Mystery polymer mosaic

Does it bug you when you can’t quite figure out how a piece was constructed? I am stumped by this pendant/bar/bead from Jana Honnerova and the Czech translation doesn’t help.

Blended and stamped veneer? Extruded interlocking patterns? Faux mosaic? Silkscreen?

What you can clearly understand is that Jana put a lot of time and skill into developing this brain-teaser pattern. She has a masters in biology/genetics and was a skateboard champion too.

Here’s her work on FB, Flickr and Etsy. Oh look, Jana will teach in Dallas in March!

In the meanwhile, let her design tease your polymer brain.

Textured pastels

With pan pastels on polymer all the rage, Virginia’s Page McNall offers us a free and easy way of combining pastels and texture. Best of all, her method also uses scrap clay.

In a quick visual tutorial, she shares her way of making the rippled polymer veneers for her Sunset on the Water pendant.

Catch up with Page on Pinterest and Facebook.

Tumbling blocks of polymer

Three shades of each color make up this faux dimensional cuff from Petra Nemravova of the Czech Republic. Such happy colors! Petra shows her step-by-step color-mixing and assembly process free on her website.

Of course you’ll want to spend some time in her tutorials and tools departments! There are a couple tutorials in her Etsy shop too.

Cut and run polymer

There’s nothing quite as nice as a free tutorial to put you in a studio mood. This YouTube video from Monica Resta (MoClay) should do the trick.

Cutting and folding polymer is becoming her specialty and she offers several variations on this theme on her YouTube channel. A few straight cuts and careful shaping turn a stack of clay into summery earrings in a hurry. Your head will reel with ideas for variations. Read more about Monica on Facebook.

Making five easy pieces

Page McNall added a free 2-page photo tutorial on Flickr for her segmented polymer bead necklaces last month. Now that the holiday hubbub is over, let’s give her instructions a whirl. She shows how on page 1 and page 2.

She blends color gradients into short thick plugs which she threads onto on a knitting needle. She nurses and shapes the plug, removes it from the needle and cuts it into five segments. She gently refines the shape of the cut pieces and places them back on the needle to bake.

After they’re baked Page distresses the beads and adds color accents with shoe polish. Mounted onto short lengths of wire, the segmented beads are then arranged into necklaces. Her pictures make it all quite clear. Follow Page on Facebook and see her influences on Pinterest. (PCD follower Patrice Pfeiffer thought you’d want to see this and I agreed.)

Bowled over

Sometimes it’s good to get nervous about trades among friends and, guess what, we all do it. That mixture of fear and competition can motivate us to try harder.

Even longtime artist and Sculpey brand ambassador Syndee Holt admits that this was her second attempt at making little 2 1/2″ diameter polymer bowls for an upcoming swap. She wanted to get her new design just right so she scrapped the first batch and kept going until she felt comfortable. Let the guessing begin about how she achieved this multi-color stone-like effect.

Kim Arden’s tell-all

In the September/October issue of Polymer Cafe magazine, Kim Arden reveals how she creates her summer flower pendants. Along with a profile written by Trina Williams, Kim includes a complete tutorial.

She shows how to stack bright and translucent cane slices over a scrap background to build pendants that have color, depth and attitude. Here’s PCD’s first look at Kim’s design from last year.

Read more about Kim on Facebook and her site. See what Syndee’s experimenting with on her blog and on the Sculpey site.

Fantastic folded beads

Tanya Mayorova brings her own mokume gane colors and patterns to Helen Breil’s smart bead design. Ovals of polymer patterns fold over to become graceful beads. Helen offers a free tutorial that gets you started.

Tanya’s results blend into a five-strand boho gypsy necklace that’s assembled to reflect her own aesthetic. Here’s her work in a different color way and single strand design.

She shares her work on Instagram, Facebook and on Flickr.

Graffiti trends

Graffiti is all the rage and Petra Nemravova gives us some terrific tips on how she makes these trendy scribbled earrings in a free tutorial. The translation’s a bit wonky but it’s easy enough to figure out from the photos.

Her background rubber stamp (from IOS stamps she says) is very cool and it wouldn’t be too hard to carve one of your own. Need more? Here’s another of her freebies. Check Petra’s Facebook page and website.

And if you’re on Facebook, take a look at what Petra and the Ubersee gang were up to at their June retreat.

Rejuvenated scrap

Angela Barenholtz brings us another scrap trick in her newest woven fabric tutorial. If you’re a textile lover who has some patience with geometry and a pile of clay that needs rejuvenating, you may have found your answer.

The strips of pattern can be joined to make flat veneers as on the Hamsa below (it’s a symbol of protection). Or the thinner individual strips can be joined end to end and wrapped around base beads as shown at the left.

This technique may reduce your guilt about that abandoned project or those long ignored canes. Angela is a whiz at replicating the look of fabric and her tweed tutorial is still one of my very favorites.

Her series of cuts and stacks can be confusing. I know because I don’t follow instructions particularly well myself. But if you follow the pictures you’ll soon catch the logic and start cutting and stacking every scrap in sight. (That’s what I’ve been doing for days.)

Angela’s from Israel and it can take a few hours for her to send you the download link. See more of her samples on Flickr and in her Etsy shop.

Hypnotic polymer

You may need coffee to steady your nerves before you start on this optically challenging polymer cane from Helene Jeanclaude (Les ethiopiques).

Her free video tutorial makes this Checkered Hypnotic (Damier hypnotique) cane pattern deceptively simple and her step-by-step photos are clear enough that you do not need to speak French to follow along. (I know because I tried it.) She gathers soft edged hollow pillow beads made from the patterns into the necklace and ring shown below.

You’ll find much more on her blog (she offers a whole library of tutorials), Facebook, Pinterest, and on Flickr. Helene offers this new instruction as a bright spot in the dark days they’re experiencing in France. Merci!

Yesterday’s lucky earrings are available for anyone who needs them. Go Bucks!

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