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Degrees of Intention
 September 6, 2020   Inspirational Art, Ponderings, The Polymer Arts magazine news


Meredith Dittmar’s work is, surprisingly, freeform and spontaneous although her intention to “explore, illuminate, and break down the boundaries of the conditioned self” are well supported in her design choices.
Did you work on identifying colors similarities and contrasts, even though I was unable to get anything out midweek like I’d hoped? I ended up with an exceptionally busy week but, unlike many of these past months, it was mostly good, positive things going on. I’ll catch you up on some of that stuff at the end here (including notes about my latest big sale if you’re interested) but, this week, I thought we would take a break from the intensive design lessons so I could get back to writing what I call creative growth articles.

These kinds of articles were included in every Virtual Art Box but I had set them aside while we thoroughly explored color the past few months. I’d like to do these at least once a month now to keep you thinking about why and how you create and to give you a break from the lessons here and there.

The Question of Conscious Intention

When I started the Virtual Art Box, the first thing I wrote about was artistic intention. It was easily the most impactful thing I’ve ever put out if measured by the enthusiasm and number of the comments, messages, and emails I received and, if you read this blog regularly, you’ve probably noted that intention comes up over and over again. But I realized, after an interesting conversation recently, that I’ve never really talked about the variety and ways creative people approach intention.

The core question that came up in this conversation was about whether the person creating has to be consciously aware of their intention in order for the design to be intentional. In other words, can decisions be intentional without being understood by the creator? Sounds rather philosophical but it is, in truth a very practical and rather important question.

By definition, intention means that you have some knowledge of your motivations but, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are wholly conscious of them, not in a detailed way that allows you to verbalize it to yourself or others.

For instance, you could head to the grocery store intending to get something for your sweet tooth but you may not realize what you want until you’ve wandered through the bakery section and the candy section and then found yourself entranced by some caramel gelato in the ice cream freezer. Alternatively, you may have specifically headed out to get a pint of Talenti Caramel Cookie Crunch. The intention, and the outcome, would be the same for either trip out but there was a varying degree of awareness as to what you were after.

This works the same way when it comes to intention in art. You aren’t just fully intentional or not intentional in your design choices. There are variations and degrees to which you understand and apply your intention as you create although, I will argue, having some intention is necessary.

First of all, understand that when I talk about intention, I’m speaking about the concept, story, or theme that directs your design decisions. In the shopping trip example above, the intention was to satisfy a sweet tooth. In your artwork it could be anything from re-creating an image or place to telling a story to relaying a message to simply sharing your aesthetic tastes. But that intention guides your design decisions.

You could, for instance, choose round shapes for a pair of earrings. That choice might be made because round is a soft shape and the theme or story or idea behind your piece would be best supported by soft characteristics, but it also could be a gut feeling that round feels right compared to squares or triangles or amorphous organic shapes. If you have strong instinctual reactions to certain options for your design, you can absolutely make decisions based on that intuition. You just need to check that it supports and is related to your intention rather than it just being something that you are drawn to in general.

The Role of Instinct

Instinctive decisions are very common in many artist studios but they work best when there’s knowledge behind them. If a creative person is well versed on design, they will likely transition to working almost wholly by instinct at some point. That education and understanding works away in the background, guiding the artist’s instincts, but when they run into a problem, they still have the ability to puzzle out possible solutions based on the knowledge that they have. That is actually the primary intention that drives all my publications and this blog – to get you to the point where you understand design well enough for your design decisions to be instinctual. That way, you can approach your creative work with anything from a general to very specific intention and can begin to make purposeful decisions from the start.


Donna Greenberg’s latest post on Facebook: “WIP. Glazed bubbles and supporting texture coming in on this bad boy. Miles to go but each step helps me clarify my idea and even surprises me at times.” Because of the size and complexity of Donna’s vessels, planning has to be fairly well thought out before she really gets going but she leaves lots of room in her intention for discovery and alterations (via those clarifications she mentioned, I’m sure.)
There is also an argument in the art world that proposes that the artist does not have any responsibility to create with an intentional concept, meaning, or story for each piece, suggesting that it is completely up to the viewer and not the artist to give the piece meaning. I can’t say that I disagree with that but, if you create without any direction or some kind of framework to work off of, I think it becomes rather hard to create cohesive work that is meaningful to viewers.

I know, I am getting all abstract here so here’s a concrete example. Let’s say you want to create an eye-catching, one-of-a-kind piece to be showcased in your booth at the next fair or on the opening page of your shop’s website. You could just sit down with your materials and mess around with them until something comes out of it that you like. That is a valid way to design. But how do you even start doing that? Do you work with just whatever happens to be out on your table or do you pull out your newest, coolest materials and tools or do you open up your drawers and cupboards and stare at them until something jumps out at you (you know, kind of like when you stare at the fridge contents trying to figure out dinner)? I think we’ve all started something in this rather mindless way but how often are we successful compared to when we have some bit of intention?

Never Face a Blank Canvas

It is often said that facing a blank canvas is the hardest step in creating because it is, as yet, directionless which can be rather daunting. However, if you look for your intention first, then you never actually face a blank canvas. Instead, you come to that blank space or yet to be formed material with something to work on already. It’s the difference between walking into the grocery store only knowing that you want something to eat versus knowing you specifically want something sweet. You might not realize what you want is the gelato but at least you know where to head off to when you walk in those doors. Otherwise it is a lot of wandering up and down the aisles and that can be frustrating. You might not even make it that far. You might just turn around and leave because you don’t know which direction to take.

So, I do think you need to have something to work off of but it doesn’t always need to be something that you understand well enough to explain to someone. That was actually one of the hardest things for me in graduate school as I work towards my MFA in Poetry. Every word I chose in a poem was very intentional but a lot of the time there was more a feeling of it being right than an understanding about why it was right and yet, I was called on to explain my work all the time. I could always explain the theme of the piece and my inspiration but I could not always explain the specific significance of an image or sensation in the poem. To be honest, I think my lack of explanations was partly a kind of rebellion against the dissection of creative work. I know a lot of you feel that way too, that some (maybe most) art should be a visceral experience not an intellectual exercise.

However, trying to glean understanding from a piece of art, writing or any other creative work can be very satisfying so I’m not saying that I don’t think art should be approached that way. With some work, that’s the only way to approach it. And I did eventually come to the understanding that, as creatives, we can learn so much from that kind of examination but I also don’t think we need to do it all the time. I mean, there is some work we may want to just enjoy for what it is.

It can be the same in regard to how you approach intention. You might just want to enjoy the creative process and let your fingers and mind take the designs where they will. That’s great, especially if you are doing the work primarily because you enjoy the process. In that case, intellectualizing your intention can take away from that visceral experience but I will still argue that you need something to guide your design choices , even in a general way, if you want to arrive at the end of that process with a well-designed and engaging piece. Alternately, fully understanding your intention and planning out the details of a piece will allow you to boldly move forward as you work but you may also want to allow for modifications as your ideas and construction may change as you work.


Celie Fago may have a penchant for some pretty intense planning if this sketchbook page is any indication. She shared this with Dan Cormier for the Broken Telephone project article published in the Fall 2013 issue of The Polymer Arts (available in digital if you want to grab a copy here.) The objective was to create a brooch inspired by another artist’s piece that was sent to her. Her notes start off with “What Do I Hear? (when listening to Dave’s piece),” followed by a list of descriptive words as a way to search for her intention. That leads her into an exploration of design possibilities that support that intention. (Click image for a larger version.)
So, I think the best way to think of intention is in degrees of awareness. You can be fully aware of your intention and be able to verbalize it in detail, you can access your intuition with a more general idea driving your choices, or it can be somewhere in between.

I think the most important thing is that you make all of your individual design choices purposefully whether or not you fully understand your reasons. (I mean, I have no idea what I like caramel gelato so much but the lack of understanding certainly isn’t going to stop me from enjoying it!) Just try not to allow your design choices to be decided for you. Like don’t just default to a smooth surface because that’s how your clay comes out of the pasta machine. Choose a smooth surface because that is what best supports your intention. Purposefully choose shapes that support the concept you are inspired by rather than determining them based on your available cutters or because organic shapes are easiest to create freeform. Pick colors based on symbolic or emotive qualities not just what you have on hand. And ask yourself, every time, whether your piece will benefit from lines or marks or if there shouldn’t be any so you don’t miss out those possibilities.

These kinds of purposeful decisions will show a controlled and skilled intention, creating depth and cohesiveness and, likely, a lot more satisfaction on your end as well as in your finished pieces.

 

Dare I Say Winds Are Changing (in the Right) Direction

Yes, I’d hoped to do a midweek blog last week with some more examples about how to look at color and pick contrast and similarities, but not only did I have a busy week taking care of my husband after his biking accident (he is healing amazingly well and quickly, thank you all for asking!), I also had the opportunity to bring a staff member back on board so I’ve been getting her up to speed and we start work on possible new projects this coming week. It’s going to be so nice not doing this solo!

Also, you all really took advantage of the Damage Sale! I am nearly cleared out although, as I write this, there is still a small handful of slightly imperfect publications on the Specials page if you want to grab up those last $4 magazines and $12 books.

Then I got so excited about how cleared out the shipping room was looking (I’ll need the room to bring in new publications!) that I added a 25% off sale through September 15 on all regular print publications. No coupon code is needed if you want to take advantage of that. Just go over to the website.

So, there has been a ton of packing and shipping this week which not only kept me busy, it also made me more aware of an issue I’m having with my bad right arm. It’s kind of worked into my shoulder. But I saw a new orthopedic doctor and he had some wonderfully encouraging things to say so this coming week I start a new and different regimen of physical therapy that he believes will actually heal my arm. I am reservedly hopeful!

