Flowers are a recurring and popular theme in most types of art and polymer clay is no exception. There are so many different ways to bring a flower to life using clay. These are just a few of my favorites. Not a lot of words, just a lot of floral goodness to feast upon!
This cherry blossom cane is from Olga Ostapenko, who lives in Russia. Her cane work is incredible (check out the geisha cane ) and she makes some wonderfully delicate necklaces, as well, using sculpted roses.
Pittsburgh's Marla Frankenberg used some of her incredible cane slices to make this dimensional pansy, complete with it's own personal ladybug. These were originally made for embellishments on a beautiful box she created for Kato Polyclay's exhibit at the CHA show a few years ago. Marla, you should make more of these!
Leigh Ross, of New Jersey, made all the flowers, including the bouquets and centerpieces, for her daughter's wedding. But, she made them out of polymer clay! Incredibly beautiful work and I don't even want to think about how many hours she spent on these. What a lucky daughter Leigh has!
Another artist who's doing some amazing life-like sculptures of polymer clay flowers is Gloria Spruiell of Atlanta, Georgia. In addition to this stargazer lily, she has several arrangements on her Flickr site that you'll swear must be real flowers. While you're there, look at her polymer clay food, too. She's got an awesome talent!
No post on flowers would be complete without a photo of the wonderful things that Barb Fajardo is doing. She uses various surface designs to create amazing sculptural-like flowers. Barb has an interesting post on her blog about the progression her flowers have taken over time. She is truly an original and innovative artist.
When I started writing this post, I had no plans at all to include these photos but, mentioning Marla's box for the CHA exhibit made me remember my own rather "unique" entry, the "Bloomin' Butthead". It has flowers (sort of) and I had a lot of fun making it. This box is about 9 inches tall and it's all clay. As I've probably mentioned before, I'm definitely not a sculptor but even so, I'm still trying to figure out WHY I didn't win. Hey Donna, I think I was ripped off!
Hope all of you are starting to see the first signs of Spring!
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15 comments:
beautiful spring feeling.
(cherry blossom cane author - Olga Ostapenko (Cloud777))
Thanks for letting me know Olga's last name. I've changed my post to show that. She is a wonderful artist!
Thanks for including me in your post Kim!
I loved seeing Leigh's beautiful sculpted flowers again.
I told her once about her cane work..."You were doing flower canes when flower canes weren't cool!"
Barb
Kim, you've certainly lumped me in with some florally good company!
Olga's cherry blossoms are perfect for spring; she does do lovely work.
I've seen Gloria's gorgeous lilies, & it's always good to be reminded of Leigh's wonderful sculpted flowers -- it's been a while, hasn't it?
Those stunning sculpted flowers of Barb's are her trademark now, aren't they? They're so distinctive.
And while I can't argue about the winner of that box competition (being Lesley Polinko!), I think Butthead is charming.
Marla
Oh! thank you very much! very pleasantly, that my works pleased you :)
Hi there Barb! I LOVE the image of your necklace that I used here. It's beauteous! Leigh's Truleigh Rose Cane was one of the first flower tutorials I ever saw. It's become a pc classic!
Okay, Marla, I guess you're right about the box thing. My poor Butthead, he's just never going to win. Guess he'll have to settle for being charming LOL! Speaking of Lesley P, I'm waiting for some images from the talented lady so I can blog about HER. She's magic!
Olga, you are very welcome. I'm so glad you enjoyed the post. It was an honor to include your beautiful work!
That is very funny. I think I know a blooming butthead or two.
I saw Olga's cherry blossom cane on flickr a week or so ago and thought she was blog worthy! But I was too lazy. LOL! I'm glad you spotlighted that beautiful canework.
And you butthead is adorable! The vibrant flowers are super. I love those bleeding heart plants and the dropping nature of your butthead's flowers make me think of them. Butthead's buttcrack makes me smile for sure.
I enjoyed the flower pics, but your blooming butthead made me laugh out loud. Thank you.
I'm so glad you guys enjoyed the butthead! Thanks for the nice comments!
Dear Kim,
I like your blog I consult flequently. But I have to remark that the Geisha Cane is a copy of the work of a french artist as precised in the comments and not Olga's work.
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