100 days of surfaces

Iris Mishly doggedly and delightfully pursues her 100-day challenge on PolymerClayDaily.com

Israel’s Iris Mishly is deep into her 100-day challenge for veneers. This one didn’t go as planned so she cut it into strips that she offset and reassembled into an even better, almost digital-looking version.

You can learn a lot from watching others’ work evolve. My 100-days are languishing at the two-week mark but that’s how things go these days and I refuse to feel apologetic.

Better to ride on Iris’ coattails and learn from her. Her collection is amazing. There’s no paint, powder, ink, or stencil she won’t try. Lovely to look at. Here’s her Etsy.

Looking for words

Dayl Goulsbra-Jones combines a whole lotta impulses into her works — Dayl Goulsbra-Jones (planetisis) confounds us with a trendy mix of styles and colors

What? It’s Monday already? I’m not ready!

I’ve been looking at the work of UK’s Dayl Goulsbra-Jones (planetisis) for some time trying to come up with the right words for what’s going on and why it appeals. Here she is on Instagram.

Words fail me. What’s happening here? You tell me. Most of her pieces are reversible. How does that fit in?

I’ve been busy preparing for our first virtual conference. Sounds easy but there’s a whole lotta work behind the scenes. Today is day one. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Give me your words for Dayl’s work.

Pencil me in

Italy’s Alessia Bodini used colored pencils to give these hollow polymer beads their vibrancy.

Surface treatments on polymer are becoming more plentiful (see yesterday’s pastels) and more interesting as artists take more painterly approaches to our small canvases. You can follow Alessia’s experiments on Facebook and Flickr.

Have paints and pencils showed up in your toolbox?

Polymer surface design

Vickie Turner has moved to the east coast of Canada and writes a lovely post (on her polymer blog, Claymagination) about her new home and the work she’s doing in her studio. The tour of her area provides a dreamy diversion.

She took a class in polymer surface techniques with Claire Maunsell in Montreal before the move and used it as the starting point for these very distinctive and painterly beads.

Vickie says that she finds herself in the studio – usually by painting. You can easily see how she brings her “process painting” to polymer with stunning effect.

That’s two dynamic teacher/student matchups this week.