color

Technique and Color Combination
of the Month
by Cindy Pack and Deirdre F. Woodward

This month for Polyzine, I did some strength testing on different brands of clay. To the left you will see strips of clay. I baked them all at 260 degrees for 40 minutes.

The results surprised me.

All of my tests were performed using flesh colored clays, except for the Fimo Soft test.

I allowed the strips to cool before bending them.

I found that Premo broke the easiest of all the flesh clays. This really surprised me as I had believed that Premo was a flexible clay.

A mix of Premo and Cernit also broke easily but had more resistance than Premo alone.

A mix of Premo and Fimo also broke, but again, it had more resistance than the previous two.

Cernit alone proved to be very strong and did not break when bent in half, although it did leave a white mark on the clay, as you may be able to see from the picture.

A mix of Cernit and Fimo was a very strong piece also and did not break, but it did leave a white mark when the clay was bent in half.

Fimo alone was the strongest. When bent completely in half, it did not break or have a white mark from the bend.

Sculpey Flex was the most flexible; no surprises there! It did not break or have any marks from being bent in half.

To satisfy my own curiosity I baked the piece of Sculpey Flex a second time to see if re-baking had any effect on it's strength. It did not. It was just as flexible and strong after the second baking.

Fimo Soft proved to be the weakest clay, as it crumbled when bent.

A mixture of Fimo Soft and Fimo Classic was a tiny bit stronger, but it too broke when bent.
Cindy Pack

This month's color combination celebrates the turning of the leaves.

From September through November, we move away from the soft and warm colors that typify our relationship to summer, into the cool and hard colors that typify autumn. Look to the pure hues and the dull or deep shades of that hue.

The following are color samples showing a pure hue, a dull shade, a deep shade, and a dark shade. To mix these colors in clay, take pure hues and add small bits of black until you create the right shades.

To celebrate November's colors in clay, choose the following:

One way to use these colors is to combine analogous colors: colors (hues and their shades)that are adjacent to each other on the color wheel. Here are two examples:

Another way to use these colors is to combine complementary colors: colors opposite each other on the color wheel. In these three examples, I've used the complementary shades of complementary colors:

Deirdre F. Woodward