Sunday, January 20, 2008

What Color Am I Today?

I love color and I love choosing a project palette. I also love shortcuts! Here's a nifty website that picks out colors from a photograph and lays them out for you like paint chips! As a polymer artist who mixes all my own colors, it's a real time saver. Here I have a photo of a vegetable stand in Stresa, Italy with the corresponding color palette. Appropriately enough, I was in Stresa attending a color workshop! Check out Big Huge Labs and play! And don't miss all their other neat design tools while you're there!

Sunday, January 6, 2008

Catalog Season


January brings the arrival of countless catalogs to my mailbox. Ever since my Martha Stewart period when I was really into interior design, I've been on every home decorating mailing list. I've finally found a productive use for all those catalogs, instead of just glancing through them and tossing them into the recycle bin.

I've been fascinated by image transfers to polymer clay lately. Whereas many of my fellow polymer artists strive for the perfect transfer, I prefer the misses and near misses. Take this one, for example: Pottery Barn is trying to get me to buy the dresser, but my eye immediately went to the flower vase vignette. It's a clear, crisp photo in the catalog, but when transferred to polymer using my 'illustrated transfer' technique, it looks more like an impressionist painting (click on each image and you'll see what I mean!).