Cindy Lietz showed on her polymer clay tutor blog how you can color shift a skinner or teardrop blend. It was quite funny since, right about that time, I did a similar thing on cane slices. I mentioned this as a feed-back on her blog, and she asked me whether I had used translucent clay. Another reader of the blog asked what colors I had used. I did remember that, on the examples I showed, I had used translucent white clay, but in other work I noticed this effect on regular clay as well. Hence I decided to demo the effect and put this in my blog.
First things first: The cane
Of course I need a cane to demo this, and I decided to make two canes, with the same colors, but one with regular white, the other with translucent white.
The colors I used: Fimo Effect 014, translucent white, Fimo Effect 203 glitter blue, Fimo Effect 812 glitter Silver and the fimo soft 0 white.
The colors I used: Fimo Effect 014, translucent white, Fimo Effect 203 glitter blue, Fimo Effect 812 glitter Silver and the fimo soft 0 white.
Next up is the 'classic' extruder cane building.
One thing you can already notice here is that the right cane has a more vibrant blue. This is the cane made with translucent white. Looks like the translucent white doesn't tone down the blue as much as regular white.
Setting up the shifts
As backing colors for the shifts I used Fimo soft, 0 white, Fimo classic 9 Black, Fimo soft 26 Cherry red and Fimo Soft 812 glitter silver.
The slabs are made using the largest setting (1) on my pasta machine. I also show in the last picture that I use 2 layers of the backing color for a slice and that the slices are about as thick as one layer of the backing clay.
The slabs are made using the largest setting (1) on my pasta machine. I also show in the last picture that I use 2 layers of the backing color for a slice and that the slices are about as thick as one layer of the backing clay.
First, I run all these through the pasta machine on the largest setting. It'll reduce the size from about 3 to 1.
There's not much yet to see at this stage. The translucent versions are shown at the right in each picture.
The only thing to notice is that the black version is missing a 'border', this is because the black clay was the stiffest of all and didn't let the slice 'melt' as well into it like the other colors.
Now I reduce the thickness, step by step from 1 to 9. At this stage you have a choice. You can either reduce the size by always running it through the machine the same way, this will distort the design drastically, which is very nice in its own right. I opted here to rotate 90 degrees and keep the design as square as possible.
Of course, do not fold the clay as in the skinner blend color shift, since we don't want to actually mix and blend the backing color. The idea is to make the slice of the cane so thin relative to the backing color that it will bleed through the top layer.
The only thing to notice is that the black version is missing a 'border', this is because the black clay was the stiffest of all and didn't let the slice 'melt' as well into it like the other colors.
Now I reduce the thickness, step by step from 1 to 9. At this stage you have a choice. You can either reduce the size by always running it through the machine the same way, this will distort the design drastically, which is very nice in its own right. I opted here to rotate 90 degrees and keep the design as square as possible.
Of course, do not fold the clay as in the skinner blend color shift, since we don't want to actually mix and blend the backing color. The idea is to make the slice of the cane so thin relative to the backing color that it will bleed through the top layer.
You'll see that the translucent white is letting the backing color through, But, the same effect (most noticeably with the red and black) is also happening with the glitter silver parts of the design.
I didn't stop at this stage. I made new backing slabs, and mounted cut-outs from the first run on them. The following picture better shows the differences after the first run. The translucent versions are on the right and when you look at the third down in the left column, you see the red bleeding trough the silver.
I didn't stop at this stage. I made new backing slabs, and mounted cut-outs from the first run on them. The following picture better shows the differences after the first run. The translucent versions are on the right and when you look at the third down in the left column, you see the red bleeding trough the silver.
Again, I reduced them first on the biggest setting. Order: black, Red, Silver, White, Translucent white on the bottom row. See how the regular white is still keeping up, but the silver is acting as if translucent. (This nicely shows on the regular white top row)
Last step: reducing them to nr 8 on my pasta machine (9 is thinnest)
The white backing, makes everything pastel.
The gray is a bit dull, as expected.
The red is interesting, but not wow. The non translucent version on the left is a bit more interesting.
The black looks best.
Choosing the right colors is tricky, and you should be willing to create some scrap clay. In the end I only used the translucent black version. But then again, I choose colors that would hopefully demonstrate the effect in a good way..
If you like this idea, I'm quite curious what you do with it, so leave me a comment if you do.
My website here is quite new, so I'm still figuring out the right way to handle comments and stuff, so don't be annoyed if I don't react, could be I can't figure out the right way to do so.
Happy claying!
The gray is a bit dull, as expected.
The red is interesting, but not wow. The non translucent version on the left is a bit more interesting.
The black looks best.
Choosing the right colors is tricky, and you should be willing to create some scrap clay. In the end I only used the translucent black version. But then again, I choose colors that would hopefully demonstrate the effect in a good way..
If you like this idea, I'm quite curious what you do with it, so leave me a comment if you do.
My website here is quite new, so I'm still figuring out the right way to handle comments and stuff, so don't be annoyed if I don't react, could be I can't figure out the right way to do so.
Happy claying!