So, I’m busy but relatively happy over here. I hope to have some concrete new project announcements after this coming week. It’s been such an aimless, up in the air kind of year for us all, hasn’t it? I look forward to having a production schedule of some sort to keep me feeling relevant and to keep you inspired. So, keep fingers crossed!

I hope all of you have had your own dose of good news, light at the end of the tunnel, or other positive developments. I’m sure we could all use a bit more of that right now. So, keep an eye on impacts for incoming upcoming newsletters and announcements. In the meantime, take good care of you and yours!

A Sharing Week
 September 1, 2019   Inspirational Art, Polymer community news

Out of necessity, I’m going to do something a little bit different this week for you. It’s been a whacked-out week. You’ve had them, right? You think everything’s going so well and then one unexpected thing after another pops up, and next thing you know all your top priorities become bottom of the list items, and you can barely find time to sleep much just do the work you intended. Yeah, it’s been like that.

Now, mind you, nothing serious is going on. It’s just a lot of things happening at once. Well, I did seem to do something to my arm – yes, the one I’m trying to heal – but I’m considering that to be a little reminder that just because it’s feeling better doesn’t mean it is. *sigh* Back to being super diligent with how I use that arm!

So, as hard as I have tried every night to sit down and work on this blog these last few days, I’ve simply been unable to. One of the maxims of this break for me has been to listen to my body, resting and sleeping when I need to rather than when my schedule can afford it and so, by the time I sit down to work I’ve been utterly exhausted and just need to sleep. For that, I send my sincere apologies. I promise to get back to it next weekend!

But I can’t leave you on this Sunday without food for thought. So, here is an article that was shared with me some months back by Donna Greenberg. I think the philosophies here are so important for all types of artists and even hobbyists. It’s an article about fiber artist Anni Albers and an extrapolation of her writings fitted into 4 lessons for being an artist. They are this:

Lesson #1: Embrace accidents

Lesson #2: Bring play into the artmaking process

Lesson #3: Listen to your chosen material

Lesson #4: Experiment with new technologies

Sound familiar? I think you’ve heard all but #3 from me a few times on this blog over the years. However, I really like how it’s worded here. Whether you are a beginner or veteran crafter, I think you will find something to spark your work this week. Click here to read it. Then, you might want to bookmark that website, Artsy.net, the Education section, for more wonderful articles and interviews!

If, however, you are one of those who have found it hard to just sit down and create, might I suggest sitting down for 12 minutes and watching this video? They talk often about art in the context of fiction writing but the concepts of resistance and persistence might just hit home for you and get you off to work!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lTcgSzf0AQ

 

Upcoming Damage Sale  … a Head’s Up

In the meantime, I am going to spend the rest of this US Labor Day holiday weekend catching up on sleep so I can set up our big Damage sale for you all this coming week. This is the biggest price cut on publications I do all year, taking shelf worn and corner dinged publications and selling them for half price or less. I am giving you a heads ups because it’s a limited inventory and many issues disappear within the first day.

The sale will be on Wednesday, Sept 4th. I will send out a quick announcement here so everyone gets a fair chance but otherwise, look for our newsletter with all the details. Sign up for the newsletter here if you are not already on it.

Thank you for your understanding this weekend. I hope you have a wonderful week!

Tile Talk
 May 12, 2019   Inspirational Art

Do you ever stop to ask yourself if what you create makes you happy? It seems like a silly question since creating is usually passion driven so being able to feed that passion should make you happy, right? But have you ever found yourself creating something because you believe it is the kind of thing other people would like but later realize that you don’t enjoying making it?

I found that happened a lot when I was a selling artist. You get wrapped up in what you think the market would want, what you think will sell best at the next show, and you’d be just making things for the money and not because it’s what you want to make. Other times we think that in a particular material, like polymer clay, it is best used for certain forms such as jewelry and home decor. But as we all know, polymer can do almost anything and yet 85% of it being created and shared online is jewelry. Jewelry is pretty fun stuff to make, sure, but if you enjoy polymer, just keep in mind you don’t have to make jewelry.

I myself have been moving away from jewelry. A pendant or pair of earrings are oftentimes still the best items to create to show off a polymer technique for a magazine article or tutorial but more and more, I create objects without an end goal in mind and am really enjoying just making little objects and samples of techniques. Last year, I started to see patterns and connections between them and eventually started putting them in shadow boxes. You can see an example of one of my “specimen” boxes in the latest Polymer Journeys book, if you’re curious. I’m also trying to devise a class for doing it. It’s so much fun!

But when I have to create jewelry because I am vetting an article for the magazine or want to make a gift, I have lately found that I don’t look forward to the engineering of it – figuring out how it is going to hang, what stringing material will work best, what findings I need, as well as worrying about comfort and durability. I find I don’t want to think about those things when I create and it’s not out of some kind of laziness, it’s just not what I want to spend my mental and creative energy on, and I’m good with that. I just really want to follow creative paths that make me happy right now.

To that end (and because I’ve spent so much time in tile stores lately), I’ve decided I might just focus on tiles for a while. They are a very freeing form. A tile is just a canvas for 3D materials. You can do whatever you want on them. You can make them any size, any shape, and can attach whatever you want or attack it however you want. I think we really should all give ourselves the freedom to play with this form, to let ourselves be free to create from the heart with a material we love. At the end of a session of tile making, you may find you are really looking forward to creating necklaces or making beads or covering vases. But I am going to suggest you give a tile a try here and there to just let yourself create freely. Doing this can help with your designs in other forms.

To that end, of course, I’m going to share some tiles this weekend. I am going to share a lot of non-polymer ones because I think, if you’ve spent any time online, you’ve probably seen your share of polymer tiles these last few years, especially with the Fimo 50 year challenge a couple of years back and with the common inches exchanges (inches are just tiny tiles). So, I’ve got a quite a mix for you but it is all art that can translate to polymer even if it is in another material.

 

Laying it All Out

The opening image of this post is a photo from a class conducted by Laurie Mika. She is well-known for her colorful and intricate collage/mosaic pieces which, by the way, she teaches at various events. This collection of student work was from a polymer clay tapestry class she taught at the SAMA (Society of American Mosaic Artists) conference in Nashville just a few of weeks ago. They are all just lovely. There is no high-end technical skill needed to put these types of things together which makes them ideal for exploring color and texture and just letting yourself go. (You can check Laurie’s workshop schedule on her website.)

Jael Thorp caught my eye some years back with her “clay doodles”, including the one below. I thought they looked like zentangles for clayers. Can you imagine the flow state she must’ve been in to create this? You can just get so completely lost in this kind of work and that is a big part of why people find tiles such a wonderful creative outlet.

Check out this post with her various doodles from some years back. She went on to refine her technique, making beautiful beads and home decor with the same type of application. You can find them on her Flickr photostream.



 

Let’s move from polymer to ceramics now. It is a rare thing in ceramics that can’t be replicated in some fashion in polymer so I find ceramic art quite inspiring. Here is one of my favorite tile makers in ceramics, Chris Gryder, who has gone a bit more three-dimensional of late but his tile compositions are timeless.

In this composition, each tile is its own separate piece but he’s connected them all with these lines that he creates through the grid of tiles. So, really, you can make a whole bunch of tiles without worrying about what they’re going to end up as, and then, if you want to put them together as a composition because they have a similar or complementary set of color palettes, textures, or motifs, you can use lines that flow throughout to visually connect them for a larger composite composition. This approach would allow you to just make tiles as the muse directs and then you can later make them into a larger wall piece.

If you like this piece, go browse through his website or his Instagram page for more fantastic inspiring wall compositions in tile.



 

Keep in mind, just because tiles start out flat, they are not two-dimensional and you can create extremely three-dimensional pieces on them. Here’s one example with some very organic forms and textures created by Lauren Blakey, another ceramic artist.



 

And here’s another three-dimensional example in glass by Shayna Leib.



As you can see, tile work is open to all types of materials so keep that in mind as you sit down to tile. Mix in anything that your heart and muse desires. Mix and match mediums, embed oddball trinkets you’ve kept for, as yet, unknown reasons, and just keep an open mind.

After pulling these examples for you, I realized that all the examples are squares here. You don’t have to create square tiles to play with but that is the more common form. However, if you’re not feeling square, try a free form shape or an oblong one or maybe, because today is Mother’s Day, create a big heart for all the mothers out there. Happy Mother’s Day to all you amazing women!

Here’s a heart from Tina Ruppert of Wisecrackin’ Mosaics on Etsy. Pick a favorite shape and a bunch of canes or other scraps of clay and you can do something along these lines as well.



 

Getting Squared Away

I’m going to leave you with these thoughts and hopefully some curiosity about playing around with a tile or two, in whatever form and techniques interest you. If you need some jumpstart tutorials, here are a few places you can go:

Sara Evans has a video about her tile making process here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FAxYwgJfLo

If you want to do something tile like but still want it to be something functional when done, maybe you would like this polymer clay tile box tutorial –

https://mermaidsden.com/blog/2015/02/12/polymer-clay-tile-box

Or have fun with one of our true masters of polymer clay tiles, Chris Kapono, with her very detailed and yet tremendously fun tile project in the Polymer Arts Projects book which you can purchase and download digitally if you need it immediately or order the print edition from our website.


I opened with a discussion about doing what makes you happy and hope it gives you some food for thought. If you want to hear a couple of transformative stories in that vein, please be sure to get your copy of The Polymer Studio Issue #2, recently released, which starts and ends with stories about finding one’s happy place with one about Christine Dumont’s studio complete with a visual tour, and the other about Donna Greenberg’s focus moving from jewelry to large wall art. Check out the Issue #2 Sampler if you haven’t seen the new issues yet.

