Zentangle to polymer

Anita Long brings her zentangles to polymer on PolymerClayDaily.com

It was a logical progression for illustrator and Zentangle enthusiast Anita Long (neeneeree) from Indiana to translate her drawings into polymer canes. The detail and dimension in this cane have given her enough material to last through the end of her 100 Day project. You can follow along on her Facebook and Instagram.

In the last few days of the project, she’s had a burst of energy and playing with layering translucent clay, alcohol inks, silver leaf, embossing powder, and acrylic paint. Her stunning progress may make you want to consider joining in the next 100 Day creative marathon.

A break from eggs

Colorado’s Laura Schiller decided to take a break after years of focusing primarily on pairing polymer and eggs. Laura’s known for her elaborately drilled and designed shells. Here she is on Facebook.

After drawing zentangles on polymer-covered eggs, she wondered what would happen if the popular drawn zentangles were white on white. Then she wondered about zentangles that evolved to 3D in black and white. Off she went on her tangent with no thought, no color, all play.

The latest result is this 11″ square tile, a zentangle gone wild. Now that Laura’s got it out of her system, she’s happy to return to the nest. She leaves us to consider what might happen to zentangles next.

Doodle delights

Continuing our doodle theme, Germany’s Margit Bohmer doodles on paper and then transfers the drawing to raw polymer.

The fun continues as she uses inks or paints or colored pencils to color in the design. The results are formed into bangles or sliced into earrings, brooches and such. (Note that the transfer would actually be mirror-imaged but the animation looked more believable this way.)

Get the whole scoop on Margit’s Flickr page or friend her on Facebook. On a hot day, this might be a painterly way to play with sticky clay.

Polymer meets zentangle meets typography

Not only is this design from Croatia’s Nikolina Ortrzan eye-catching, it contains some secrets.

Another artist (Christine Candora-Hickey from North Carolina) showed how she had combined contour lettering and zentangle in her journal in ink and then added color using watercolor. Nikolina used the idea to create a polymer pendant that lists the names of all her pets.

“I just couldn’t resist when I saw this artjournaling post. I wrote the names of all our pets, past and present ones,” she says. Here’s Nikolina’s Etsy page. You may remember her popular cat earring designs.