Polymer Clay and Mad Scientists

There's something about polymer that just begs people to experiment with it-- it brings out the explorer in just about everyone I know. Perhaps it's because this material attracts a certain type of person--the one who colors outside the lines, who is always asking themselves" What if?"

Because new products are being developed all the time to take advantage of the material's extrordinary versatility, the game changes constantly; and there is an unbelievable wealth of new techniques and versions just itching to be realized. You will always see something new, as we are in the infancy of this artform, and it is worth the price of admission for that fact alone.

Some of the artists who work in the medium like myself, prefer an unorganized approach to the the game--Personally, I love surprises, and in Polymer, almost all of them are good ones. Like many of the greatest discoveries of Science, happy accidents abound; the piece that was thought irrevocably burned turned out to be a beautiful new way to control the color, giving depth and interest to an otherwise pedestrian piece of work, as in these 'Deeply Cured' bangles:

Total accident--but they opened the door to another technique.

Other artists have a far more methodical approach, keeping meticulous notes and photographing their processes, to the undying gratitude of the more free-spirited among us--the comparisons and reserach that they publish saves the rest of us enormous amounts of time and effort, and enables the entire polymer clay community to take another giant step forward.

Roberta Warshaw, a wonderful polymer artist http://www.etsy.com/people/RobertaWa out of Boston, recently put up some shots on her flickr stream, detailing the differences in the two major brands of inks which can be used to color the clay--I found this particularly inmportant, because it's nearly impossible looking at those tiny bottles of intense color to know how they'll look on the clay.

Many of us use what is locally available--Ranger brand, for example, is nearly everywhere--but is helpful to know if there' something more suitable for a particular project that you might want to make the effort to find. Pinata inks by Jac

quard are a little more difficult to track down, but when you look at the difference in hue and intensity, it does make a difference--sometimes the difference between the absolutely perfect, and the well, maybe it will do.

On the right, what the Pinata Inks look like on pure white clay:

and below, the Ranger Inks on the same surface:

Huge difference-- now I'm not saying that one is necessarily better than the other--all materials have their uses--but I find definitely gravitate to the brighter colors.

Thanks so much, Roberta! This will come in handy for all of us!

Namaste,

Randee