 

We’re daily trying to find are happy place over here as our house has continued to be demolished more and more, beyond what we (or our contractor) expected even. Old plumbing can be a tricky thing! If it would just warm up here, it wouldn’t be so bad. A cold Southern California in May is just weird.

I’d share progress shots of the house but it’s pretty much just down to studs and busted up concrete floors. Oh… And a large trench across the whole of the front yard for a new drain line. I’m thinking about making it into a moat. Like a habitrail (if you remember those hamster houses) for our pond fish. They could just swim circles around the house! Okay, probably not but gotta have fun with all this bedlam, even if it’s just dreaming up nonsense like that!

I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday and Mother’s Day! I’m off to have mimosas with the family’s fabulous females myself! Enjoy the day and your coming week!

Mixing and Mingling, New Cover, & 33% off Back issues
 March 24, 2019   Inspirational Art, Polymer community news, Tips and Tricks

We have a bit of business to do first today but it’s exciting business! I wanted to share with you the next cover of The Polymer Studio, coming late April.

We are thrilled to include projects from Cynthia Tinapple, our featured and interviewed artist for this issue, as well as Christi Friesen, Kathy Koontz, Elena Mori, the Mitchell sisters, Deb Hart, and Wendy Moore. Also, tips, tricks, and other bits of wisdom from Debbie Crothers, Ginger Davis Allman, and little old me. And you won’t want to miss the tour of Christine Dumont’s studio, complete with a conversation about her space and process, which I think you’ll find very intriguing.

All this and more, just a month away! Support our projects, this blog, and the betterment of your own polymer journey, of course, or just because you’d like to look at all the pretty things tucked into those pages, by subscribing to The Polymer Studio here.

(Be sure to scroll down to the last section for the 33% off sale stuff.)

A Fine Mix-up

So, did you get a chance to look through the winning entries for the IPCA awards? Here’s the link again if you didn’t see them. The winning entries are just beautiful and maybe even a bit surprising. If you saw it, did you notice any trends or changes in trends and what was presented? I thought it was interesting that there were a lot of mixed-media pieces where polymer clay might have been the focus, but other materials played large roles in important design aspects and visual impact of the work.

One of the reasons I find this so interesting is that the idea of expanding into other materials seems to be a regular conversation myself and many other people are having. I couldn’t say exactly what that means but I do believe that polymer, with its unparalleled flexibility for combining with other materials, has kind of come of age where our exploration of what it can do is being placed on the back burner in order to focus on artistic expression. I look at these mixed-media pieces in the awards and other pieces I find during my research and general perusing online, and it seems that we are seeing more instances where polymer centric artists decide what they want to make and then determine the best materials for the work rather than push to see if polymer can be used for most, if not all, of the components of a piece. Or perhaps I am just hoping this is the case because I would love to see more folks focused on personal expression will rather than letting our obsessive, but understandable, infatuation with the material determine our creative parameters.

Of course, for most of us who work in polymer now, this colorful, durable, and chameleon material will remain our primary love and, regardless of other options, we will often still try to do as much as we can with polymer, if just to see if we can push it a little bit farther. But, opening oneself up to the possibilities of combining it with other materials in major ways will allow us, and even the viewer, to focus more on the design and expression and less on the material itself, which will let the artist’s expression, vision, creativity, and aesthetic really shine. I find this very exciting!

So, this week, let’s look at some of the mixed-media pieces where other materials play a primary role alongside polymer. This could be very helpful for you if you have felt like you’re in a rut or are too often hitting technical or design walls in your work. Trying out a different material may just be the thing to inject you with new enthusiasm and, possibly, send you down a new path with your artwork.

Mixed Directions

Let’s first look at some of the winners of the IPCA awards and in many ways that other materials have been mixed in.

This first piece is both a mixed-media and a mixed artist piece. Ellen Prophater or worked with Sherry Mozer, a glass artist, led to the use of the black glass piece with its shades of green within reflected in the mokume polymer it sits upon. It is set in a silver bezel and accented with Swarovski crystals. Both the mokume and the glass show off a subtle transparency, drawing the connection between the two along with the green cast colors. It’s a nice reminder that collaboration can also push us in new directions making new discoveries in our work and even ourselves and our friendships.



 

Donna Greenberg just killed it as the professional mixed-media category. This wall piece is called Wedgewood Wave but the word that keeps coming to mind for me is swoon. Not just because I feel like swooning, it’s just so gorgeous, but that’s also the word that comes to mind from that fabulous flow of energy through those waves, back into the pool of blue. Those waves are paper, but the application of color and shape are similar to the polymer pieces so the different materials feel cohesive. This is definitely one of those cases where another medium was the better choice. Trying to create those waves in polymer would’ve been just silly, even though it could be done. The paper gives a lighter feel to the overall piece as well as a light and easy flow to the visual movement. She also used Ultralight polymer alongside the Arches cold press paper, acrylic gouache paints, watercolor pencils, and Apoxie paste, each material fulfilling its purpose in a way that another material would not have been as successful with.



 

With the issue of the environment heavy in many of our minds, we are seeing a lot of exploration into found or recycled or upcycled items. Sarah Machtey offered up this steam punk pouch necklace with removable magnifying glass for the mixed media category of the awards with a bit of all of that. The front and back of this small pouch is from a soda can turned inside out – you can still see the printing of the soda can on the inside – but she embossed the can with decorative lines and used mica powder infused liquid polymer in the recesses to make them stand out. The band across the top is upcycled copper from a renovation project while the side leaves and earrings are polymer clay. Not sure if the magnifying glass was bought or found but it certainly could have been reused from something else.

The pouch is 7” (18 cm) in height from the top edge to the bottom of the magnifying glass, so it’s no small bit of tin on there. Of course, she could have used polymer to create the metal sections but it would’ve been a bulkier piece. The tin keeps the weight down as well as adding some structural strength that would only have been accomplished with a much thicker wall of polymer.



 

Keep in mind, when we are talking mixed-media it doesn’t necessarily have to be another art material. For instance, I combined poetry with photos of polymer in a challenge last year that I was posting on my personal Instagram page. Other people mix it up by installing the work in unusual places so that the what is placed on becomes part of the artwork such as fairy doors installed on walls or in tree trunks or tiles installed into a kitchen backsplash. Rachel Gourley takes it just a touch further, installing her little collections so that they recede into the landscape. She scatters her polymer elements out and about in natural settings, looking much like organic growths but unexpected in their color, shape, and placement.



 

Putting Together Your Own Mixer

This week, I didn’t pull any tutorials for you to try because it would have to be a mad, a long list of other materials to give you any real idea of your options. Instead, I might suggest that you keep your eye open for what other polymer artists are doing with other materials. Perhaps one of the above ideas piqued your interest already. If so, research that other material and find ways to acquire or hone your skill in that medium. Just put “polymer clay and [fill in the blank with the material you’re curious about]” into the search bar on Pinterest, Instagram, Flickr, or Google images and see what pops up. Add the word “tutorial” to see what offerings there are online. I’m sure there will be plenty of inspiration.

You can also grab your Spring 2015 – Diversity issue of The Polymer Arts or the Convergence themed issue from Spring of 2016, both of which have a ton of ideas around using other materials with polymer. You can see the table of contents for all back issues of The Polymer Arts on this page to check out what these issues have to offer. Then, if you don’t have the issues, you can order them on the website.


In fact, let’s have a sale!

Why don’t you grab a few back issues and take a full 33% off 3 or more! Good on digital or print, I’ll keep this up until next Sunday so grab them this week. Use promo code TPA33 at checkout.

And … I’m Off!

I would normally have some community news and deals for you to look into at this point, but I did not get to that. This week has been a struggle. I am being kept busy by a house that has decided to just fall apart all of a sudden. My creative energies have been used up relocating kitchen activities to the garage, the porch, and even my studio because of plumbing issues while getting tons of exercise running large circles around the house because the garage door won’t open, washing my clothes in the bathroom sink because the laundry machine won’t drain, and constantly shuffling ice packs from freezer to fridge because the fridge is on and off and its replacement is weeks away from getting here. All this happening two weeks before we start some (apparently!) much-needed kitchen remodeling. I’m not making this up.  But talk about mixing it up!

So, I’m going to get back to my at-home glamping while trying to get the next issue wrapped up for you. But tune in next week for more polymer pretties and inspiration, and, hopefully, less house drama from Sage’s corner! In the meantime, if you work with another medium, please share it below. Or tell us the most unusual medium you’ve combined with polymer! I’d love to get a feel for what you all are working on besides polymer. Leave links to the work as well if available! (If you get this by email, click on the post title to get to the post page and scroll down to comments.) I’m excited to see what you all have to share!

Ring Riot
 February 17, 2019   Inspirational Art

Have you ever made a polymer ring? It’s not one of the most popular jewelry forms in the medium which seems a little strange because they’re fairly easy to make. Maybe it’s a durability question – will the polymer ring stand up to the knocking and scraping rings have to go through? I’m not sure how they would fare if worn day in and day out but I, myself, have several polymer rings which still look as good today as the day I made them and the unusual and fantastic things you can do with polymer make them a really eye-catching piece of adornment that you’ll get lots of questions about an attention for.

There are so many different types of polymer rings you can make. You can wrap clay onto a form such as small glass bottles, sockets (for socket wrenches), and short bits of metal pipe (try pipe connectors.) You can skip the ring construction and just apply polymer to a metal ring blank. They come as bands with open channels that you can put canes and veneers in, or with a blank bezel for cabochons or sculptural elements. You can also simply create a block of clay that you punch a hole into for the finger to go through. Alternately, you can free-form the ring by hand, cure it, and then carve it into the shape and size you need. There are so many ways to make rings!

