl and its polymer inlaid pattern. The photo is being used to promote an upcoming exhibit of works by seven black and seven white artists.
I decided to revive these lively stripes on a new bowl. Finally, I’m tackling the stack of polymer-ready bowls turned by my husband. The bowls languished in my studio while life got strange and creativity waned.
I’m excited (and nervous). Can I do it again? Come back next week to see. Can you tell that I’m forcing myself to finish this project?
Hold me to it.
This tray of earrings from Utah’s Mary Anne Loveless keeps the colors under control in a most appealing way. The graduated backgrounds are tied together into neat dangles held together visually by contrasting stripes.
Is it the vertical blends that make these feel so right? The blends run in opposite directions on the left and right dangles. There’s a color lesson here.
Kansas’ Tiffany (SmithAvenueClay) waves the flag in her latest earrings on Instagram. Her designs are parade-worthy.
The fourth of July was made for extruder lovers and cane-making fans!
So squeeze out some stars and layer up some stripes! It’s just around the corner!
No messy dip-dying for South Carolina’s Kathy Koontz (flowertownoriginals).
Her Easter eggs are covered with polymer scraps turned into stripes and then taken a step farther.
Kathy offsets the stripes to make a bargello veneer. Her resulting zigzag pattern is hypnotically, obsessively detailed.
Now what? Veneers are fun to make but it’s not always clear how to use the results. Eggactly!
If making bargello is new to you, watch this YouTube tutorial from Australia’s Jessama.
Let’s get voting! California’s Karen Lewis (Klewie911) starts us off with stars and stripes. Her Americana hearts are draped with a thin curled layer of translucent striped bunting. They’re busy and festive and just right for your Monday. Have you voted yet?
Must clean the closet!
Tweedy stripes from Spain’s silovia heartmade look like the favorite thick sweaters and turtlenecks we stowed away. We’ve slogged through 2020 to cold weather. Time to pull out the woolies.
She pairs her rough textured and bifurcated shield shape with a fat leather cord and a bronze jump ring that keep the rustic, wintery vibe going. Here she is on FB.
The speckled clays have been popular recently and now we understand why.
Houses, homes have appeared frequently in polymer imagery of late. These small brooches from Minnesota’s Chris Baird (BairdPlayWorks) celebrate “Gratitude for home, nature, and curiosity” according to her tag line. This series is all made of small stripes and solids with touches of gold.
Her striped birds on Facebook are charming as well.
We may be missing the parades and parties today but we can enjoy the beauty of home as we celebrate Memorial Day.
Florida’s Deb Groover (@debortinastudio) has loosened her approach to painting with polymer on wood. She cures these quickly formed bright stripes, arranges them on a wood substructure, and finally paints the background.
I didn’t think she could create her large paintings in a more loose, vibrant way but she’s managed to do just that in recent works. They’re more abstract, more geometric.
Whether it’s beaches or birds or just stripes, there’s a lively attitude that permeates her paintings.
Here’s my old video interview with fuzzy audio (the microphone slid down her blouse). Persist through it for an explanation of this former ceramic artist’s unfettered style in polymer.
When Monday chores won’t allow you to work on your clay, following another artist’s process can be very satisfying. That’s why these step-outs from Washington’s Kristi Thorndike-Kent and Jen Young (GoInsideandclay) are enticing.
The straight strips of color overlap slightly for a beautiful bend. The vibrant blend thins out and then stacks up into sporty stripes. Kristi and Jen share how they arrived at these cutouts that are just a few steps away from finished jewelry.
They make it look so easy! See the in-between steps on their Instagram.
