Today I'm going through the Basic Imprint Technique in Julie Picarello's book Patterns in Polymer.
I've been playing with Polymer the last few weeks and having a blast but I want to try some techniques other than molding clay and using Alcohol Inks to paint and color them so you will join me at my first attempt at this technique warts and all.
I chose 4 colors from my clay that had high contrast but went well together.
Condition each separately.
Then making sure the you put colors that contrast well with each other together and put them each separately through the pasta machine.
Then stack them (again keeping in mind contrast) all 4 together through the pasta machine.
Then cut in half and stack, and in half again and stack. Then trim and clean up the edges.
Find tools or whatever you have that you can press in to the clay to make impressions.
Take the tissue blade and slice along the top. Obviously I need some practice getting a nice even cut but for my first time I'm ok with this. You can see the potential with this technique.
2nd slice, not much improvement but cool looking.
3rd slice, no comment!
4th slice. At this point I was loosing the impressions so I went in and made them again.
Honestly I don't know what Julie says to do at this step but I'm a fly by the seat of my pants kind of girl, once I followed the steps to get me to slicing I wasn't referring to the book any more (sorry Julie).
Cool!
Here they all are from start to finish in all their imperfect glory!!
I am happy with my results for my first try, even though I can't use them as nice pendants I'm sure I can use them to make imperfect beads and that kind of thing.
FUN FUN!!!
The author goes in to much more detail of course in the book, this is a highly abbreviated version and I recommend you get the book not only for this technique but for many others.
Julie's book is great, I'm really looking forward to trying many more of her techniques.
I put this all together in a big hurry so I apologize if it seems rushed.
Hopefully you can find some value in it!
Kristi
I love that. I think once you feel more confident and get a hang of that slicing thing you will totally rock this process!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing Julie's book. I dearly want to take some polymer clay classes but haven't found what I am seeking quite yet. I only know a bit about polymer clay and I would like to learn more about the potential. I like your experiments and look forward to seeing more! Enjoy the day. Erin
ReplyDeleteThanks Erin, I think Julie's book will be one of my favorite. She share wonderful color and mixing information along with all the wonderful techniques.
DeleteKristi, Because I am such a fan, I was excited to read this post - I have been using her technique too! Here is something you might want to try; after you get the slices, try a little pearl-ex. It adds some additional interest. Love the color combination you used in your example.
ReplyDeleteOh I just bought this book and it's fabulous!!!
ReplyDelete