About DoodlePippin
About my chosen materials
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Polymer (polymer clay / Fimo)
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Polymer is an oven-hardening artificial clay that comes in a myriad of intense colours including translucent and metallic shades. It is easily blended to whatever shade you desire, and once cured is tough and permanent.
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It is naturally matte but can be sanded to a highly tactile satin finish, or buffed to a deep mirror shine.
Brand names include Fimo, Kato, Cernit, Pardo, Sculpey and many others.
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History: This wonderful material has been around since the 1950s. It was created in Germany, initially as a lighter, stronger alternative to the porcelain traditionally used for dolls' faces. By the 1970s it had become a child's modelling material (which is where I first came across it).
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Perhaps because of its associations as a child's toy, people can be quite snobby and blinkered about polymer as a medium.
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And to be fair, there has been a lot of terribly amateurish (and downright tacky) stuff made over the past few decades. (Tho' you could probably say the same about metals, ceramics and paint!).
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However the tide is turning and it is is now gathering recognition internationally as an astonishingly capable and versatile fine art medium.
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Over the past fifteen years, polymer artists have "borrowed" many techniques from a variety of other traditional disciplines, including metalwork (mokume gane), textiles (bargello and applique), screenprinting and glasswork (millefiori). The problem I find with polymer is too much possibility, rather than too little.
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Sterling silver:
On its own, I find silver a tiny bit... umm... boring.
But that pared-back simplicity is the perfect foil to the richness and intensity of polymer.
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I also love the fiery, elemental nature of working with silver - the flames, acids and hammering make a great contrast to the far more subtle 'hands on' techniques used with polymer.
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I have been lucky to get to know a very talented silversmith and teacher locally (Aileen Hamilton of Creative Jewellery Workshop) and I'm learning a lot from her.
So, what's next?
As I become a more competent silversmith, I'm expanding the range of pieces that combine polymer with sterling silver.
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And, because my work involves creating hundreds of unique patterns each month, I'm gradually building a bigger business based around them.
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In 2017 I was generously given a grant by my local authority (Reigate & Banstead) to buy a heat press which will allowed me to use my designs to print my designs onto a range of pieces including chopping boards, mugs, fabric and tiles.
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And then in November 2018 I was lucky enough to be the winner of the Reigate and Banstead Entrepreneur's Academy. I was one of ten local start-ups who bid for a £5,000 grant - presenting to a panel of "dragons" - and I won!
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The money is helping me to launch a separate "arm" of my business which will supply ceramic tiles printed with my millefiori designs.
About the millefiori technique.
Polymer is undeniably a modern medium, but the technique I use most - millefiori - has been around for thousands of years.
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In fact a bead made using this technique was unearthed at the Anglo Saxon longboat burial site Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, dating to the 6th Century.
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More recently the technique was widely used in Venice to create beautiful millefiori paperweights and glassware.
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The basic technique involves combining different colours of clay into sticks or "canes" (a bit like a stick of rock). The cane is then elongated, divided into sections, and recombined.
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Watch my short video showing the process of conditioning the clay, and making a couple of basic canes.
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Repeating this process results (sometimes!) in beautifully complex patterns which have been used as unique decoration for centuries.
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A lovely (and frustrating) characteristic of the process is that it's very very difficult to create the same pattern twice, so almost all of my patterns are completely unique and un-repeatable.
About my teaching programme & workshops
One of the frustrations of polymer is how rare it is to meet someone who knows anything about it!
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Many people at shows and events will remember making model animals from Fimo as a kid - or with their kids - but hardly anyone knows it as a "proper" art medium.​
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I find this incredible (and sad!), as it's such a rewarding and versatile material - a combination of the best bits of painting and sculpture.
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So one of the driving desires behind DoodlePippin is to let more people know about it, and to encourage people to try it for themselves.
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As part of that, I run many classes and workshops. I love teaching and they're always funny and very informal events. People make the most amazingly beautiful things, too.
About me:
I'm Ruth. I grew up in Birmingham, went to Bristol University to study Zoology and then on to London to work for ten years as a journalist and editor.
Somehow I picked up a husband (Dave), two children (Charlie and Tom), a dog (Woody) and several random chickens along the way.
I did always gravitate towards clay, from making plasticine creatures as a kid, to wonderully 'zen' 2am solo sessions in a ceramics studio in Bristol in my twenties.
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Then there was a long period when "proper" work took over, followed by several rather frustrating years at home with small children.
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In 2014, Tom started school and I suddenly had a few hours to myself. I'd bought some packs of clay for the kids but they'd languished on the shelf until a crafty (in both senses) friend tore a polymer bead-making tutorial out of her magazine for me.
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I fought the children off, and made some beads. I cured them. I marvelled at them and decided I must be a genius.
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I made some more beads... and some more. And then some more.
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At that point I should probably have gone out and found a job,
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Instead I mucked about at home making bangles and beads, buying an unwise amount of tools, practising and researching endlessly.
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I sold my first pieces to friends and, when nobody demanded their money back or threatened to sue me for passing myself off as a jewellery maker, I took the plunge and signed up for a craft fair. It was the beginning of learning curve roughly the same size and shape as Everest.
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Since 2014 I have learned a huge amount, made a lot of great friends, and developed significantly as an artist.
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In 2016 I was accepted as a member of the Surrey Guild of Craftsmen and my pieces are available year round in their lovely gallery in Milford near Godalming.
DoodlePippin is all about the beauty and life-affirming qualities of colour and pattern.
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I'm an artist specialising in "millefiori".
This ancient art form creates beautiful and unique kaleidoscopic patterns in rods of clay and glass.
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I make original pieces from the clay - often combined with sterling silver.
I also use digital versions of the patterns to decorate many household items including worktop protectors, mugs, coasters, ceramic tiles, fabric and paper.
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Most items are handmade or hand printed in my Surrey studio.
