April 13th, 2006
I had mentioned about how to mix ivory-like polymer clay in my previous post. Here is how I made use of that clay. I rolled the clay with the pasta machine at about 2 mm thickness.
Cutting the clay sheet along the lid of a box.
Small triangles out of red and violet will add some color to the box. I baked these for 5 minutes and left them to cool.
While waiting for the triangles to cool down, I add a figure and various other shapes.
Well now is the time to add the triangles. When I decide the decorations are enough, I bake the lid.
April 11th, 2006
My favorite toy in my childhood was a figurine of a mountain climber. As I grew, I learned that the figurine was a gift to my father from one of his friends and that it was not to be scratched with a pen since it was made of ivory. Then one day a documentary taught me of the elephants being killed for ivory. I could not even bear to look at the figurine out of embarrassment for a long time. I even thought of burying it in the backyard. After all these years I still couldn’t give up my liking of the ivory tones which reminds me some very happy childhood memories.That’s why I was so excited when I made this faux ivory out of polymer clay. Ivory look without the feeling of guilt. There are a few ways to obtain ivory tones with polymer clay. My most successful try was a mix of Fimo’s sahara and translucent white. Although you can try darker/lighter combinations, I think the best ivory tone comes with 4 to 1 translucent to sahara ratio.
March 27th, 2006
Finally I moved to my new study room. I still have quite a lot of work to do on the room but I was a bit scared of my love’s interest in the room. I should put a combination lock on the door or an electric fence could be a great idea too.
The teabag holder you see in the picture is a follow up of my previous post. I hate putting the used teabags on the sauces as much as I like trying different flavored teas. The solution is this…
Fist slice the cane.
Then use the roller to merge the slices without thinning them too much.
Place a teapot drawing on the clay and go over the lines with a pencil.
Cut through the pencil marks.
Use a piece of clay to form a donut shape.
Place the teapot shaped sheet on the donut apply some pressure while giving it the final look that you want.
March 23rd, 2006
The other day, my love has called me at work and told me that almost all of the Turkish products in the market that sells them had past their expiration dates. Then he suggested to adopt Chinese cuisine at home. We like Chinese food he says and Chinese markets are everywhere. For a moment, I thought I lost him. I thought he was in love with a Chinese girl too. I dived into the conversation right there and urged him to talk to me openly if he had a relationship with a Chine girl. Then I got warning about not taking him seriously. He was only trying to find a solution to our kitchen problems. Moreover, he just loves me, a lot. Then he told that he already bought a wok, sesame oil, rice wine, black vinegar, ginger, etc… As soon as we hanged up, I started looking for cooking classes in the local community college. When I get home, a part of the kitchen was already allocated to Chinese cooking, and he was already preparing kung pao beef with a recipe from internet. I was still not convinced till I ate. It was surprisingly delicious.I wanted to make a flower cane for some time. I thought a star-shaped flower would be the easiest. You need three different colored polymer clays. I chose metallic white, blue and orange (metallic orange is prepared by mixing metallic yellow and opaque orange).
Form the white clay into a long cylinder and divide into five equal length pieces. Then shape the cylinders to triangular cross-section with your fingers as shown.
Prepare a cylinder of equal length with the orange clay too.
Then form the shape shown below.
Apply the same method to prepare five triangular cylinders from the blue clay too and fill in the gaps with these.
Lastly, roll a thin sheet of blue clay to wrap the cane to obtain the pattern shown in the top picture.
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March 11th, 2006
I don’t know when did the last week pass. It was already Friday before
I knew it. And spring had already come. We were just starting to enjoy
the cafe that we have newly discovered but now came the times for the
lake-side and open air. It was getting warmer on Thursday when we
stopped by the lake for a few minutes though there was still a thin
layer of ice on the water. A bunch of ducks and swans were also there.
I wish I had my camera with me that day. Anyway, we will be going to
that lake side again pretty soon.
I had come up with the pattern below before.
When I was convinced that the spring came, I could not resist but
started to make butterflies. I could not stop there and decided to
introduce my butterflies to nature.
I cut the polymer clay patterns 1 cm. (~1/3 in) thick and used the roller to join them.
Then I used a cookie cutter to obtain a butterfly planform. You could
always use a paper print of of a specific shape instead of cutters.
A cute butterfly already ….
Before baking, I wrapped a baking sheet around the wings to give them a kind of flying form.
And they flew…
March 4th, 2006
I was at home yesterday and worked
with polymer clays from eight in the morning to ten in the evening.
Since I was trying new techniques, nothing remarkable resulted. Around
10 pm, I threw all the things I made to trash and just as I was having
a disappointment crisis, my love came and saved me. We watched a movie
together and I tried convinced myself that the time I spent was not
waste since I learnt a lot of new things anyway. I get more upset when
I remember my plans of spending a total of 7 hours in ceramic studio
today and tomorrow. How to find time to all the things in my to-do list
is still a big question mark. The only useful product of yesterday is
the photos of the work that I prepared for my site.
