Egg Shell Shades

Today I'm playing around with polymer clay and using one of the colour resources I now am lucky enough to own- these great ready-made colour samples (I previously recommended them on one of my resources posts).

I was experimenting with an idea I had a few years ago and had yet to actually sit down and play with: using egg shells to add a mosaic look to the clay.

I knew I wanted a beige colour as the background but had no idea how to mix it- so my new toy turned out to be a great help.
I flicked through all the sections and chose a colour that I liked and learnt that I needed 2 parts white to 1 part each of yellow and brown.


I cut these amounts, chopped them up and began mixing...


and conditioning.


Soon I had the perfect colour to be the background for my shell pieces without having to sit there and spend ages adding colours and getting it wrong.


This will appear as a project in issue 24 of Bead magazine- out 21st July 2010.

Yellow Lover Beads

After realising one of my favourite outfits was yellow based I knew I had to create something directly inspired by it.

So, out came the polymer clay:

I rolled snakes, chopped then up and combined them into a larger snake:

Into my extrduer they went and voila- long, dull grey tubes:

but ye of little faith- look at the ends of them- how fab are they?!?!?

A bit of playing around and I make some flat and pillow beads to add to my ever growing colelction of beads waiting to be strung.

You can learn how to make these beads in Donna Kato's canes book.

Donna Kato bracelet

So when I last wrote about my bracelet it was waiting to be lined and decorated.
Today I got to complete it- it now just needs sanding etc to get it nice and shiny.

I began by lining it using the same violet I had mixed for the zipper cane. Next I mixed what was left of the violet with yellow, of course:

This I used to make some skinner blend bullseye canes:

I surrounded the canes with what was left of my zipper cane:

A few baking later and my bracelet is done all bar the sanding:

Khaki green

If someone asked you how to make khaki green what would be your guess?

Mine would never have been to mix violet and yellow- but that seems to work- well if my polymer clay experiments are anything to go by!

As I've been mixing clays to finish my bracelet and using the complemtary colours of yellow and violet it becomes apaprent that when mixed they make a khaki green (to my eyes- you may call it something different)

This may explain why the colour scheme I chose for my latest geometric piece works so well combining yellow and violet with khaki to tone it all down.

To work with this discovery I decided to play some more with mixing yellow and violet and make some simple, flat, clay beads.

I began by mixing piece of yellow, violet and black (which also makes green when a little is mixed in with yellow) and forming into a sausage to put in my clay extruder:

All extruded- and you can see the khaki already:

Joined into a rough shape and surrounded by more black:

Neatening up the block (I learnt a lot about making square canes by doing this!):

I decided to cut my beads at an angle for a different look:

The finished beads- to add to my pile of things waiting to be strung!

Secret yellow lover

After all my saying how much I don't like yellow, especially with black, I realised yesterday that one of my favourite outfits (this yellow t-shirt, black cardigan and multi-coloured scarf) is based around yellow and black!

It actually makes a nice palette- and seeing as today I got my new polymer clay extruder today I may make something inspired by it!

Color by COLOURlovers

New colour links

Evolution of a colour scheme
Polymer clay colour mixing and matching
Kris' colour stripes
Cool ready made polymer clay samples- I want these!
Colour Basics- dos and don'ts
Maggie Maggio's colourful polymer clay work
Maggie Maggio's colour tutorials
Maggio Maggio's colour blog
Louise Fischer Cozzi's polymer clay work
Why pencils are yellow
Colour mixing with Sculpey

Playing with polymer clay - day 3- part 2

The last afternoon here at PolyClay days and the class I have been waiting for- Donna Kato and her fabulous bracelets- so exciting.
I'll start by posting some of Donna's own bracelets so you can see what we're aiming for. Her use of colour is wonderful.



We begin by making the bases of our bracelets- in black- and then a zipper cane. We were given black and white clays but I already had an idea of the colour scheme for my finished bracelet- yellow and violet- so mixed up a clay using violet, white and grey to get a nice, subtle colour which I'll use again as the bracelet lining and for decorative canes.


After our bases were formed and baked we added our canes and cooked again- this is how mine is at the end of the day- hopefully I'll get some time soon to work on it a bit more.

Playing with polymer clay - day 3- part 1

The 3rd day of polymer clay and still 2 more classes to go.

This morning's class was with Daniel Torres Mancera and was all about ways to use your scrap clay.

I had great fun and although what I made wasn't anything of great beauty I learnt a lot and wil definitely use the techniques again.

We began the day by gathering our scrap- fortunately I had loads from the previous 2 days.


I decided to use the scrap left over from my flower sheet as figured the colour had gone well together then.
I scrunched it into a sausage.


Then some more messing around with it then using slices of it to decorate a scrap base.


This is how it looked before it was baked.



Next up we learnt how to make a Natasha Bead- I decided to play around with mine.
The end result of the class was that I made 3 crazy beads from scrap.


They're not things of beauty as I said but I did learn a lot.
I think the techniques we learnt will be great tools for playing around with colour so I'm very happy.

Playing with polymer clay - day 2- part 2

The afternoon of my second day at EuroClay carnival was spent with Sylvie Peraud doing her project based in in-filling colour into baked polymer clay.

Once again the clay was provided and by the time I chose it was pretty much yellow left- fate huh?

But as I knew we were potentially combining it with black I once again couldn't bring myself to use the "warning colour sheme" so made a Skinner blend with some white and brown added- which of course completely altered the yellow.

After I had baked my pieces I began to carve into them to add patterns.


I decided to in-fill my two pieces using colour theory- so one one piece I added brown to create more of an analogous colour scheme.


On the second piece I added a violet for a complementary scheme- I used a "soft" violet so it wasn't so bold.