The one downside about rings, especially if you are selling them, is that you will need different sizes. Making a selection to show the style but then offering custom-made rings is one way around this but the other way is to just make simple rings that you can create a lot of and only in three or four popular sizes.  This way you have those smaller inexpensive, impulse buy items to sell at your fair booth or online. And rings are easy items to sell especially at an inexpensive price point. They’re fun little bits of adornment and you don’t even really need them to match your outfits!

But if you want to create and sell one-of-a-kind rings, choose an average ring size and keep the band thickness and style wide enough to either sand down to create a larger size or add a layer of clay to create a smaller size. There are also adjustable ring blanks if you just need a base for attaching your polymer forms and elements onto.

So now that I have you thinking about rings, let’s take a look at some great polymer ring creations to further get your inspiration going.

Let’s start with one of those ring blank ideas. Here Janine Müller shows how creative you can get with a ring bezel. It doesn’t need to be a solid polymer cabochon. It can be layered or carved or hand-tooled or drilled. I’m not sure what her approach is here but the take away here is that you can try your own preferred surface treatments to create a unique ring in a bezel blank.



 

If you want to try an all polymer ring in a quick and easy but fun form, roll out those clay sheets and try a stacked set like these ingenious mix-and-match rings by Florence Minne-Khou. Clean cuts and a little sanding is about the most difficult aspect of a project like this so there’s hardly any excuse to not try it.



 

If you like getting sculptural with your work, you can go in a number of directions. Keep it simple but elegant with uncomplicated and cleanly shaped rings. Start by wrapping them around a solid form to start, and then sculpt the clay. These pieces from Angela Garrod are likely created in that fashion.



 

Or swirl them well into the third dimension with a folded form like this intriguing finger form from Sona Grigoryan.



 

Or just go completely wild and don’t worry about the functional aspect. Just make something out of this world. Perhaps this rather celestial feeling ring by Donna Greenberg will get you to push the limits of what you can do with a ring form.



 

If you are primarily a cane clayer, don’t think that rings–even sculptural rings–are not for you. Take note of Jana Roberts Benzon’s creative cane slicing and build up your own gorgeously detailed rings.



 

Oh, I could keep going with these! Just put “polymer rings” into a search on Pinterest, Instagram, Etsy or Flickr and you’ll see a ton more to get you thinking. But if you want some step by step instructions to help get you started on what could be a really addictive form, try this block cut ring tutorial from Ludmila Bakulina aka Sweety Bijou. This would be good for scraps too!



 

Okay … going to have to cut and run but I hope I have left you with some exciting possibilities. I’m on the road today but will be back next weekend with more food for thought and pretty things to ponder. Also, don’t forget to pre-order your Polymer Journeys 2019 before the 22nd. Release date is now March 2! Get yours at www.tenthmusearts.com

 

New book! Polymer Art Projects—Coming October 20th
 September 10, 2018   Inspirational Art, Polymer community news, The Polymer Arts magazine news

This week is going to be a series of announcements but I promise, they will all be very exciting, they will all be polymer, and they will all give you something you can look forward to as we move into fall and winter (or spring and summer if you’re down under.)

First up… I can finally announce and show off the cover of the first in an upcoming series of books, Polymer Art Projects. This series arose from your consistent request for more projects and a desire to support and promote our great artists, so, after many conversations, I came up with this cooperative book project. All contributing artists in the book will be part of a promotion and profit sharing team. That means they are highly motivated to provide you with some truly fantastic material on top of looking forward to sharing their love of polymer art.

For less than a couple of dollars each, you get 16 tutorials that will expand your abilities under the guidance of some of the polymer community’s best instructors. The skill level of these tutorials range from the experienced novice to the intermediate artisan, with tips and ideas for polymer crafters of all levels. The tutorials are very detailed, each showing off a variety of techniques, expert construction, and lists of ideas for variation so you can create your own unique pieces from what you learn.

The first in the series, Polymer Art Projects—Organic, includes tutorials by Donna Greenberg, Christi Friesen, Eva Haskova, Anke Humpert, Debbie Crothers, Kim Cavender, Stephanie Kilgast, Chris Kapono, Stacy Louise Smith, Nevenka Sabo, Adriana Allen, Dani Rapinett, Fabiola Ajates, Rebecca Thickbroom, Klavdija Kurent, and little ol’ me. Projects include a variety of jewelry as well as home decor, all inspired by mother nature.

Check out the cover for a sampling of what you can look forward to. The cover price for the print edition of this book will be $23.95 but for the next month, you can preorder for $16.75 – that’s 30% off the cover price. Or maybe you’d like a digital edition which will list for $15.95 – you can preorder the digital edition for just $11.95. These preorder prices are good through October 10th.

Don’t forget the last issue of The Polymer Arts comes out September 22. Preorder this last historic copy on The Polymer Arts website.

BioSystem Impact
 August 15, 2018   Inspirational Art

We can’t talk about wall art right now without bringing up Donna Greenberg’s newest series—BioSystems. She’s creating these amazing conglomerations of organic shapes, bursts of color, and all kinds of variation of texture in these wall pieces.

Like Pavla’s piece on Monday, there is no particular focal point in these wall pieces. However, there is a flow-through from one set of shapes and forms into another through the use of repetition and a gathering of color that defines multiple paths from which one can explore this visual adventure.

This series was an adventure for Donna herself as she wanted to work on something that she was inspired by without concern for the selling of the artwork. Ironically, these pieces have resulted in numerous commission requests. I love that because I have long believed, since my days of being a full-time artist trying to read the market, that if you put yourself into your work it will speak to people and the sales will come.

So, I say, create what pleases you, that which is drawn from your passion, and your vision will come through in a more original and meaningful way, creating work that will please both you and many a customer.

Do set aside some time to explore the other pieces in the series as well as the photos that show the different views of the work. You can do so on Donna’s Facebook page and Instagram.

Moody Creatures
 June 29, 2018   Inspirational Art

PhotGuest Blog Post by Donna Greenberg

We don’t seem to talk much about emotion or mood in polymer art. We share a lot about color, design, construction, and problem-solving, which are all necessary and practical ideas, but seem to shy away from work that is clearly emotional, thought-provoking or even frightening. Although not a polymer artist, Beth Cavener’s work takes this subject head on with her large-scale animal sculptures and offers us food for thought, especially those of us that love to create human or animal sculptures.

Hares, foxes and other familiar and beloved creatures in folklore are given uncanny human-like facial and bodily expressions, making us look twice at Cavener’s sculptures. Occasionally she will even add a decidedly human body part to the animal, yet manages to do this in such a way as to make it seem quite natural.  Her creatures seem to have been frozen in a moment of action, often expressing fear, uncertainty or other primitive human instincts. If we look closely, we can almost see our own human emotions reflected in them. It’s not always comfortable to witness these works, but Cavener’s attention to every detail, exquisite craftsmanship and control of the narrative masterfully lures us into her world nonetheless.

Her sculptures are also technically brilliant. The artist methodically goes through multiple steps during weeks and months of creating thumbnail sketches and numerous small maquettes, and then makes many changes in designing the right armature before she even starts on her final work. Yet as traditional as some of her methods are, she still has no fear of flouting “rules” when it comes to achieving her desired look. Interestingly, Cavener ignores most ceramic glaze-type finishes in exchange for basic household latex paint, an action that is often frowned upon in purist ceramic circles. Keeping a limited color palette helps support the mood as well as shows off her prodigious sculptural handwork. Surprisingly as well, she will sometimes incorporate classical delft porcelain colors with elegant Japanese-style tattoo designs such as those on the snake in “Tangled Up in You” which adds a soft, accepting moodiness to an otherwise disturbing subject. Combining all these disparate artistic goals in any single piece could easily become a messy affair for many of us, but in the hands and mind of a master like Cavener, it all comes together beautifully.

See more of Beth Cavener’s striking work at her website.

Check out the new “BioSystem” wall works from Donna Greenberg on Facebook. This is a brand new series incorporating her love of organic forms such as lichen, fungi, and corals with her interest in painted details in a true wall-hung format. Her self-challenge is in combining multiple intricate complex forms with a limited color palette to create depth and dimension with a strong yet subtle outcome. Visit Donna’s website here.

The Spring 2018 Cover … All Things Big & Small
 February 7, 2018   Inspirational Art

Our upcoming Spring 2018 issue is finally coming together, I am happy to say, and it’s set to come out the last week of February!

We are very lucky to have Doreen Kassel as our Color Spotlight artist as well as the cover artist for this issue. Lindly Haunani did a wonderful job of getting Doreen’s thoughts and secrets out of her to share with you all.

Also in this issue …

We have an amazing article on how to plan and create lifelike miniature versions of just about anything by the prolific Stephanie Kilgast.
I created a tutorial and sampler article on numerous ways you can decorate and design with tiny bits of clay including clay embroidery, faux filigree, granulation, cloisonné, and a few things I don’t have a name for but all so much fun to do.
We’ve compiled a ton of secrets and tricks into a step by step guide to cane reduction that is not to be missed.
Spend time in the world of Donna Greenberg, from her days as a big interior mural artist to her big ideas in smaller polymer packages, in an in-depth interview by Anke Humpert.
We picked the mind of Laura Tabakman to find out how large installations art projects are started, planned and completed.
As requested by numerous readers, I put together an article based on my Synergy 4 presentation on how polymer art fits into an environmentally conscious world, with my research and conclusions that are probably not what you would expect.
… and much, much more.

You can start or renew your subscription or pre-order your copy on our website here.