Using a pasta machine to mix colors is very easy and fun. I chose two close colors but you could try contrast colors as well.
I cut the clays as seen above and rolled through the machine.
A key point in folding is that each color should fold onto the same color.
Repeating the folding and rolling for a while produces a nice gradient of colors.
When it reaches the level of mix that I want, I fold the clay in two as
seen above (again each color fold onto its equivalent) and roll through
the machine one last time.
Lastly, I wrap the clay as seen above and I obtained a spiral of colors
as seen in the first picture. Of course you can use this gradient
colored clay in many other applications.
January 28th, 2006
I had spent my Saturday day and night with housework last week. I was my love who found a solution this week. He cleaned the house just before the weekend. I went to the studio today. Then I played racquetball and finally I am writing this post. It is thanks to my love that I still can find time to do the things that I enjoy. I had to give him credit here.
Today, I will introduce a technique that will result in slate-like looking finishes. I had a hard time photographing this work because of the glare. Just trust me that it will actually look better than what is shown here.
Materials: Black polymer clay, roller or pasta machine, black and white acrylic paint, glue, razor, baking sheet, aluminum foil, metal buckle base, paper towel, elliptic or rectangular stencil and varnish.
Application: It is better to use a hard black polymer clay for this application. Fimo classic or Premo! are two of the choices. If you do not have a pasta machine, you can use a hand roller to roll the clay into about a 0.5cm (1/4 in) thin sheet as shown above. If you don’t have suitable stencils, you can just create the desired shape with a computer and print it.
Place the printed page on the clay and go over the lines with a pencil. Then you can cut the clay following the pencil marks.
You will see sharp corners after cutting with razor. Smooth this corners a bit with a piece of baking sheet.
Crumple the aluminum foil and open it back. Place it on the clay pieces that you cut and use a hand roller with just enough pressure to create crack patterns on the clay.
Glue the metal piece to the back of the clay shape. You can also glue an additional small piece of clay across the metal piece as shown. Now you are ready to bake. Place the buckle in the oven such that the clay parts shouldn’t contact with oven surfaces.
After baking, allow it to cool. Mix the black and white acrylic paints and apply to the crack patterned clay surface. Immedeately wipe the paint with a paper towel before it dries. The cracks will be filled paint providing a slate-like look. As a last step, use a bright varnish.
Creator of the technique is Irene Semanchuk Dean
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January 20th, 2006
Jellyroll Candleholder
I used the
jellyroll patterned cane
that I prepared yesterday to make this candleholder. The photo above is
taken with a candle inside. You can see the photos without a candle and
in the dark below. Opaque colors make it vivid even when there is no
candle inside. Translucent clays allow the light to pass through it.
Glow-in-the-dark clays make it emit light in the darkness.
Materials needed to make this candleholder:
- Opaque green, opaque red, translucent and glow in the dark polymer clays.
- Razor, roller, varnish, brush and a bare glass candleholder.
Repeating the same techique that I described yesterday, I prepared another combination with the green and glow in the dark.
Then we cut slices of the pattern as shown above (for covering glass) and below (for covering wood).
The place the slices without leaving too much space in between on a clean flat surface.
Then use the roller to merge the slices. Putting a cooking sheet over
the slices prevents mixing of colors. Now you are ready to cover the
glass. Place the merged pattern on the glass shape and apply a little
pressure with roller again to help it stick to the surface. Try not to
leave any fingerprints. After baking, you can use a
buffing wheel to erase any remaining fingerprints and and provide some additional gloss. Lastly, apply the varnish with a brush.
January 20th, 2006
Jellyroll Patterned Box
Not having updated the site for a few days cause certain amount of qualm
that pushed me to prepare this post about jellyroll pattern with
polymer clay. You can find this example in many resources about polymer
clays. The only reason I am repeating here is that I want this to be in
my archieve. You can choose any two colors. Most popular application is
with black and white but I will use opaque res and translucent clays.
The box above in another example of this pattern.
I normally use glass as working surface but this time I used a baking
sheet. The important thing is that the working surface must be clean
and smooth for successful results.
I rolled the translucent clay to 2 mm thickness (about 0.08 in).
Two layers of clay rolled to the same thickness are put on top of each
other. I put red to the bottom since I want it to be outside the spiral.
Cut the side of the clays at an angle as shown above to make the beginning of the spiral thin.
Then roll as shown above.
A jellyroll!, real easy. Now squeze the clays gently till there is no
space left in the inside. You may shape the clay into a square with the
help of a roller. Just be careful no to distort the pattern and not to
leave any space.
You can also shape it to triangle as shown by squeezing with your fingers.
