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Last year Jessica of Zakka Life collected the plastic inserts from Coke bottle caps, grabbed her glue gun and got busy. The result is an interesting bowl – decorative rather than functional. Instructions for making your own bowl here. I could see thin slices of colorful polymer clay canes glued to the center of each plastic cap. Sweet!
She’s got a new blog too – Starving Crafters – where you can find “the latest contests for artists, crafters, designers, and makers.”
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Art & Fear. Have you read it? You really must. David Bayle and Ted Orland wrote the artist’s survival guide in 1993 and their words are as relevant today as they were fifteen years ago. I expect they will be just as meaningful fifty years from now.
The authors immediately captured my attention with the opening lines: “This is a book about making art. Ordinary art. Ordinary art means something like: all art not made by Mozart”. I thought, “Hey, they’re talking about me!”
Art & Fear, Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, is a must-read for every artist, craftsman, craftswoman, creative-thinker, creative-type, thinking person. Did I cover everyone? Let me whet your appetite (or jar your memory) with six quotes from the book. Orland and Bayle really write their own review.
1. “To require perfection is to invite paralysis. The pattern is predictable: as you see error in what you have done, you steer your work toward what you imagine you can do perfectly. You cling ever more tightly to what you already know you can do – away from risk and exploration, and possibly further from the work of your heart. You find reasons to procrastinate, since to not work is to not make mistakes.”
2. “What you need to know about the next piece is contained in the last piece. The place to learn about your materials is in the last use of your materials. The place to learn about your execution is in your execution Put simply, your work is your guide: a complete, comprehensive, limitless reference book on your work.”
3. “For most artists, making good art depends upon making lots of art and any device that carries the first brushstroke to the next blank canvas has tangible, practical value.”
4. “To the critic, art is a noun. To the artist, art is a verb.”
5. “The difference between art and craft lies not in the tools you hold in your hands, but in the mental set that guides them. For the artisan, craft is an end in itself. For you, the artist, craft is the vehicle for expressing your vision. Craft is the visible edge of art.”
6. “Look at your work and it tells you how it is when you hold back or when you embrace. When you are lazy, your art is lazy; when you hold back, it holds back; when you hesitate, it stands there staring, hands in its pockets. But when you commit, it comes on like blazes.”
The pages of my copy of Art & Fear are filled with dozens of underlined passages, exclamation points and notes-to-self. This is a book you will read again and again, each time finding new inspiration in the simple words and practical logic. Reading Art & Fear has been as important as any class or workshop that I’ve taken to help me move my art forward.
Buy This Book – don’t borrow it, don’t take it out of the library – Buy It. A wise way to spend money on your art, it’s on sale right now for $10 through Amazon – and it is worth ten times that amount!
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I am intrigued by the ancient art of encaustic, but I’m not ready for the steep learning curve required by this medium. When I saw that collage artist Claudine Hellmuth’s latest DVD was about using beeswax with collaged drawings I thought it might be just what I was looking for as a substitute for encaustic. I was right.
Hellmuth, best known for her custom collage portraits, is quick to explain that this technique is not encaustic, rather something that she developed through a great deal of experimentation, trial and error. As I watched the DVD I realized that the wax might be a useful addition to my polymer clay toolbox. I started playing with the technique yesterday and I love it.
Part one of the 90 minute workshop is a primer of techniques. The artist demonstrates how to color the wax, how to use papers as backgrounds, how to make an image transfer on the wax and how to incorporate metal foils and texture tools into a wax collage.
I thought that Hellmuth’s demonstration of how to incorporate line drawings in the collage was the most interesting part of the workshop. She builds layers using the simple drawings, papers and fabrics, illustrating how easy it is to construct the collaged drawings piece by piece. You just have to watch her do it. She instills confidence immediately. I really can’t draw, but after watching her demonstrate the line drawing, I knew I could do this.
In part two, Hellmuth takes us from start to finish with three projects: a stretched canvas collage, a watercolor paper collage card and a metal Poppet folded to sit on a mantle or table top. Polymer clay embellishments could have been used on all of the projects (think cane slices, buttons, flat sheets of clay…) .
Below is a sneak peek. If you haven’t seen Beeswax Collage with Claudine Hellmuth I recommend that you to rent it today. I got mine from SmartFlix – they were helpful and friendly, it came in a clever envelope/return envelope and there wasn’t a scratch or a flaw on the DVD as I viewed the workshop.
