mixed media - 3Doodler

Artist Spotlight: Anela Ming-Yue Oh

Posted on June 21, 2023June 21, 2023 by Vicki Grisanti

Anela Ming-Yue Oh is a multidisciplinary artist who loves curry and the ocean! Anela partnered with 3Doodler on our latest guest artist feature to share her approach to 3D artwork.

She uses materials that have a life of their own such as clay, paper, and fiber, with her 3D pen creations. Anela recently completed a year as an artist in residence at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. She will be traveling to Malaysia as a School of Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University Traveling Fellow in 2023.

Finding Artistic Inspiration

Anela relies on her imagination and also draws from the resources around us to inspire her creativity.

“For me, I draw strength to move through the world from my identity as mixed race-Malaysian-Chinese, lessons from the natural world, and people close to me who have passed on,” said Anela.

In this piece, Anela uses the 3Doodler 3D pen to speak to Malaysian batik, a lost wax process where wax is painted or stamped on fabric and then dyed. She also incorporated a plant from both sides of her mixed-race heritage: okra. It’s a plant that Anela believes both her white Southern family members and her Malaysian-Chinese members would have intimately known through food.

“A huge part of using vibrant colors for me is being unapologetic in taking up space,” said Anela. “As an Asian American you are often viewed and shaped by culture to be as small and unobtrusive as possible.”

The bright color in this piece represents reclaiming spaces as an active agent in the world. The colors draw from the traditional Malaysian dress she grew up with and family members who wore such patterns and colors as batik sarongs.

Surprising Ways with Mixed Media

“As an artist who is mixed race dealing with world building I believe it is important that my work reflects a meeting of materials, soft fiber and hard plastic or ceramic meeting in ways that create beautiful complexity,” said Anela. “This interdisciplinary approach reflects the strength and commonalities between the different worlds I inhabit every day.”

She started this project using the 3Doodler Pro+ to draw the central okra stalk element and the other floral patterns. She continues to create until she has enough in varying colors and styles to lay out the design. Next, she begins the papermaking processes to transform the PLA drawings.

“I work with a fiber called overbeaten abaca which is a plant fiber that I beat for 8 hours in a machine called a hollander beater,” said Anela. “I use it because it is extremely strong and connects seamlessly to the 3Doodler drawings.”

She used a papermaking tool called a deckle box to “pull” the sheet using the unpigmented abaca to create the base sheet of paper. Then, she dips each 3D drawing into a pigmented abaca container before placing it on the base sheet. Finally, she removes the abaca base sheet once the 3Doodler designs are placed.

Experimenting & Creating in 3D

During her undergraduate program, Anela used the 3Doodler Pro+ in a metals class and fell in love with the process. The objective was to use the 3D pens to think through modeling before casting. Anela found herself making rings and other jewelry directly with the pen and ABS material.

“I found it very accessible to start working very creatively,” said Anela. “I was building three dimensional forms, flat forms and building them up, and ended up making forms combining those ways of working with the pen that were used in my thesis show.”

She explains that it’s essential to use materials that spark excitement. Trying out new materials encourages the imagination. A new technique may transform an artistic approach.

“I think a huge part of any artistic practice is joy and experimentation,” said Anela. “When you integrate different materials it provides endless problem solving and opportunity to play with how the materials work together.”

Anela advises budding 3D artists to experiment and play. She finds that the more you experiment and add new tools and skills to your toolbelt, the more you will find the things that resonate.

“It took me quite some time to figure out how the 3Doodler Pro+ would function in my larger practice in a meaningful way,” she said. “Now, I’m working with clay in similar ways due to my experience with the 3Doodler pen. I can’t wait to see how all of this learning keeps expanding the relationships between my materials.”

Experiment and play with your 3D pen. Test different materials to see what works best for you. Take inspiration from Anela’s unique approach to art and her tips. Share what inspires you and tell us about it at @3Doodler or #3Doodler #WhatWillYouCreate.

