Urban polymer

Sarah Wilbanks translucents with an urban vibe on PolymerClayDaily.com

Seattle’s Sarah Wilbanks distresses her translucent slices and turns thin concave polymer ovals into fashionable urban grunge earrings. They’re sold at the Seattle Art Museum in combination with the Yaoki Kusama exhibit which is full of color and repeated patterns.

Sarah’s workspace is surprisingly compact as she explains, “I create my polymer clay and silver jewelry in my cozy and colorful studio apartment in Seattle just a few blocks from the new Amazon campus. It’s amazing how little space you need to create jewelry. I have a jewelers bench in my hallway, a polymer work table in my kitchen and a soldering station in my hall closet.”

Translucent polymer lured Sarah back to polymer and she’s developed several variations of carved shapes that are both graphic and primitive in their appeal. You’ll find her work on Instagram, Etsy, and Facebook.

Czech tide pools

Phamova's anemones on PolymerClayDaily.com

Can there be anemones and tide pools near Dana Phamova’s (fruitensse) in Czech Republic? Must be! How else could she reproduce them in glowing translucent polymer colors so well? Her photo of a pile of these beads on Instagram will make you want to dive in.

Dana will teach these twisty beads during Lucy Clay Academy Polymer Week in July. “We will explore transparency and flexibility of polymer clay and I will show you how create Anemone jewelry,” she says. Here she is on Flickr and Facebook.

Black and white for drama

Heather Powers (HumbleBeads) will be showing these new lentil beads in her trunk show on Facebook on Friday at noon. Black makes a dramatic background for the layers of flowers over the crackled gold leaf. The bits of white pop forward.

You can see how the layers enhance the impression of depth when they’re set in bezels here. The beads will also make their way to Heather’s Etsy shop.

Friday tidy

Have you checked out Claysino June 2-4, the first Staedtler (fimo) event this side of the pond?

May 2 is just around the corner. That’s the deadline for shipping your works for the Into the Forest exhibit. How often do you get the chance to be part of an international exhibit? Grab it!

And join up with us on StudioMojo for the rest of this week’s story.

Light leafed earrings

I don’t know about you, but I could use a break from the snow and the red and green holiday frenzy. It’s warmer more laid back in Melbourne, AU, where Peaches and Keen make their graphic, translucent, gold-leafed earrings.

I’m not even sure that their thin “plastic” earrings are made from polymer. But they could/should/might be and that’s good enough for me today.

If you need a jolt of color and a hit of crisp design, stroll through their Instagram, Facebook, and website.

Soft, hollow, complex translucents

Germany’s Kathrin Neumaier has moved on from simple translucent beads to more complex shapes like the pale hollow bead below which she has electro-formed with copper.Her solid imitative glass drop earrings have a warm mellow glow about them.

Kathrin explains that her collection of long Soft String polymer necklaces are colored with inks (as shown here) or chalks. You’ll want to explore her large upload of new works to Flickr.

Autumn leaves

Moscow’s Natalia Leitman (madlen) gathers three translucent polymer leaves into a fall brooch.

The gently curved thin variegated pinks, reds, and oranges glow and show off the vein markings. See more of Natalia on Instagram and Flickr

Watch what you love

If you love tools and would like to forget about politics, join Craftcast’s Alison Lee and her panel of artists on tonight’s I LOVE TOOLS.

Tonight’s online show is the 10th in this popular series. It starts at 7:30 ET (Wednesday, October 19) and you can register for drawings here.

Glacial polymer

The fine layers in this pendant from Switzerland’s Enkhe Tserenbadam make it look like a sculpted glacier. Bits of silver leaf accent the thin striations.

Enkhe grew up in Mongolia and these forms seem so personal and intuitive that it makes you wonder if she saw them as a child.

The fine ball chain is baked into the polymer, a good solution for this pendant. Enkhe shows a burst of new jewelry and vessels on Facebook and Flickr.

The beauty of her many layers may prompt you to go thinner and thinner with your next piece to see what happens.

Right and wrong

Enkhe clarified that the shapes really do relate to her childhood, in fact they were medicinal. Read her comment below. But there is no metal leaf in her piece.

Decoding polymer DNA

Samples of cane slices are not usually newsworthy but these translucent pieces from Maryland’s Kelly Russell will have you transfixed.

The patterns have a slightly DNA look. Kelly holds a #5 slice out in the sun and the delicate strands light up.

There’s much that we’re just discovering about building layers of pattern with translucent thanks to Kelly and other experimenters.

If you check her out on Facebook, you’ll also see the stunning results from her recent master class with Carol Simmons.

Polymer breakers

Splash through the 22 entries in the wave-inspired challenge of France’s ParoledePate group. The challenge was the idea of Florence Minne-Khou and included very few restrictions and lots of possibilities. You’ll see waves interpreted in jewelry, paintings, vessels, books and sculpture.

This 3-ring stackable set of watery translucent shapes is by Veesuel and you can see it from several angles here.

Creativity flows when group members get pulled into a challenge! Congrats to all.

See-through polymer

Just look at those translucent patterns layered over each other by Susan Hyde as she played with Cernit. Susan sent her experiments to Marie Segal who posted them to tempt the rest of us.

Then Patti Bannister’s gradations of color upped the ante. Her lovely watery blues and greens melt into each other.

What is it about translucent that’s so seductive? Patti and Susan make it look easy. My first effort wasn’t as successful. Seems that thin, thin, thin layers are key. Are you as captivated by the possibilities as the rest of us?

‹ 1 2 3 4 5 ›