 

 

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Degrees of Intention
September 6, 2020
Posted in Inspirational Art, Ponderings, The Polymer Arts magazine news

Meredith Dittmar’s work is, surprisingly, freeform and spontaneous although her intention to “explore, illuminate, and break down the boundaries of the conditioned self” are well supported in her design choices.
Did you work on identifying colors similarities and contrasts, even though I was unable to get anything out midweek like I’d hoped? I ended up with an exceptionally busy week but, unlike many of these past months, it was mostly good, positive things going on. I’ll catch you up on some of that stuff at the end here (including notes about my latest big sale if you’re interested) but, this week, I thought we would take a break from the intensive design lessons so I could get back to writing what I call creative growth articles.

These kinds of articles were included in every Virtual Art Box but I had set them aside while we thoroughly explored color the past few months. I’d like to do these at least once a month now to keep you thinking about why and how you create and to give you a break from the lessons here and there.

The Question of Conscious Intention

When I started the Virtual Art Box, the first thing I wrote about was artistic intention. It was easily the most impactful thing I’ve ever put out if measured by the enthusiasm and number of the comments, messages, and emails I received and, if you read this blog regularly, you’ve probably noted that intention comes up over and over again. But I realized, after an interesting conversation recently, that I’ve never really talked about the variety and ways creative people approach intention.

The core question that came up in this conversation was about whether the person creating has to be consciously aware of their intention in order for the design to be intentional. In other words, can decisions be intentional without being understood by the creator? Sounds rather philosophical but it is, in truth a very practical and rather important question.

By definition, intention means that you have some knowledge of your motivations but, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are wholly conscious of them, not in a detailed way that allows you to verbalize it to yourself or others.

For instance, you could head to the grocery store intending to get something for your sweet tooth but you may not realize what you want until you’ve wandered through the bakery section and the candy section and then found yourself entranced by some caramel gelato in the ice cream freezer. Alternatively, you may have specifically headed out to get a pint of Talenti Caramel Cookie Crunch. The intention, and the outcome, would be the same for either trip out but there was a varying degree of awareness as to what you were after.

This works the same way when it comes to intention in art. You aren’t just fully intentional or not intentional in your design choices. There are variations and degrees to which you understand and apply your intention as you create although, I will argue, having some intention is necessary.

First of all, understand that when I talk about intention, I’m speaking about the concept, story, or theme that directs your design decisions. In the shopping trip example above, the intention was to satisfy a sweet tooth. In your artwork it could be anything from re-creating an image or place to telling a story to relaying a message to simply sharing your aesthetic tastes. But that intention guides your design decisions.

You could, for instance, choose round shapes for a pair of earrings. That choice might be made because round is a soft shape and the theme or story or idea behind your piece would be best supported by soft characteristics, but it also could be a gut feeling that round feels right compared to squares or triangles or amorphous organic shapes. If you have strong instinctual reactions to certain options for your design, you can absolutely make decisions based on that intuition. You just need to check that it supports and is related to your intention rather than it just being something that you are drawn to in general.

The Role of Instinct

Instinctive decisions are very common in many artist studios but they work best when there’s knowledge behind them. If a creative person is well versed on design, they will likely transition to working almost wholly by instinct at some point. That education and understanding works away in the background, guiding the artist’s instincts, but when they run into a problem, they still have the ability to puzzle out possible solutions based on the knowledge that they have. That is actually the primary intention that drives all my publications and this blog – to get you to the point where you understand design well enough for your design decisions to be instinctual. That way, you can approach your creative work with anything from a general to very specific intention and can begin to make purposeful decisions from the start.


Donna Greenberg’s latest post on Facebook: “WIP. Glazed bubbles and supporting texture coming in on this bad boy. Miles to go but each step helps me clarify my idea and even surprises me at times.” Because of the size and complexity of Donna’s vessels, planning has to be fairly well thought out before she really gets going but she leaves lots of room in her intention for discovery and alterations (via those clarifications she mentioned, I’m sure.)
There is also an argument in the art world that proposes that the artist does not have any responsibility to create with an intentional concept, meaning, or story for each piece, suggesting that it is completely up to the viewer and not the artist to give the piece meaning. I can’t say that I disagree with that but, if you create without any direction or some kind of framework to work off of, I think it becomes rather hard to create cohesive work that is meaningful to viewers.

I know, I am getting all abstract here so here’s a concrete example. Let’s say you want to create an eye-catching, one-of-a-kind piece to be showcased in your booth at the next fair or on the opening page of your shop’s website. You could just sit down with your materials and mess around with them until something comes out of it that you like. That is a valid way to design. But how do you even start doing that? Do you work with just whatever happens to be out on your table or do you pull out your newest, coolest materials and tools or do you open up your drawers and cupboards and stare at them until something jumps out at you (you know, kind of like when you stare at the fridge contents trying to figure out dinner)? I think we’ve all started something in this rather mindless way but how often are we successful compared to when we have some bit of intention?

Never Face a Blank Canvas

It is often said that facing a blank canvas is the hardest step in creating because it is, as yet, directionless which can be rather daunting. However, if you look for your intention first, then you never actually face a blank canvas. Instead, you come to that blank space or yet to be formed material with something to work on already. It’s the difference between walking into the grocery store only knowing that you want something to eat versus knowing you specifically want something sweet. You might not realize what you want is the gelato but at least you know where to head off to when you walk in those doors. Otherwise it is a lot of wandering up and down the aisles and that can be frustrating. You might not even make it that far. You might just turn around and leave because you don’t know which direction to take.

So, I do think you need to have something to work off of but it doesn’t always need to be something that you understand well enough to explain to someone. That was actually one of the hardest things for me in graduate school as I work towards my MFA in Poetry. Every word I chose in a poem was very intentional but a lot of the time there was more a feeling of it being right than an understanding about why it was right and yet, I was called on to explain my work all the time. I could always explain the theme of the piece and my inspiration but I could not always explain the specific significance of an image or sensation in the poem. To be honest, I think my lack of explanations was partly a kind of rebellion against the dissection of creative work. I know a lot of you feel that way too, that some (maybe most) art should be a visceral experience not an intellectual exercise.

However, trying to glean understanding from a piece of art, writing or any other creative work can be very satisfying so I’m not saying that I don’t think art should be approached that way. With some work, that’s the only way to approach it. And I did eventually come to the understanding that, as creatives, we can learn so much from that kind of examination but I also don’t think we need to do it all the time. I mean, there is some work we may want to just enjoy for what it is.

It can be the same in regard to how you approach intention. You might just want to enjoy the creative process and let your fingers and mind take the designs where they will. That’s great, especially if you are doing the work primarily because you enjoy the process. In that case, intellectualizing your intention can take away from that visceral experience but I will still argue that you need something to guide your design choices , even in a general way, if you want to arrive at the end of that process with a well-designed and engaging piece. Alternately, fully understanding your intention and planning out the details of a piece will allow you to boldly move forward as you work but you may also want to allow for modifications as your ideas and construction may change as you work.


Celie Fago may have a penchant for some pretty intense planning if this sketchbook page is any indication. She shared this with Dan Cormier for the Broken Telephone project article published in the Fall 2013 issue of The Polymer Arts (available in digital if you want to grab a copy here.) The objective was to create a brooch inspired by another artist’s piece that was sent to her. Her notes start off with “What Do I Hear? (when listening to Dave’s piece),” followed by a list of descriptive words as a way to search for her intention. That leads her into an exploration of design possibilities that support that intention. (Click image for a larger version.)
So, I think the best way to think of intention is in degrees of awareness. You can be fully aware of your intention and be able to verbalize it in detail, you can access your intuition with a more general idea driving your choices, or it can be somewhere in between.

I think the most important thing is that you make all of your individual design choices purposefully whether or not you fully understand your reasons. (I mean, I have no idea what I like caramel gelato so much but the lack of understanding certainly isn’t going to stop me from enjoying it!) Just try not to allow your design choices to be decided for you. Like don’t just default to a smooth surface because that’s how your clay comes out of the pasta machine. Choose a smooth surface because that is what best supports your intention. Purposefully choose shapes that support the concept you are inspired by rather than determining them based on your available cutters or because organic shapes are easiest to create freeform. Pick colors based on symbolic or emotive qualities not just what you have on hand. And ask yourself, every time, whether your piece will benefit from lines or marks or if there shouldn’t be any so you don’t miss out those possibilities.

These kinds of purposeful decisions will show a controlled and skilled intention, creating depth and cohesiveness and, likely, a lot more satisfaction on your end as well as in your finished pieces.

 

Dare I Say Winds Are Changing (in the Right) Direction

Yes, I’d hoped to do a midweek blog last week with some more examples about how to look at color and pick contrast and similarities, but not only did I have a busy week taking care of my husband after his biking accident (he is healing amazingly well and quickly, thank you all for asking!), I also had the opportunity to bring a staff member back on board so I’ve been getting her up to speed and we start work on possible new projects this coming week. It’s going to be so nice not doing this solo!

Also, you all really took advantage of the Damage Sale! I am nearly cleared out although, as I write this, there is still a small handful of slightly imperfect publications on the Specials page if you want to grab up those last $4 magazines and $12 books.

Then I got so excited about how cleared out the shipping room was looking (I’ll need the room to bring in new publications!) that I added a 25% off sale through September 15 on all regular print publications. No coupon code is needed if you want to take advantage of that. Just go over to the website.

So, there has been a ton of packing and shipping this week which not only kept me busy, it also made me more aware of an issue I’m having with my bad right arm. It’s kind of worked into my shoulder. But I saw a new orthopedic doctor and he had some wonderfully encouraging things to say so this coming week I start a new and different regimen of physical therapy that he believes will actually heal my arm. I am reservedly hopeful!