Celebrating Creators, Makers, Artists

Posted on January 4, 2023January 24, 2023 by Vicki Grisanti

3Doodler is kicking off 2023 by celebrating our community of creators, makers, and artists. Over the years, a highlight of our work is to share 3D printing ideas and art that comes directly from you.

As we head into a new year, 3Doodler will look to collaborate with artists, educators, and entrepreneurs to explore ways we elevate creativity. But, of course, it’s also important to inspire new creators. With that in mind, we’ll share accessible stencils, tutorials, and more to support budding artists.

Let’s take a quick look back to revisit the projects and artists who inspired you the most. Plus, we’ll share a quick project to jump-start creativity in 2023.

"I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for."-Georgia O'Keeffe

Dina Velikovskaya

Two men standing by tree with rope - creative 3D pen drawing.

Dina is an animation artist and director who produced “Ties,” an animated short film that debuted in 2019. The film, released to the public in 2022, explores the connection between parents and their children. A young woman leaves home to see the world. Her parents are left behind, and their world changes without her.

Dina also shared a behind-the-scenes look at creating the film using a 3D pen. First, all the characters were created using a 2d digital drawn animation technique and then outlined with a 3D pen. The result was sets of flat plastic figures. Next, the director filmed the figures frame by frame in a stop-motion set, along with wire objects.

Rick Martinez

Man sculpting human head with 3D pen art

Rick works in sculpture, painting, and photography and frequently shares his insights on working in 3D. Rick’s latest installation, titled “Memento Vivere,” gained worldwide attention as an interactive multi-disciplinary project that uses light, technology, and science to express an idea. This larger-than-life exhibit consists of a series of electroluminescent cables arranged in a skull structure that Rick designed with a 3D pen. The sectors of the installation light up as people interact with the display.

Rick continues to push the boundaries of art and technology with his creative use of materials. Keep an eye out for a 3Doodler collaboration with Rick later this month!

Cornelia Kuglmeier

3D pen art: Snowflake, dragonfly, and flower on white surface

Connie is a 3D pen artist who shares her passion for 3D art and tips of the trade freely with the community. She is constantly exploring new creative techniques with outstanding results. Her work has been featured often with the 3Doodler community to provide insight and guidance on using a 3D pen to its full potential. For example, we recently shared Connie’s tips for achieving the perfect petal. To see her mastery of 3D application, look no further than a multidimensional snowflake. The use of color, layering, and overall technique are incredible.

See more of Connie’s helpful tips and tutorials on her YouTube channel, where she shares loads of doodling advice.

Edwin Ramirez

Blue sea creature sculpture with fish, 3D pen art

Edwin is a multimedia artist who shares incredible wearable 3D creations. Each is a delicate piece of art, from jewelry to theatrical masks and other accessories. Edwin exhibited at a range of galleries in Kentucky, including recent shows at Kore Gallery (“The Education of Desire” and “Unknowns: Artists you Should Know”), as well as part of the ongoing traveling exhibition “Our Kentucky Home: Hispanic/Latin American art in the Commonwealth” curated by The Kentucky Arts Council. Musicians, models, and entomologists have all worn his designs. It is a delight to see his creations take form in 3D. Be sure to explore more of his work in the year ahead!

Spark Creativity in 2023

Now that you’ve seen a small sample of our vibrant community, we invite you to make this your year of 3D creativity. Get started by creating a custom work of art for home using our go-to phrase. What will you create?

Get the Stencil

Doodling a quote on canvas with a 3D pen art

We want to hear from you. How can we support you in your 3D journey? What tools and tips do you need to kick off a year of creativity? Tell us. Tag #3Doodler.

Mixed-Media Masterpieces with Barbara Taylor-Harris

Posted on May 23, 2016November 6, 2022 by mcdoodle

Barbara Taylor-Harris creates mesmerizing mixed media artwork, combining traditional painting and sculpture techniques with new plastic enhancements.

Barbara Taylor-Harris

“I am often told off in galleries. I always touch everything!” says Barbara. It makes sense. As a sculptor, it’s important to have a good sense of the way things feel and move. “Often the joy and knowledge of art comes from feeling texture, not just looking.”