Lynn and Jim at Creative Catalyst did a beautiful job shooting the high-quality DVD and the editing is smooth…seamless…it absolutely flows.
When you watch it make sure to watch past the final credits. This delightful artist has included some giggle-worthy outtakes. There are also previews of several workshop videos by other artists.
Beeswax Collage with Claudine Hellmuth is appropriate for the serious artist or those who just want to play! Artists and crafters using a variety of media will find it interesting – the collage project is only the beginning – a point of departure with many possibilities.
Below is a picture of my first experiment – no actual design yet – I just wanted to get the hang of the process (she makes it look so easy…and it kind of is!) and I wanted to see if the polymer elements could actually be encased in the beeswax (they can). I have a few ideas that I will explore more fully in the coming weeks.
Everything you see in the picture above (except the canvas) is polymer clay. Some of the pieces are a continuation of the zentangle texture plate experiment and some are liquid polymer clay experiments. I used bits and scraps in case it didn’t work. My studio is quite the mess with experiments all around me. Anybody want to come over and help me clean it?
P.S. Since people are asking…you can find Beeswax Collage at Smartflix – that’s where I rented my copy!
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I pore over books in much the same way that I scour the internet looking for a spark of an idea to feed my muse. Jane Patrick’s Time to Weave is a lovely example of a book that has given me more than one ‘aha’ moment. Patrick, a full time weaver and a former editor of Handwoven magazine, offers a relaxed approach to weaving without a loom, allowing the non-weaver entry into the world of weaving. I found her style inviting, intriguing and timely as I experiment with alternative uses for polymer clay.
The book’s 16 projects demonstrate weaving with paper, plastic, rubber backed carpet strips, balsa wood, flower stems, bamboo, copper foil, embroidery floss, canvas and wool. 16 new ways to think about weaving. 16 reasons to combine weaving with polymer clay. 16 sparks to feed my muse.
After coaxing us toward the weaving process with several non-loom projects, Patrick demonstrates how to use a simple frame loom – and then goes on to explain how to felt the woven wonders to make a pocket purse, hat and pillow.
The Wrapped Tile project is serene simplicity at its best. Patrick wrapped three 6 x 6 square Quartzite tiles with a simple weaving and arranged the tiles on a wall, making an elegant statement. As soon as I saw it I thought “use polymer clay tiles made of faux jade, ivory or amber”. The variations page for that project is pictured below.
If you are looking to do something different with thin strips of polymer clay, or if you want to try a unique wrap for your polymer clay tiles, focal beads or vessels, Time to Weave is a good place to start.
You can find a link to the book in the sidebar.
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In Paper Transformed, Julia Andrus shares more than 100 recipes for making handmade paper designs including creating the look of embossed metal, lifting color with bleach or rubber stamps and designing with compressed sponges. It is advertised as the ‘ultimate paper designer’s handbook’ and while that may be true, I found several techniques that are polymer clay friendly.
The recipes appeal to me more than the projects, but the ‘Painted Tin Frame’ sure does look like the real thing. I had to look twice before I was convinced that it was paper. The most striking projects are the tin frame and the ‘Mottled Dressed Mannequin’, with a skirt made from paper petals and rivets (polymer clay petals could easily be substituted for the paper skirt petals on the mannequin).
Equally intriguing is the ‘Soot Prints’ recipe although it can’t be done with polymer clay. The technique mimics old photo negatives and involves matches, so you’ll have to buy the book to see what I mean, but trust me – it is an interesting way to create images!
The book is set up in a clear, easy to read format, with recipe samples shown on small tags like the ones pictured below.
Here’s an excerpt (click on picture to enlarge):
I like recipes. They are jumping off points and help me to focus right before I take off on my creative tangent. Two of the books that I keep close at hand in my studio are Polymer Clay Surface Design Recipes and The Art of Polymer Clay Creative Surface Effects. I also like cross-pollination. We borrowed Mokume Gane from metalsmiths and Millefiore from the ancient glass artisans and adapted them to the clay. Why not paper?
My copy of Paper Transformed sits on the shelf in between the Kato and Marshall books mentioned above. You can’t have too many recipes…maybe too many cooks in the kitchen, but never too many recipes.
Julia Andrus also has a website complete with products, how-to’s and online video tutorials.
Links to Paper Transformed are in the sidebar.
