New Twists on Pivot Beads

Published on November 12, 2009 in In Polymer. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

pivot beads - new twist

The Polymer Penguin’s pivot beads take the idea in a whole new direction.

Pivot Beads - Zjet

Zjet’s Flickr site has some gorgeous collages and shows more of her many colored pivot beads.  The color coordinated caps add a beautiful finishing touch.

Dora Arsenault strung multi-colored pivot beads into an eye-catching necklace.

 pivot beads - dora

Dottie McMillan, author of Artful Ways with Polymer Clay, and Creative Ways with Polymer Clay, combined her elongated version of the pivot beads with beads inspired by Cynthia Toops bobbin beads on page 32.

Bobbin_Beads_small[1]

Project #3 Pinched Petal Necklace

Published on November 8, 2009 in In Polymer. 1 Comment

Jeanette KandrayThere are many ways to play with this project.  Jeanette Kandray sent a photo of her  necklace on the collage that inspired it.   Its not a rainbow skinner blend. Instead it is more of a value study from the dark purples though the pinks with the yellows of the collage captured in the yellow used for the center cane.   Note that Jeanette chose not to give her cane a final wrap.  This gives the cane slices a softer feeling more in line with the overall appearance of the collage.

pinched petal terje in estoniaTerje in Estonia photographs her pieces on white tableware.  Her pinched-petal necklace looks as if it is crawling over the plates. Very fun!

 

Weekend Extra Exercises

1. Try changing with the composition of the cane by using different colors for the center of the cane and for the wraps or try not using an outer wrap at all.

2. Make a skinner blend using a variety of colors from your collage – not just your version of magenta, yellow and blue.

pinched petal113. Experiment with stringing the petals in a variety of ways. Here is one of my necklaces from the book restrung  in a different way. Instead of trying to keep the petals in the order of the rainbow, I purposely split the petals into seven color piles and rearranged them so they were not in rainbow order. Then I strung the petals by picking up one from each pile in a repeating pattern. The color flow is gone. Its a very different project!

TIPS

If you have a light colored collage and  made your rainbow skinner blend from pastel colors you may want to flip the value contrast in the center cane by putting a darker color in the center and wrapping it with a light color.

If you have more petals than you need for a necklace, remove every fourth or fifth petal along the line. You may have enough extra petals to make earrings or a bracelet.

FAQ’s

1. In the instructions you say to use “your” black and white. What does that mean?

Sometime black and white are too harsh for a palette and we recommend making a custom “black” and “white.”  For my palette in the book,  black is a dark purple brown and my white is cream colored.

2. Why are my cane slices cracking when I pinch them?

Sometimes this is caused by cutting the slices too thick. Try cutting very thin slices and see if cracking is still a problem.  Some clays are more brittle than others before baking and it doesn’t matter how thin you slice it.  If your petals are  still cracking, it helps to warm them up before pinching them. If you have warm fingers, you can do this by squeezing the cane slice between your thumb and forefinger for a few seconds before pinching. Just don’t do what I did when I wanted to hurry up the process. I decided to lay out my flat slices on a food warming tray, which baked them all  before I even finished cutting all the slices from of the cane!

Another reason the slices might be cracking is that you waited too  long after making the cane to cut the slices. Each clay sets up at a different rate. Its better to try slicing too soon than too late. If the cane is still too “squishy” to make clean slices just wait a little longer.

Call for Photos: Pinched Petal Necklace

Published on November 6, 2009 in In Polymer and Tutorials. 1 Comment

nora pero's pinched petal necklaceI’ve seen some wonderful images posted online by artists who have already made the Pinched Petal Necklace project in Chapter 4.  Here’s a gorgeous one from Nora Pero’s flickr site. I especially love the tomato red centers!

I would like to post a sampling of Pinched Petal necklace photos on Saturday for the Weekend Extra. If you have photos you would like to share, email them to me at maggiomc@aol.com. If you can also send a photo or scan of your necklace with your collage that’s even better!

Exercise # 5 Instinctive Mixing

Published on November 1, 2009 in In Polymer and Tutorials. 0 Comments

Instinctive MixingWhen you are instinctive mixing it helps to imagine  the direction that you want to move the color.  Once you know the direction,  you can find the path. 

The ”path” is the imaginary line that runs between the color you have and the color that you want.  If you extend this line across the color sorter, any color along that line can be used to move the color to where you want it to be.   This is especially true when you are mixing the desaturated colors that fall on the inside of the color sorter.  Here’s the example from the book diagrammed on the color sorter.

Color 1 shows  the first step -  mixing green from yellow and blue.  Color 2 shows  moving the color toward blue by mixing it with a little more blue. Since the color that you want has more mud in it, you need to move it toward the center of the color sorter. Color 3 shows the color moved toward the center by mixing it with “mud”, in this case a brown mud.   

Imagine the other choices that fall along the same path for moving Color 2 toward the center. You could mix Color 2 with gray, with brown, with brick red, or with cherry red (the complement of emerald green) and it would move into the same place. The only difference would be in the proportion of Color 2 used in each mixture.   

Weekend Extra Exercises

1.  Make a small amount of emerald green and divide it into two pieces.  Mix one piece with with a brown mud to make a spruce color. Mix the second piece with a cherry red to make a similar spruce color.  How much mud did it take to move the emerald to spruce?  How much cherry red?

instinctive mixing22.  There can be many paths to get to the same color.  Mix three versions of olive green by following three different paths:

          1. Lemon Yellow to Blue Violet

          2 Emerald Green to Yellow Orange

          3. Lime Green to Ochre

3. Try mixing some of the other earth colors by following different paths.

4. Cut your instinctive mixes of earth colors in half. Add white to one half.  Compare the pastel versions to the original  earth color. Can you see the mud?

 

TIPS

  • Use small amounts of clay to practice instinctive mixing.  Once you get the hang of moving colors along pathways you can start using larger amounts of clay with greater confidence.
  • If you are not sure of proportions, start with a half and half mix and then adjust as you go.
  • You don’t need to keep track of proportions in instinctive mixing but if you want to remember what you did in each step you can make small reference piles like the ones shown in the book.