Barbara’s work is all about texture. “I like people to be able to feel the magic and touch my work,” she says. “I started with watercolor, but I soon found flat paper uninspiring, so I decided to experiment with texture.”

Barbara began experimenting with a variety of materials, and came across the 3Doodler. She found that by creating texture with Doodled additions, her mixed media works of art were able to hold up when curious art admirers want to feel for themselves.

But it wasn’t always so easy to make her Doodled creations a reality. “My first project was a dancer, but I struggled to make it stand up,” Barbara remembers.

"Often the joy and knowledge of art comes from feeling texture, not just looking"

As she became more familiar with the 3Doodler, Barbara was able to hone her skills and create larger and more detailed pieces. “My last Doodles were creating magical forests,” she says. “I was exploring the use of supports with the 3Doodler.”

Now Barbara wants to take her mixed media experimentation even further. “I want to create 3Doodled sculptures which are designed to be lit from inside,” she says.

Barbara sees her 3Doodler like a brush or palette knife. “The pen is now another tool and plastic relief another material for my paintings,” she says. “In both cases, the 3Doodler allows me to do things I often can’t do or do as easily with traditional materials.”

Painting in Plastic with Rachel Goldsmith

Posted on December 5, 2014October 8, 2024 by mcdoodle

Rachel Goldsmith strikes a fine balance in her artwork between control and chaos. When creating her Doodled masterpieces, she is exacting and meticulous while unafraid of taking a wild leap off the beaten path when another flash of inspiration strikes.

This harmony between two seemingly opposing concepts is nothing new for Rachel. “My artwork is inspired by two sets of contrasts,” she explains. “In my environment, the contrast between man-made and nature; and in materials, the contrast between the control I have over the media and how the media naturally interact with each other. This inspiration manifests itself in my final pieces through contrasts in color, in line, shape and form, and in textures”

Based in Brooklyn, New York, Rachel collaborated with 3Doodler for the debut in MoMA’s design store windows with her Metamorphosis Lamp.

Metamorphosis Lamp

But she had been Doodling long before that, creating mixed media masterpieces and exploring the properties of plastics in unique and unusual ways.

In person, Rachel is a whirlwind of life and laughter, and her artwork is detailed and brimming with energy. She has learned how to adapt and even harness the sometimes unpredictable nature of melted plastic.

Sometimes she lashes it into shape, controlling the Doodled lines with a precise, steady hand. At other times she lets the PLA flow naturally, reacting and adjusting as its meandering motion takes her art in new directions.

Rachel allows her pieces to evolve in a very organic way. Some works, like the appropriately-titled experimental Frankenstein, start on a large scale, stretched horizontally across six feet.

Over the course of a few weeks, the piece was folded, ironed, molded, cut, flipped and formed into a leaf-like form made of PLA, copper leaf, and brass foil.

Rachel’s mix of chaotic control reflects what Doodling is at it’s core: endless experimentation.

Mixing Media with Sara Berti

Posted on July 26, 2014November 6, 2022 by mcdoodle

When Sara Berti first saw the 3Doodler, she knew it would be an invaluable tool for her mixed-media art. “Who wouldn’t want to use this revolutionary new medium?” she says. “It’s the world’s first 3D printing pen!”

Sara is an Italian sculptor who spends her time living between Turkey, Italy and Hungary. She likes to work in parallel with new and old techniques and combine them in creative ways.

Just like her use of other materials and media, here too Sara aims to demonstrate the possibilities of creative freedom, but at the same time incorporate the experience of classical traditional art as the starting point.

She collects materials for her work from different places and occasions—like doily gloves or feathers from Hungary, or metal pieces from Italy.

Sara describes her artwork as “a kind of a symbolic summary of the network of the contemporary (art) world, where everything is extremely international and interconnected. In this way, the combination of natural and artificial materials— the two extremities composing our world—adds an inspiring transcendental dimension to the works.”

