Dog lover polymer

Retired RN Lea Gordiner focuses on mixed media creatures on PolymerClayDaily.com

Oregon’s Lea Gordiner says, “My recent fantasy is a combination of birds and animals with human features. They are meant to be silly, fun, playful, nonsensical…really. Seen any birds lately with nostrils and lips let alone shoes?”

If the holiday hoopla has you in a dither, you’ll be set straight by a wander through Lea’s website and her Instagram. She has shifted to finely finished polymer boxes as well.

Lea’s Portland guild mate Laurel Swetnam turned her in. We thought it only right that Lea has a PCD post among her presents this year. Thanks for making us smile.

Simple geometry

Molly at Slab_and_Stone creates simple holiday shapes on PolymerClayDaily

Recognize the Christmas tree in these earrings from Chicago’s Molly (SlabandStone)? She calls them Modernist.

Shapes boiled down to their essence make me inexplicably happy. Look at the way Molly pairs semicircles, half rounds, and ovals with metal shapes and her own fresh twist on terrazzo polymer cutout shapes. Here she is on IG.

Fresh twists are what I’ve bumped into again and again this week as I scoured the web for StudioMojo tidbits.

I’ve found some real bright spots in this December-to-Remember. Come squint at the 2021 sky with us to see what’s ahead.

Buzzing with color

Angela Barenholtz grows her collections of masterpieces on PolymerClayDaily.com

Israel’s Angela Barenholtz shows a large and growing collection of interpretations of famous paintings rendered in polymer on Flickr.

She’s refined and changed and expanded her painting techniques. Angela chops her clay into a terrazzo-like mix that buzzes with energy and color.

This latest is her rendition of a Paul Klee work and it popped up on her sparse Instagram site. You may want to follow along. Let’s hope she keeps moving in this direction. It’s the bomb!

Polymer terrazzo

Kathy Koontz shows how to make faux terrazzo polymer on PolymerClayDaily.com

All the trends point to a resurgence of terrazzo (the chips of colors you see embedded in commercial flooring and old linoleum).

South Carolina’s Kathy Koontz (flowertown_originals ) shows her way of bringing the trend to polymer. She grinds and grates baked scraps then rolls the small grated pieces into a solid color of unbaked clay. Voila! Terrazzo polymer style.

She shows her process on Instagram. Who says polymer can’t be trendy?

Terrazzo canes

Nikolina Otrzan's tutorial updates the spattered look with a new cane technique

Just as I was admiring the speckled heishi beads in yesterday’s post, Croatia’s Nikolina Otrzan unveiled her new terrazzo cane tutorial for what she calls a Pixie Cane.

Artists from Pier Voulkas to Angela Bahrenholtz to Alice Stroppel and others have come up with methods of making multicolor terrazzos.

Nikolina’s variation is tighter, neater, more intense. I ran to my studio to see if I could do it. My first effort was satisfying even though I was working with too-soft clay. These blocks will make great veneers. Nik is planning another tutorial that will cover projects made using the patterns.

Caners will be pleased to achieve a random pixelated look that goes beyond a surface effect. Yesterday’s spattered beads from Marina Rios were created with what I’m guessing were low-fire enamel powders. You know how it is when you hit upon a method that’s right up your alley? I couldn’t contain my enthusiasm.