Book Review - The Art of Polymer Clay, Designs and Techniques for Creating Jewelry, Pottery, and Decorative Artwork, Part 2

While I was in between curing, I tried her Red Jasper (page 94). Well, you just never know what this stuff will end up looking like just from the beginning. I followed her recipe and it didn't look like much. the black was only on the bottom and I could not see it. I did it anyway and once finished it was gorgeous. Nice jasper color and lines. Still curious for a better method. I sliced a few pieces, turned them over and put them in the pasta. It didn't turn out nearly as nice as hers. Kato knows her stuff.
I bought some granite clay yesterday and tried the simple jade (page 91) next to make another one of my turtles. I ended up using another mix of jade than hers, I didn't like hers. too much black, the green too dark. I grated a lighter green, granite and translucent and made a jade I preferred. Worked fine although she says to mix and I grated instead before mixing. Then I made a molded face pin (page 85). Using a face mold of a sleeping lady, I sprayed the mold with water and it popped right out. She shows a Chinese king pin, I made this lady using some striped cane from another time. I made her neck with it, then cut 2 hearts and put one for the chest and another a little further down. I pressed an iridescent crystal in the middle and baked it. I'll apply paint to make up the face and a back pin.
I made the cameo (page 83) using the molds I had made another time using her method of color. She calls for pink translucent and man it does not take much to color that stuff. I applied a thin sheet of ivory over that. the ivory is supposed to stay on top of the mold and give way to the pink. I guess I can never get it thin enough because it did not really work. It still looked fine but not like she described. I will however use it for my turtles. I use the cameos to finish the back of my turtles.
I used the petals of the lily to practice carving (page 70) designs. I practised a bit but the only tool that really worked was an elongated spoon. I need practise for sure.
The last things I wanted to try in the book I used Fimo.
First, I conditioned 25 years old Fimo. I found some old clay in a tin I'd been carrying around since my adolescence and tried to use it. It worked fine with a tls in the mix for conditioning. Not having any yellow for a leaf cane(page 51), I tried adding blue to gold. I've come up with brass. The gold is stronger than that old blue. It has also tinted my gloves. Now that I step back I can see the green come out. I did not have enough of the old blue to do all 4 sheets, so I used some brilliant blue. It has some other base because this one had the most blue to gold ratio and it really come out like a dark brass, like old Italian gold almost. Now, what to do? I had to change it because all the sheet are too similar and they will never show. I added green to the last 3 sheets and it brought it closer to the leaf color. You can see a slight variation from one color or layer to the next. Looks nice. Now onto to the face cane. Ugh!