Another example of an artist's jewelry using my tutorial from the magazine From Polymer To Art

Another artist sent me a photograph of jewelry she created using my tutorial from the magazine From Polymer to Art.  Her name is Cindy and she lives in the Netherlands.  It is so much fun seeing what other artists are doing with the technique.

OTHER ARTIST'S USE OF MY TUTORIAL TECHNIQUE

I love seeing what other people do using my techniques.  It is amazing how much variation there can be when an artist puts his/her personal touch into a technique.  These jewelry pieces were created by Madreselva61 who lives in Spain.  You can see her jewelry on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/46799817@N07/

I rarely make beads anymore.  I am going to have to try making some using my alcohol technique.  I really like how these turned out.

My alcohol technique looks really nice on irregular shaped disk beads too.

TUTORIAL

I wrote a for the preview issue of a new polymer clay magazine, From Polymer To Art, that is being published in the Netherlands.  The issue came out in November 2010.  My tutorial showed how I created this pendant and earrings using alcohol inks

I love making more complicated, abstract, wearable art jewelry pieces.  So for the article the following pieces were also included in the article with a short explanation of how they were created

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HOW DO YOU DO THAT?

TIPS AND TECHNIQUES, PART 3

PAINTED SURFACES - CRACKLE PATTERNS

I had someone email me asking if I would consider doing an on-line class. The person really liked some of my techniques. Because my style is so "improve" I figured I could never do anything that structured. However I don't mind sharing my techniques. Feel free to use these techniques and make them your own. I think of polymer clay as "Adult Playdough". Play with the techniques and learn from your mistakes. Some of my favorite discoveries were from mistakes. This is the third post to answer my fan's questions.

Most of my pieces incorporate surface treatments.  One of the techniques I use involves coating a sheet of polymer clay with paint, letting it dry, then running it through the pasta machine.  Since paint doesn't stretch like polymer clay, it will crackle.  I have used four different types of paint.  Each produces a different effect.

1.  ACRYLIC PAINT

The first paint treatment I ever tried was acrylic paint (the kind in the tube).  The one characteristic you need to know is that acrylic paint stretches.  So to get it to crackle you will need a thick base sheet.  I keep adding a new base sheet until I get the crackle effect I want.

I used acrylic paint on these earrings.  I made them a long time ago, so I don't remember a lot of the specifics about the technique I used.  I did cut the painted clay sheets into thin strips and put them on a new clay base.   I looks like I did this twice, laying the second strips 90 degrees from the first direction.  That is how I got both vertical and horizontal sections.  Some of the colors might be from clay, not paint.

One benefit of using acrylic is that you can lay down colors and either blend them or not.  If you don't want them blended just wait for the first color to dry before painting on the second color.

2.  TEMPERA PAINT

The paint treatment I use the most is Tempera Paint, in metallic colors.  It is water based and since it doesn't stretch, it crackles very nicely.  The crackle pattern is much coarser than the acrylic paint.  The one thing you can't do is lay on multiple colors, and NOT have them mix.

These earrings were treated with four colors of metallic tempera paint and crackled. The base clay was white.

These earrings were treated with some the same tempera metallic colors as the first pair of earrings.  However the base clay consists of multiple colored clays.

The effect of the surface treatment can be as bold, or as sutle as you want.  The more you crackle the paint, the smaller the tempera particles will get.  Gold and silver paint was used on both the brooch and the earrings.  The earring's paint treatment is reduced to subtle, tiny specks.  Both pieces used multicolored base clay.

3.  BYZANTIA TEXTILE AND CRAFT MEDIA

This is an acrylic paint I found at Polymer Clay Express ( http://polymerclayexpress.com/paints2.html ).  It is thinner than tube paint and works very well on black clay.  It's crackle pattern is very subtle.  I noticed other really interesting types of paint on this Polymer Clay express web page.  More things to to try!!!!!!

                         

4.  ACRYLIC INK

At Dick Blick I found something called Pearlescent Liquid Acrylic by Daler-Rowney Ltd.  It is like a very thin metallic acrylic paint.  I don't have any examples where I used it for this surface technique.  I do remember that it works very well on dark clay.  It seems to crackle more like Tempera paint than tube acrylic paint.  It works very well with a surface technique I will discuss in a future blog.

My Favorite Polymer Clay Books

I have listed the polymer clay books I own in previous posts. Now it is time to talk a little bit about some of my favorites. The New Clay by Nan Roche 1991. If you are new to polymer clay start with this book. As far as I know, it was the first book ever published on polymer clay. Us early clay people called it "The Bible". It really helped me. A friend and I tried reproducing african trade beads (glass venitian millefiori beads) about a year before the book came out - with limited success. This book really helped us improve our techniques. It does spend most of its time on millefiori cane techniques. It also covers surface techniques and mokume gane. It has a lot of examples by Victoria (Tory) Hughes, an early clay pioneer and one of my favorite clay artists. Looking at it again, after a very long time, I am amused to see how much many of the examples influenced my work. Polymer the Chameleon Clay by Victoria Hughes 2002 Tory is one of my favorite polymer clay artists. I first came across her work in The New Clay and also in articles in Ornament magazine for creating jade and amber. This book covers techniques for creating faux jade, amber, turquoise, ivory, lapis lazuli, coral, agate, faience, and silver. It has very nice example of work by lots of polymer clay artists. The Art of Polymer Clay by Donna Kato 1997 Donna Kato is my other favorite polymer clay artist. This book covers a lot of interesting techniques. One that I liked a lot was her way of making kaleidoscope canes. Caution: If you try this technique and follow the number of steps in her photo of the steps, your cane won't be as intricate as her examples. Repeat the steps one more time to get a more detailed pattern. This was the first example I ever saw of incorporating translucent clay into a millefiori cane. It really expanded my repetoire. Another one of the techniques I came to love is her Balinese Filigree - using tiny clay snakes to create an all over pattern. She has nice techniques for imitation natural materials including the use of inclusions in the clay. I have made great use of other techniques in the book including her Nonpareil Marbled Paper( what I called feathering of the clay sheet) and manipulating cured clay. She also covers making vessels and sculptures. It is just a great book full of lots of techniques and elegant examples. The Art of Polymer Clay, Creative Surface Effects by Donna Kato 2007 This is Donna Kato's second book. It is a great book with lots of techniques and gorgeous examples by her and lots of clay artists. It is a good companion to her other book. Techniques covered are mica shift, image transfers, creating texture, paints/inks/powders, special effects with liquid polymer clay and some 3-D effects (armatures, molds, bas-relief, making stencils) 400 Polymer Clay Designs - A Collection of Dynamic and Colorful Contemporary Work - Lark Books 2004 (intro by Irene Semanchuk Dean) This is the book I look at most often. In fact the pages are now falling out. Once you learn techniques for working with the clay this is a great book for inspiration.