Playing with polymer clay - day 2- part 1

My second day at The EuroClay Carnival and two new classes today.

The first one I was looking forward but had no hope I would actually be able to do it as I don't think I can work intricately. Ok, I know I do intricate work with beads but I think that's different- the holes tell me where to go and there's no hope of me squashing it all as there is with clay!

Our teacher for the morning was Iris Mishly (and here) and our project was flower canes.

As you can see I got on ok with these in the end!

We began by choosing 6 colours- hmm- looks like only 5 in the photo!

For some reason the violet just wanted to appear exactly the same as the blue. So I messed around with a few setting on my camera and managed to get a photo which looked a bit nearer the reality.

A bit more fiddling on my computer and the colours I really chose were these. I have no idea why this happened and have put this top of my list to look into on my colour investigations!

Anyway, I didn't like the garishness of the orange so decided to alter it by adding blue and brown- the colour I started with is on the right and the resulting mix is on the left. I ended up adding roughly double the quantities of the blobs of blue and brown you see in the photo.

The two main things I have discovered about the advantages of working with clay over beads are:
1- Colour mixing- what a joy to be able to come up with your own colours and as long as you have the basic colours of clay, the colour world is your oyster!
2- Speed- I can't believe how quick it is to make thing using clay- such a change over my beadwork.

I next needed to come up with a Skinner Blend using a colour and white and decided to choose my violet clay. Note the speckles in my white clay- it was impossible to keep clean!

Skinner blends are wonderful things and enable you to come up with so many shades within minutes- imagine trying to track down all those shades of bead to get a blend like that- impossible!

If you want to work out a colour scheme that blends from one colour to another than this useful online tool will help

Lastly I made a striped stack to use for the centre of my flower canes.

This was rolled with white to make a cane and here's a close up of my sheet so you can see the tiny stripes.

The next part of the class was assembling all we had made into flower canes and this was great fun and I was better at it than I thought I'd be- but my no means any good at it compared to anyone else- one of my flowers just looks like slices of an orange!

The last part of the class was spent layering our canes onto a sheet of backing clay. I struggled with just my flowers at first as the pink/ violet ones didn't go well with the orange ones but by putting slices of the flower centre canes they all came together- just a shame i didn't like it- it was all too bright for me- and I can't get over thinking it now looks like slices of oranges and strawberries- still better luck next time.

I used my sheet to make pillow beads- another first - and bracelet sections- and am hoping that if I string them with dark purple beads inbetween they'll stop looking so "citrussy"

God- how much did I make?!?!? doing all of that in seed beads would have taken me weeks or months- this polymer clay stuff is growing on me by the second!

Resources updated

Playing with polymer clay - day 1

I've headed off to Nottingham for 3 days of Polymer Clay fun.

The 3 days will consist of 6 classes with 6 different tutors and I'm looking forward to all of them. Although I went to a Polymer Clay even in 2005 and helped set up the London Polymer Clay Group I've never really done much of it- only made 2 canes I think- and basic ones at that- so I was apprehensive about being able to do the classes.

But by the time the first class had started and I'd met the ladies I'd be spending the 3 days with my fears soon disappeared.

My first class was with Alison Gallant and was based on using mica shift and Skinner Blends to make some basic beads. This was good fun and warmed me up and got me ready for the rest of the classes.

All the clay for our classes was Kato Clay (kindly provided by Donna Kato) which I have never used before and I think I will definitely invest in more as I really enjoyed using it- once we'd got in conditioned it was nice and strong and the colours mixed nicely.

We had no choice in our colours and were given green and blue- after saying recently I never use plain blue I really enjoyed using it. I found the colours we used weren't that distinctive in the small beads but on the larger surfaces of the pendants were could also make you could see them better.

Mica shift is a wonderful thing- just look at the stripes in this clay!

The afternoon was spent with Natalia Garcia de Leaniz (from Spain) who was a great teacher with a wonderful project- making very organic beads and adding in colours, paints and beads.

The main colours were were given for these was black and brown. The black looked great but the brown was very "dull" so the next day I painted most of my brown beads using a mix of greens, black and coppers.

I also put blues and greens under my black clay so that when sanded this will appear on the "spines" of the "seed pods". Hopefully you can see all of this in this very blurry close-up!

I found that uniting the different colours i.e. the black and brown through the use of beads, other clay and paint really made what were quite different beads become more of a set.

I really enjoyed this class and hope to be able to find time to experiment with everything I did today!

After receiving so many requests to teach classes on colours I am now planning to do so next year. The class will be a year-long class/ support group for anyone wanting to experiment with their work and their use of colour. We will meet once a month to learn about all about a colour, its historical and social significance as well as how to use it in your work.
We'll then experiment in class with beads that colour before you go home and see how you get on with it before coming back to the group a month later for feedback and help. We will work on the 3 primary colours, and the 3 secondary ones, giving everyone 2 months to play with a colour, and different schemes using it, before we move onto the next one and see how that works.
In addition to the monthly meetings, there will also be an online-group exclusively for those taking part where we can discuss what you've been up to and get help and feedback on your work as well as advice on tracking down and using colours.
The class will be open to anyone whatever type of beading you like doing and whatever level you are at- as long as you're open to learning and experimenting you're welcome!
I am still working on dates for the class but it should take place in the hall I use for my other classes in Kentish Town, North London, on either a Monday afternoon (possibly 2-5pm) or evening (possibly 6-9pm). If you're interested in the class, and would like to put your name down to be first to hear more about it, please contact me, letting me know if afternoons or evenings would be best for you.

PS- if anyone knows where in the UK I can get hold of 140 large yellow dagger beads please let me know- not topaz or amber- but bright yellow!