So, I’m busy but relatively happy over here. I hope to have some concrete new project announcements after this coming week. It’s been such an aimless, up in the air kind of year for us all, hasn’t it? I look forward to having a production schedule of some sort to keep me feeling relevant and to keep you inspired. So, keep fingers crossed!

I hope all of you have had your own dose of good news, light at the end of the tunnel, or other positive developments. I’m sure we could all use a bit more of that right now. So, keep an eye on impacts for incoming upcoming newsletters and announcements. In the meantime, take good care of you and yours!
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A Sharing Week
September 1, 2019
Posted in Inspirational Art, Polymer community news
Out of necessity, I’m going to do something a little bit different this week for you. It’s been a whacked-out week. You’ve had them, right? You think everything’s going so well and then one unexpected thing after another pops up, and next thing you know all your top priorities become bottom of the list items, and you can barely find time to sleep much just do the work you intended. Yeah, it’s been like that.

Now, mind you, nothing serious is going on. It’s just a lot of things happening at once. Well, I did seem to do something to my arm – yes, the one I’m trying to heal – but I’m considering that to be a little reminder that just because it’s feeling better doesn’t mean it is. *sigh* Back to being super diligent with how I use that arm!

So, as hard as I have tried every night to sit down and work on this blog these last few days, I’ve simply been unable to. One of the maxims of this break for me has been to listen to my body, resting and sleeping when I need to rather than when my schedule can afford it and so, by the time I sit down to work I’ve been utterly exhausted and just need to sleep. For that, I send my sincere apologies. I promise to get back to it next weekend!

But I can’t leave you on this Sunday without food for thought. So, here is an article that was shared with me some months back by Donna Greenberg. I think the philosophies here are so important for all types of artists and even hobbyists. It’s an article about fiber artist Anni Albers and an extrapolation of her writings fitted into 4 lessons for being an artist. They are this:

Lesson #1: Embrace accidents

Lesson #2: Bring play into the artmaking process

Lesson #3: Listen to your chosen material

Lesson #4: Experiment with new technologies

Sound familiar? I think you’ve heard all but #3 from me a few times on this blog over the years. However, I really like how it’s worded here. Whether you are a beginner or veteran crafter, I think you will find something to spark your work this week. Click here to read it. Then, you might want to bookmark that website, Artsy.net, the Education section, for more wonderful articles and interviews!

If, however, you are one of those who have found it hard to just sit down and create, might I suggest sitting down for 12 minutes and watching this video? They talk often about art in the context of fiction writing but the concepts of resistance and persistence might just hit home for you and get you off to work!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lTcgSzf0AQ

 

Upcoming Damage Sale  … a Head’s Up

In the meantime, I am going to spend the rest of this US Labor Day holiday weekend catching up on sleep so I can set up our big Damage sale for you all this coming week. This is the biggest price cut on publications I do all year, taking shelf worn and corner dinged publications and selling them for half price or less. I am giving you a heads ups because it’s a limited inventory and many issues disappear within the first day.

The sale will be on Wednesday, Sept 4th. I will send out a quick announcement here so everyone gets a fair chance but otherwise, look for our newsletter with all the details. Sign up for the newsletter here if you are not already on it.

Thank you for your understanding this weekend. I hope you have a wonderful week!
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Tile Talk
May 12, 2019
Posted in Inspirational Art
Do you ever stop to ask yourself if what you create makes you happy? It seems like a silly question since creating is usually passion driven so being able to feed that passion should make you happy, right? But have you ever found yourself creating something because you believe it is the kind of thing other people would like but later realize that you don’t enjoying making it?

I found that happened a lot when I was a selling artist. You get wrapped up in what you think the market would want, what you think will sell best at the next show, and you’d be just making things for the money and not because it’s what you want to make. Other times we think that in a particular material, like polymer clay, it is best used for certain forms such as jewelry and home decor. But as we all know, polymer can do almost anything and yet 85% of it being created and shared online is jewelry. Jewelry is pretty fun stuff to make, sure, but if you enjoy polymer, just keep in mind you don’t have to make jewelry.

I myself have been moving away from jewelry. A pendant or pair of earrings are oftentimes still the best items to create to show off a polymer technique for a magazine article or tutorial but more and more, I create objects without an end goal in mind and am really enjoying just making little objects and samples of techniques. Last year, I started to see patterns and connections between them and eventually started putting them in shadow boxes. You can see an example of one of my “specimen” boxes in the latest Polymer Journeys book, if you’re curious. I’m also trying to devise a class for doing it. It’s so much fun!

But when I have to create jewelry because I am vetting an article for the magazine or want to make a gift, I have lately found that I don’t look forward to the engineering of it – figuring out how it is going to hang, what stringing material will work best, what findings I need, as well as worrying about comfort and durability. I find I don’t want to think about those things when I create and it’s not out of some kind of laziness, it’s just not what I want to spend my mental and creative energy on, and I’m good with that. I just really want to follow creative paths that make me happy right now.

To that end (and because I’ve spent so much time in tile stores lately), I’ve decided I might just focus on tiles for a while. They are a very freeing form. A tile is just a canvas for 3D materials. You can do whatever you want on them. You can make them any size, any shape, and can attach whatever you want or attack it however you want. I think we really should all give ourselves the freedom to play with this form, to let ourselves be free to create from the heart with a material we love. At the end of a session of tile making, you may find you are really looking forward to creating necklaces or making beads or covering vases. But I am going to suggest you give a tile a try here and there to just let yourself create freely. Doing this can help with your designs in other forms.

To that end, of course, I’m going to share some tiles this weekend. I am going to share a lot of non-polymer ones because I think, if you’ve spent any time online, you’ve probably seen your share of polymer tiles these last few years, especially with the Fimo 50 year challenge a couple of years back and with the common inches exchanges (inches are just tiny tiles). So, I’ve got a quite a mix for you but it is all art that can translate to polymer even if it is in another material.

 

Laying it All Out

The opening image of this post is a photo from a class conducted by Laurie Mika. She is well-known for her colorful and intricate collage/mosaic pieces which, by the way, she teaches at various events. This collection of student work was from a polymer clay tapestry class she taught at the SAMA (Society of American Mosaic Artists) conference in Nashville just a few of weeks ago. They are all just lovely. There is no high-end technical skill needed to put these types of things together which makes them ideal for exploring color and texture and just letting yourself go. (You can check Laurie’s workshop schedule on her website.)

Jael Thorp caught my eye some years back with her “clay doodles”, including the one below. I thought they looked like zentangles for clayers. Can you imagine the flow state she must’ve been in to create this? You can just get so completely lost in this kind of work and that is a big part of why people find tiles such a wonderful creative outlet.

Check out this post with her various doodles from some years back. She went on to refine her technique, making beautiful beads and home decor with the same type of application. You can find them on her Flickr photostream.



 

Let’s move from polymer to ceramics now. It is a rare thing in ceramics that can’t be replicated in some fashion in polymer so I find ceramic art quite inspiring. Here is one of my favorite tile makers in ceramics, Chris Gryder, who has gone a bit more three-dimensional of late but his tile compositions are timeless.

In this composition, each tile is its own separate piece but he’s connected them all with these lines that he creates through the grid of tiles. So, really, you can make a whole bunch of tiles without worrying about what they’re going to end up as, and then, if you want to put them together as a composition because they have a similar or complementary set of color palettes, textures, or motifs, you can use lines that flow throughout to visually connect them for a larger composite composition. This approach would allow you to just make tiles as the muse directs and then you can later make them into a larger wall piece.

If you like this piece, go browse through his website or his Instagram page for more fantastic inspiring wall compositions in tile.



 

Keep in mind, just because tiles start out flat, they are not two-dimensional and you can create extremely three-dimensional pieces on them. Here’s one example with some very organic forms and textures created by Lauren Blakey, another ceramic artist.



 

And here’s another three-dimensional example in glass by Shayna Leib.



As you can see, tile work is open to all types of materials so keep that in mind as you sit down to tile. Mix in anything that your heart and muse desires. Mix and match mediums, embed oddball trinkets you’ve kept for, as yet, unknown reasons, and just keep an open mind.

After pulling these examples for you, I realized that all the examples are squares here. You don’t have to create square tiles to play with but that is the more common form. However, if you’re not feeling square, try a free form shape or an oblong one or maybe, because today is Mother’s Day, create a big heart for all the mothers out there. Happy Mother’s Day to all you amazing women!

Here’s a heart from Tina Ruppert of Wisecrackin’ Mosaics on Etsy. Pick a favorite shape and a bunch of canes or other scraps of clay and you can do something along these lines as well.



 

Getting Squared Away

I’m going to leave you with these thoughts and hopefully some curiosity about playing around with a tile or two, in whatever form and techniques interest you. If you need some jumpstart tutorials, here are a few places you can go:

Sara Evans has a video about her tile making process here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FAxYwgJfLo

If you want to do something tile like but still want it to be something functional when done, maybe you would like this polymer clay tile box tutorial –

https://mermaidsden.com/blog/2015/02/12/polymer-clay-tile-box

Or have fun with one of our true masters of polymer clay tiles, Chris Kapono, with her very detailed and yet tremendously fun tile project in the Polymer Arts Projects book which you can purchase and download digitally if you need it immediately or order the print edition from our website.


I opened with a discussion about doing what makes you happy and hope it gives you some food for thought. If you want to hear a couple of transformative stories in that vein, please be sure to get your copy of The Polymer Studio Issue #2, recently released, which starts and ends with stories about finding one’s happy place with one about Christine Dumont’s studio complete with a visual tour, and the other about Donna Greenberg’s focus moving from jewelry to large wall art. Check out the Issue #2 Sampler if you haven’t seen the new issues yet.

