July 22nd, 2006
After a long time, I finally found a chance to work with polymer clay. Since we are currently redecorating our bedroom, I thought of this golden switch plate to go with the newly painted hot red walls.
As the base color, translucent, fimo’s metallic white or sculpey’s pearl white can be used. I preferred the translucent white. I rolled the clay to 1mm thickness.
After placing the golden leaf on the rolled clay sheet, I used a hand roller to elongate the clay sheet and golden leaf combination. Using a baking sheet as seen in the picture helps here.
The rolling forms crack lines and helps the golden leaf to merge with the clay. You can adjust the crack sizes by changing the pressure you apply while hand rolling.
The next step is to cover the switch plate with the clay. The key point here is not to leave any air pockets between the clay and the plate. Lastly, I suggest using a coat of varnish after baking and cooling. This will increase the durability of the golden leaf.
A very simple but elegant looking switch plate…
May 21st, 2006
When you are reading this post, I will already be on vacation. One sentence here, one piece of clothing to the luggage. T-shirts are coming with me, the computer remains here. Sun lotions are coming, cell phone remains. Books are coming, TV remains. Camera is coming only to take family pictures. All the things that needs to be done remains here. I will be detoxing my body, my soul and my nerves.
I had described how to prepare a flower cane two posts before. Now I will use different colors of the same cane to create a candle holder.
I sliced the cane and placed them one by one on a glassware.
After covering the whole glass, I use a roller with the help of a piece of baking sheet to merge the pattern.
After baking, you may apply a varnish but I preferred not to use on this one. Below is how it looks when you light the candle in dark.
May 7th, 2006
This is an adaptation of the old Japanese metal working technique called Makume Gane to Polymer clays. Well, it won’t look like the original Mokume Gane metal works if you have seen one but we will still get interesting colors and patterns. You can see a sample above.
I used a gold leaf and four different polymer clays, namely, metallic blue, pearl, translucent and white. The latter three clays might seem too close in color but they will be look quite distinct at the end.
Start with rolling the clays into thin sheets. How thin? Mine was less than a mm. Generally thin sheets will give you better results. Cut the sheets with the help of a square stencil.
Stack the clay sheets with the gold leaf in the middle.
After applying slight pressure, cut the stack in half.
Place the two halves on top of each other.
Then repeat the cutting and stacking to obtain a multi-layered stack as shown.
Here is the creative part. Push a stick (circular section) through the stack (see above) to create a number of deep holes. Pay attention not to create too uniform holes for better results. I used a chopstick here.
And here are the results. I think it is an amazing effect. Different pattern in each slice.
May 5th, 2006
Spring has inspired a lot of bloggers to photograph, illustrate and draw flowers. Here is a tutorial of the same spirit.
I had prepared the same flowers of different colors for Mina’s room. Materials are translucent, fluorescent pink and metallic blue polymer clays. Begin with mixing translucent and fluorescent pink clays in the proportion shown below.
You will obtain a very light pink clay. Wrap a thin sheet of fluorescent pink around a cylindrical cane of the premixed clay.
You can elongate the cane by rolling with your hands.
Cut the cane into five equal length pieces.
Place the pink cane pieces around a metallic blue clay as shown.
Fill the gaps with translucent clay strips.
Wrap the whole flower again with a thin sheet of translucent clay.
After rolling and elongating, the cane is ready… This cane is especially useful to cover glassware and create a candle holder. I will publish a candle holder made using this cane on another post.
April 24th, 2006
Mina is a sweet baby girl three months old. She couldn’t move to her own room yet but her room is being prepared now by her mother and father. The room will even have a cloudy sky ceiling. I am, on the other hand, helping with some details.
I made the first designs for the switchplates (covered with polymer clay). Next I will design the door and drawer handles.
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 16th, 2006
The jewellery I wear is attracting a lot of attention nowadays. I started to meet with new people thanks to the jewellery. First they
compliment, then when they learn that I am the designer, long chats
begin.
The jewellery I present here is specially designed for a person who
liked my work and wanted to buy. I am only publishing some components
here to keep them personal to the owner.
