CREATIVE CRAFTING

Archive for the ‘Polymer Clay The First Time’ Category

As an alternative to having to pay high-priced craft store charges to use with polymer clay, begin using these tips to locate low-cost and vital tools right in your own home.

There’s a device for each job, but one of the primary aspects of polymer clay is you can use nearly anything as a tool. There’s no reason to spend high-priced craft store prices to make professional-looking merchandise with polymer clay. Have a look around your own home and find out what you could put together. Will it slice? Are you able to press it into your clay to create a pattern? You’ll be amazed at what you’ll come across when you begin looking. The tiny toothpick is often an very helpful tool when dealing with tiny clay objects.

When going through your home or going to a garage sale, search for items like carving tools, punch tools, and knitting/crochet needles, dental tools. Something for cutting such as razor blades, cutters and any kind of pliers are much more handy than high-priced ‘official’ clay cutters. Toothpicks are ideal to etch patterns into your clay or to smooth rough sides on hard-to-reach places that are far too little for fingers. Old candles as well as, vases, and planting pots may be embellished and made new with clay. Pretty wine glasses, possibly from your collection that is not complete, make attractive pieces with clay vines and flowers twisted about the stem.

If you are new to Polymer clay you are sure to hear both of these terms used. Both terms refer to a type of clay loaves. Clay loaves are created by layering tiny sheets or ropes of colored clay. The technique itself is an old one that was originally used with glass and ceramic clays to obtain some really beautiful patterns on objects. The same technique is used to make colorful candy during the Christmas season, or to make layered candles.

The trick to the whole process is to start very large and then stretch and reduce the diameter of the cane or loaf so that the image appears smaller. It is also important to have a very sharp blade to use for slicking, so that the design is not distorted by the drag of the blade itself. I used a wallpaper replacement blade from the hardware store and it worked great.

The millefiori canes will last up to six months and can be used on a variety of projects. You can also purchase canes from several clay manufacturers.

Here is an example of one of the easier canes to make:

Checkerboard

It takes a little practice to make so I would suggest not using your favorite colors the first time around. Stick with black and white for now.

First roll two ropes of contrasting colors. Be sure the diameter of the ropes are as close to size as possible. Flatten the top slightly by rolling with a brayer or rolling pin. Then cut the ropes into equal sizes.

In my previous article I gave you formulas for making different skin color tones. Hopefully some of you found it helpful.

Most skin color tones base color is beige with a touch of raw sienna or ecru. Has anyone found ecru in a polymer clay? I haven’t…so what is ecru and is there a color that you can use as a substitute? What is the difference between beige, ecru, cream, off-white, and eggshell?

It depends on who you ask I have found out! Apparently the color ecru is determined by the amount of
of yellowy brown in each of them as it changes from white. We know it is in the beige family, but not really what we think of as beige.

A very light beige as one answer put it. So isn’t that cream? No it is between white and cream???????????

Still another opinion: Sort of like cream, but lighter and more yellow-ish. I think. It is also similar to the color called Champagne.

Aha! Now I am getting somewhere. I did see Champagne polymer clay somewhere and it was very light beige.

So I did my own color mix of 2 parts beige and one part white and came up with a color that I think is ecru.

The important point here is that if you can’t find the color you are looking for in a polymer clay, don’t be afraid to experiment with different blends until you achieve the color you are looking for.

Polymer Clay is a versatile product to use. Making the correct flesh tones for an individual sculpture can be a little overwhelming for the novice. Here are some tips to help.

Every brand of clay makes a variety of flesh toned clays. Most are translucent and produce a realistic impression, but that same quality, translucence, can cause problems. The sheen of unbaked clay, especially translucent clay, makes it difficult to detect seam lines, fingerprints, or tool marks. These flaws become noticeable when the sculpture is baked. Wet sanding, scraping and wiping the surface with acetone will eliminate most surface flaws, but not the problem of “plaquing,” which is a problem with translucent clays. The surface will feel smooth, but appear to be pocked with blisters shaped like crescent moons, which in fact is trapped air in the clay.

For this very reason when creating a flesh tone use only semi-opaque flesh tones. However after baking, glazing with acrylic paints or water based oils you will have created the illusion of translucent flesh.

Flawless flesh tones begin with a color that will capture the ideal of the figure you want to mold. The masks to the left illustrate what can be achieved using a blend of translucent beige and a least one part of opaque clay.

• a. Asian ancestry…6 parts beige+ 1 part Ecru
• b. Northern European…8 parts beige + 1 part Ecru
• c. American Indian…8 parts beige + 1 part Raw Sienna

Readily available, inexpensive, and easily manipulated, polymer clay is an ideal beginner’s medium, and Syndee Holt does an admirable job of introducing it. She sets the stage with background on materials and basic handling, then presents 27 approaches and variations as a series of questions on technique whose answers are full-fledged projects. “How do I make a pinroll cane?” for instance, explains a simple cane process and uses it to cover a candleholder. Other cane methods yield jewelry, a frame, a barrette, drawer pulls, and a covered pen, utilizing both basic canes (bull’s eye, banner, checkerboard, blended) and pictorial types (flower, millefiori, star, face, shaman). The final section focuses on molds and textural effects such as metallic and rubber stamp effects to produce brooches, light switch covers, a box, and coasters.

It is easy to think of polymer clay as glorified modeling clay, but as a serious craft medium it requires knowing some basic techniques, such as making multicolor canes. These are covered in great detail with excellent photos in Polymer Clay for the first time (For The First Time). Beginners will find many of their questions answered in this book. After mastering the basics one can move on to complex projects such as miniature villages. The tiny houses in Ritchey’s book are only several inches high and would be just right for a tabletop display or a small-gauge model railroad layout. Buildings include cottages, stores, a church, and a lighthouse. There are also instructions for making shrubbery and grounds. Both books are recommended for public library crafts collections.