 

We’re daily trying to find are happy place over here as our house has continued to be demolished more and more, beyond what we (or our contractor) expected even. Old plumbing can be a tricky thing! If it would just warm up here, it wouldn’t be so bad. A cold Southern California in May is just weird.

I’d share progress shots of the house but it’s pretty much just down to studs and busted up concrete floors. Oh… And a large trench across the whole of the front yard for a new drain line. I’m thinking about making it into a moat. Like a habitrail (if you remember those hamster houses) for our pond fish. They could just swim circles around the house! Okay, probably not but gotta have fun with all this bedlam, even if it’s just dreaming up nonsense like that!

I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday and Mother’s Day! I’m off to have mimosas with the family’s fabulous females myself! Enjoy the day and your coming week!
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Mixing and Mingling, New Cover, & 33% off Back issues
March 24, 2019
Posted in Inspirational Art, Polymer community news, Tips and Tricks
We have a bit of business to do first today but it’s exciting business! I wanted to share with you the next cover of The Polymer Studio, coming late April.

We are thrilled to include projects from Cynthia Tinapple, our featured and interviewed artist for this issue, as well as Christi Friesen, Kathy Koontz, Elena Mori, the Mitchell sisters, Deb Hart, and Wendy Moore. Also, tips, tricks, and other bits of wisdom from Debbie Crothers, Ginger Davis Allman, and little old me. And you won’t want to miss the tour of Christine Dumont’s studio, complete with a conversation about her space and process, which I think you’ll find very intriguing.

All this and more, just a month away! Support our projects, this blog, and the betterment of your own polymer journey, of course, or just because you’d like to look at all the pretty things tucked into those pages, by subscribing to The Polymer Studio here.

(Be sure to scroll down to the last section for the 33% off sale stuff.)

A Fine Mix-up

So, did you get a chance to look through the winning entries for the IPCA awards? Here’s the link again if you didn’t see them. The winning entries are just beautiful and maybe even a bit surprising. If you saw it, did you notice any trends or changes in trends and what was presented? I thought it was interesting that there were a lot of mixed-media pieces where polymer clay might have been the focus, but other materials played large roles in important design aspects and visual impact of the work.

One of the reasons I find this so interesting is that the idea of expanding into other materials seems to be a regular conversation myself and many other people are having. I couldn’t say exactly what that means but I do believe that polymer, with its unparalleled flexibility for combining with other materials, has kind of come of age where our exploration of what it can do is being placed on the back burner in order to focus on artistic expression. I look at these mixed-media pieces in the awards and other pieces I find during my research and general perusing online, and it seems that we are seeing more instances where polymer centric artists decide what they want to make and then determine the best materials for the work rather than push to see if polymer can be used for most, if not all, of the components of a piece. Or perhaps I am just hoping this is the case because I would love to see more folks focused on personal expression will rather than letting our obsessive, but understandable, infatuation with the material determine our creative parameters.

Of course, for most of us who work in polymer now, this colorful, durable, and chameleon material will remain our primary love and, regardless of other options, we will often still try to do as much as we can with polymer, if just to see if we can push it a little bit farther. But, opening oneself up to the possibilities of combining it with other materials in major ways will allow us, and even the viewer, to focus more on the design and expression and less on the material itself, which will let the artist’s expression, vision, creativity, and aesthetic really shine. I find this very exciting!

So, this week, let’s look at some of the mixed-media pieces where other materials play a primary role alongside polymer. This could be very helpful for you if you have felt like you’re in a rut or are too often hitting technical or design walls in your work. Trying out a different material may just be the thing to inject you with new enthusiasm and, possibly, send you down a new path with your artwork.

Mixed Directions

Let’s first look at some of the winners of the IPCA awards and in many ways that other materials have been mixed in.

This first piece is both a mixed-media and a mixed artist piece. Ellen Prophater or worked with Sherry Mozer, a glass artist, led to the use of the black glass piece with its shades of green within reflected in the mokume polymer it sits upon. It is set in a silver bezel and accented with Swarovski crystals. Both the mokume and the glass show off a subtle transparency, drawing the connection between the two along with the green cast colors. It’s a nice reminder that collaboration can also push us in new directions making new discoveries in our work and even ourselves and our friendships.



 

Donna Greenberg just killed it as the professional mixed-media category. This wall piece is called Wedgewood Wave but the word that keeps coming to mind for me is swoon. Not just because I feel like swooning, it’s just so gorgeous, but that’s also the word that comes to mind from that fabulous flow of energy through those waves, back into the pool of blue. Those waves are paper, but the application of color and shape are similar to the polymer pieces so the different materials feel cohesive. This is definitely one of those cases where another medium was the better choice. Trying to create those waves in polymer would’ve been just silly, even though it could be done. The paper gives a lighter feel to the overall piece as well as a light and easy flow to the visual movement. She also used Ultralight polymer alongside the Arches cold press paper, acrylic gouache paints, watercolor pencils, and Apoxie paste, each material fulfilling its purpose in a way that another material would not have been as successful with.



 

With the issue of the environment heavy in many of our minds, we are seeing a lot of exploration into found or recycled or upcycled items. Sarah Machtey offered up this steam punk pouch necklace with removable magnifying glass for the mixed media category of the awards with a bit of all of that. The front and back of this small pouch is from a soda can turned inside out – you can still see the printing of the soda can on the inside – but she embossed the can with decorative lines and used mica powder infused liquid polymer in the recesses to make them stand out. The band across the top is upcycled copper from a renovation project while the side leaves and earrings are polymer clay. Not sure if the magnifying glass was bought or found but it certainly could have been reused from something else.

The pouch is 7” (18 cm) in height from the top edge to the bottom of the magnifying glass, so it’s no small bit of tin on there. Of course, she could have used polymer to create the metal sections but it would’ve been a bulkier piece. The tin keeps the weight down as well as adding some structural strength that would only have been accomplished with a much thicker wall of polymer.



 

Keep in mind, when we are talking mixed-media it doesn’t necessarily have to be another art material. For instance, I combined poetry with photos of polymer in a challenge last year that I was posting on my personal Instagram page. Other people mix it up by installing the work in unusual places so that the what is placed on becomes part of the artwork such as fairy doors installed on walls or in tree trunks or tiles installed into a kitchen backsplash. Rachel Gourley takes it just a touch further, installing her little collections so that they recede into the landscape. She scatters her polymer elements out and about in natural settings, looking much like organic growths but unexpected in their color, shape, and placement.



 

Putting Together Your Own Mixer

This week, I didn’t pull any tutorials for you to try because it would have to be a mad, a long list of other materials to give you any real idea of your options. Instead, I might suggest that you keep your eye open for what other polymer artists are doing with other materials. Perhaps one of the above ideas piqued your interest already. If so, research that other material and find ways to acquire or hone your skill in that medium. Just put “polymer clay and [fill in the blank with the material you’re curious about]” into the search bar on Pinterest, Instagram, Flickr, or Google images and see what pops up. Add the word “tutorial” to see what offerings there are online. I’m sure there will be plenty of inspiration.

You can also grab your Spring 2015 – Diversity issue of The Polymer Arts or the Convergence themed issue from Spring of 2016, both of which have a ton of ideas around using other materials with polymer. You can see the table of contents for all back issues of The Polymer Arts on this page to check out what these issues have to offer. Then, if you don’t have the issues, you can order them on the website.


In fact, let’s have a sale!

Why don’t you grab a few back issues and take a full 33% off 3 or more! Good on digital or print, I’ll keep this up until next Sunday so grab them this week. Use promo code TPA33 at checkout.

And … I’m Off!

I would normally have some community news and deals for you to look into at this point, but I did not get to that. This week has been a struggle. I am being kept busy by a house that has decided to just fall apart all of a sudden. My creative energies have been used up relocating kitchen activities to the garage, the porch, and even my studio because of plumbing issues while getting tons of exercise running large circles around the house because the garage door won’t open, washing my clothes in the bathroom sink because the laundry machine won’t drain, and constantly shuffling ice packs from freezer to fridge because the fridge is on and off and its replacement is weeks away from getting here. All this happening two weeks before we start some (apparently!) much-needed kitchen remodeling. I’m not making this up.  But talk about mixing it up!

So, I’m going to get back to my at-home glamping while trying to get the next issue wrapped up for you. But tune in next week for more polymer pretties and inspiration, and, hopefully, less house drama from Sage’s corner! In the meantime, if you work with another medium, please share it below. Or tell us the most unusual medium you’ve combined with polymer! I’d love to get a feel for what you all are working on besides polymer. Leave links to the work as well if available! (If you get this by email, click on the post title to get to the post page and scroll down to comments.) I’m excited to see what you all have to share!
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Ring Riot
February 17, 2019
Posted in Inspirational Art
Have you ever made a polymer ring? It’s not one of the most popular jewelry forms in the medium which seems a little strange because they’re fairly easy to make. Maybe it’s a durability question – will the polymer ring stand up to the knocking and scraping rings have to go through? I’m not sure how they would fare if worn day in and day out but I, myself, have several polymer rings which still look as good today as the day I made them and the unusual and fantastic things you can do with polymer make them a really eye-catching piece of adornment that you’ll get lots of questions about an attention for.

There are so many different types of polymer rings you can make. You can wrap clay onto a form such as small glass bottles, sockets (for socket wrenches), and short bits of metal pipe (try pipe connectors.) You can skip the ring construction and just apply polymer to a metal ring blank. They come as bands with open channels that you can put canes and veneers in, or with a blank bezel for cabochons or sculptural elements. You can also simply create a block of clay that you punch a hole into for the finger to go through. Alternately, you can free-form the ring by hand, cure it, and then carve it into the shape and size you need. There are so many ways to make rings!