Breaking Free of 2D with Niki Firmin

Posted on July 15, 2014November 6, 2022 by mcdoodle

Self-taught artist Niki Firmin had just finished a detailed realistic drawing of a calf in colored pencil. The piece was for an exhibition with the U.K. Coloured Pencil Society, and Niki was pleased with the result. But she still felt it wasn’t quite perfect.

“I just felt it was lacking depth,” Niki says. “So I decided I would try Doodling the nose to give the piece that depth.”

Niki had been working for a 3Doodler distributer, and was already familiar with how the pen could be used to bridge the line between the second and third dimensions.

The Doodled nose pushed her drawing into a new realm of mixed media art. “I was over the moon with the result!” Niki says. “I had been looking to find ways to combine the 3Doodler with fine art and the final result blended in so well!”

Niki created the nose of the calf with black and white PLA, and added some paint at the end to blend the colors and make the nose look more realistic.

"I don’t think I’m going to be able to go back to 2D anymore.”"

“The calf is looking through a fence, so I found a couple of pieces of wood to put at the top and bottom for the fence and then overlapped the nose over the top of the bottom fence,” Niki explains. The final result was an engaging and entertaining piece which Niki playfully named “Moodle.”

Since the creation of “Moodle”, Niki has explored more animal portraiture with Doodled additions.

“I don’t think I’m going to be able to go back to 2D anymore,” Niki says. “2D-3D is the way forward for me, and I’m hoping it will make my work stand out in a very competitive market.”

Ram-a-Doodle

3D Fashion with Amanda Sekulow

Posted on July 2, 2014November 6, 2022 by mcdoodle

When it came time for Amanda Sekulow to create a collection for her graduation from O’More College of Design, she knew exactly what she needed. “Every day I prayed that my 3Doodler would arrive,” she says.

Amanda had backed the 3Doodler Kickstarter, and was anxiously awaiting its arrival. But the clock was ticking. “I began in the autumn of 2013 by creating the concept and illustrating the basic garments,” she says. But she didn’t want to start final creation until she had her 3Doodler in hand. “I was determined to wait, as I wanted to use the 3Doodler in my designs.”

As she waited, the Melt into Spring collection took form as a series of white dresses combined with wearable art. The sophisticated dresses would use a variety of woven materials, with 3-dimensional additions created with the 3Doodler.

And soon the wait was over, and the pen arrived. “It showed up, quite literally, just in time,” Amanda says. “I was able to go back to school in January ready to get down to business!”

She spent the next four months creating, embellishing, and perfecting a total of 10 dresses before her final runway show.

.
“There is more than 1,000 feet of ABS plastic in these pieces,” Amanda says, “along with 600 Swarovski crystals, and 810 work hours in total.”

"There are some dresses with intricate sculptures on them, others I let the fabric and plastic do their own thing."

While they stand together as a collection, Amanda made sure each dress made a statement on its own. “Each piece is so different, and has its own story to tell,” she says. “There are some dresses with intricate sculptures on them, others I let the fabric and plastic do their own thing. Some of the looks are polished and refined where others look messy and organic.”

And while the entire collection was a labor of love, Amanda says one piece stands out above the rest.

“My favorite piece was the finale piece in the show,” she admits. The dress in question has a high neckline with a chest and shoulder piece with attached apron made entirely from Doodled ABS. With 85 Doodled flowers and 119 attached crystals, this dress alone took over 100 hours to complete.

“I made the neck piece and bodice portion of the apron directly on a body form, so that it would fit close to the model’s body,” Amanda says. It was a risk, as the fit of the final piece would depend on the model who would wear it. “It ended up fitting her perfectly.”

Amanda says watching her final piece during the show was her proudest moment. “I have never been more excited to see anything walk down a runway,” she says, “and everyone else seemed to love it just as much as I do.”

Amanda says the final result of Melt into Spring is a culmination of all the work she has put into design and fashion. “The entire collection is a reflection of my feelings, motivation and life experiences in the moments when I created them.”