The one downside about rings, especially if you are selling them, is that you will need different sizes. Making a selection to show the style but then offering custom-made rings is one way around this but the other way is to just make simple rings that you can create a lot of and only in three or four popular sizes.  This way you have those smaller inexpensive, impulse buy items to sell at your fair booth or online. And rings are easy items to sell especially at an inexpensive price point. They’re fun little bits of adornment and you don’t even really need them to match your outfits!

But if you want to create and sell one-of-a-kind rings, choose an average ring size and keep the band thickness and style wide enough to either sand down to create a larger size or add a layer of clay to create a smaller size. There are also adjustable ring blanks if you just need a base for attaching your polymer forms and elements onto.

So now that I have you thinking about rings, let’s take a look at some great polymer ring creations to further get your inspiration going.

Let’s start with one of those ring blank ideas. Here Janine Müller shows how creative you can get with a ring bezel. It doesn’t need to be a solid polymer cabochon. It can be layered or carved or hand-tooled or drilled. I’m not sure what her approach is here but the take away here is that you can try your own preferred surface treatments to create a unique ring in a bezel blank.



 

If you want to try an all polymer ring in a quick and easy but fun form, roll out those clay sheets and try a stacked set like these ingenious mix-and-match rings by Florence Minne-Khou. Clean cuts and a little sanding is about the most difficult aspect of a project like this so there’s hardly any excuse to not try it.



 

If you like getting sculptural with your work, you can go in a number of directions. Keep it simple but elegant with uncomplicated and cleanly shaped rings. Start by wrapping them around a solid form to start, and then sculpt the clay. These pieces from Angela Garrod are likely created in that fashion.



 

Or swirl them well into the third dimension with a folded form like this intriguing finger form from Sona Grigoryan.



 

Or just go completely wild and don’t worry about the functional aspect. Just make something out of this world. Perhaps this rather celestial feeling ring by Donna Greenberg will get you to push the limits of what you can do with a ring form.



 

If you are primarily a cane clayer, don’t think that rings–even sculptural rings–are not for you. Take note of Jana Roberts Benzon’s creative cane slicing and build up your own gorgeously detailed rings.



 

Oh, I could keep going with these! Just put “polymer rings” into a search on Pinterest, Instagram, Etsy or Flickr and you’ll see a ton more to get you thinking. But if you want some step by step instructions to help get you started on what could be a really addictive form, try this block cut ring tutorial from Ludmila Bakulina aka Sweety Bijou. This would be good for scraps too!



 

Okay … going to have to cut and run but I hope I have left you with some exciting possibilities. I’m on the road today but will be back next weekend with more food for thought and pretty things to ponder. Also, don’t forget to pre-order your Polymer Journeys 2019 before the 22nd. Release date is now March 2! Get yours at www.tenthmusearts.com

 
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New book! Polymer Art Projects—Coming October 20th
September 10, 2018
Posted in Inspirational Art, Polymer community news, The Polymer Arts magazine news
This week is going to be a series of announcements but I promise, they will all be very exciting, they will all be polymer, and they will all give you something you can look forward to as we move into fall and winter (or spring and summer if you’re down under.)

First up… I can finally announce and show off the cover of the first in an upcoming series of books, Polymer Art Projects. This series arose from your consistent request for more projects and a desire to support and promote our great artists, so, after many conversations, I came up with this cooperative book project. All contributing artists in the book will be part of a promotion and profit sharing team. That means they are highly motivated to provide you with some truly fantastic material on top of looking forward to sharing their love of polymer art.

For less than a couple of dollars each, you get 16 tutorials that will expand your abilities under the guidance of some of the polymer community’s best instructors. The skill level of these tutorials range from the experienced novice to the intermediate artisan, with tips and ideas for polymer crafters of all levels. The tutorials are very detailed, each showing off a variety of techniques, expert construction, and lists of ideas for variation so you can create your own unique pieces from what you learn.

The first in the series, Polymer Art Projects—Organic, includes tutorials by Donna Greenberg, Christi Friesen, Eva Haskova, Anke Humpert, Debbie Crothers, Kim Cavender, Stephanie Kilgast, Chris Kapono, Stacy Louise Smith, Nevenka Sabo, Adriana Allen, Dani Rapinett, Fabiola Ajates, Rebecca Thickbroom, Klavdija Kurent, and little ol’ me. Projects include a variety of jewelry as well as home decor, all inspired by mother nature.

Check out the cover for a sampling of what you can look forward to. The cover price for the print edition of this book will be $23.95 but for the next month, you can preorder for $16.75 – that’s 30% off the cover price. Or maybe you’d like a digital edition which will list for $15.95 – you can preorder the digital edition for just $11.95. These preorder prices are good through October 10th.

Don’t forget the last issue of The Polymer Arts comes out September 22. Preorder this last historic copy on The Polymer Arts website.
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BioSystem Impact
August 15, 2018
Posted in Inspirational Art
We can’t talk about wall art right now without bringing up Donna Greenberg’s newest series—BioSystems. She’s creating these amazing conglomerations of organic shapes, bursts of color, and all kinds of variation of texture in these wall pieces.

Like Pavla’s piece on Monday, there is no particular focal point in these wall pieces. However, there is a flow-through from one set of shapes and forms into another through the use of repetition and a gathering of color that defines multiple paths from which one can explore this visual adventure.

This series was an adventure for Donna herself as she wanted to work on something that she was inspired by without concern for the selling of the artwork. Ironically, these pieces have resulted in numerous commission requests. I love that because I have long believed, since my days of being a full-time artist trying to read the market, that if you put yourself into your work it will speak to people and the sales will come.

So, I say, create what pleases you, that which is drawn from your passion, and your vision will come through in a more original and meaningful way, creating work that will please both you and many a customer.

Do set aside some time to explore the other pieces in the series as well as the photos that show the different views of the work. You can do so on Donna’s Facebook page and Instagram.
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Moody Creatures
June 29, 2018
Posted in Inspirational Art
PhotGuest Blog Post by Donna Greenberg

We don’t seem to talk much about emotion or mood in polymer art. We share a lot about color, design, construction, and problem-solving, which are all necessary and practical ideas, but seem to shy away from work that is clearly emotional, thought-provoking or even frightening. Although not a polymer artist, Beth Cavener’s work takes this subject head on with her large-scale animal sculptures and offers us food for thought, especially those of us that love to create human or animal sculptures.

Hares, foxes and other familiar and beloved creatures in folklore are given uncanny human-like facial and bodily expressions, making us look twice at Cavener’s sculptures. Occasionally she will even add a decidedly human body part to the animal, yet manages to do this in such a way as to make it seem quite natural.  Her creatures seem to have been frozen in a moment of action, often expressing fear, uncertainty or other primitive human instincts. If we look closely, we can almost see our own human emotions reflected in them. It’s not always comfortable to witness these works, but Cavener’s attention to every detail, exquisite craftsmanship and control of the narrative masterfully lures us into her world nonetheless.

Her sculptures are also technically brilliant. The artist methodically goes through multiple steps during weeks and months of creating thumbnail sketches and numerous small maquettes, and then makes many changes in designing the right armature before she even starts on her final work. Yet as traditional as some of her methods are, she still has no fear of flouting “rules” when it comes to achieving her desired look. Interestingly, Cavener ignores most ceramic glaze-type finishes in exchange for basic household latex paint, an action that is often frowned upon in purist ceramic circles. Keeping a limited color palette helps support the mood as well as shows off her prodigious sculptural handwork. Surprisingly as well, she will sometimes incorporate classical delft porcelain colors with elegant Japanese-style tattoo designs such as those on the snake in “Tangled Up in You” which adds a soft, accepting moodiness to an otherwise disturbing subject. Combining all these disparate artistic goals in any single piece could easily become a messy affair for many of us, but in the hands and mind of a master like Cavener, it all comes together beautifully.

See more of Beth Cavener’s striking work at her website.

Check out the new “BioSystem” wall works from Donna Greenberg on Facebook. This is a brand new series incorporating her love of organic forms such as lichen, fungi, and corals with her interest in painted details in a true wall-hung format. Her self-challenge is in combining multiple intricate complex forms with a limited color palette to create depth and dimension with a strong yet subtle outcome. Visit Donna’s website here.
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The Spring 2018 Cover … All Things Big & Small
February 7, 2018
Posted in Inspirational Art
Our upcoming Spring 2018 issue is finally coming together, I am happy to say, and it’s set to come out the last week of February!

We are very lucky to have Doreen Kassel as our Color Spotlight artist as well as the cover artist for this issue. Lindly Haunani did a wonderful job of getting Doreen’s thoughts and secrets out of her to share with you all.

Also in this issue …

We have an amazing article on how to plan and create lifelike miniature versions of just about anything by the prolific Stephanie Kilgast.
I created a tutorial and sampler article on numerous ways you can decorate and design with tiny bits of clay including clay embroidery, faux filigree, granulation, cloisonné, and a few things I don’t have a name for but all so much fun to do.
We’ve compiled a ton of secrets and tricks into a step by step guide to cane reduction that is not to be missed.
Spend time in the world of Donna Greenberg, from her days as a big interior mural artist to her big ideas in smaller polymer packages, in an in-depth interview by Anke Humpert.
We picked the mind of Laura Tabakman to find out how large installations art projects are started, planned and completed.
As requested by numerous readers, I put together an article based on my Synergy 4 presentation on how polymer art fits into an environmentally conscious world, with my research and conclusions that are probably not what you would expect.
… and much, much more.

You can start or renew your subscription or pre-order your copy on our website here.

 

 
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from this article, talk about donna Greenberg's art pieces, in terms of understanding it, such as talk about the colour used, materials and also space