A World of Possibilities in Color

I love color...all shades...all tones....bright, muted, pastel, rainbow, earthy...love them all.... In polymer clay, however, I've been shying away. Don't get me wrong, my past works are loaded with color but, I never mix different colors of clay together. Instead, I take white clay and paint them with acrylics.

With that technique, though, there are still limitations. So, despite my fears of coming out with a muddy brown puke mix of clay, I decided to take a leap and try a new technique. Anyway, there is never any wasted clay....If worse comes to worst I can always paint any failed attempts...

So, I chose Mokume Gane (I thought it was pronounced as mo-koom gain...but I heard it pronounced as mo-ku-meh ga-neh and moe-koo-may gah-nay...which is right? i could not say...)....I watched a few youtube videos, scanned some tutorials online and within minutes pulled out my newly acquired clay (cutters and tissue blade) and got to work....

Here are the results to my experimentation with this new technique....

I'm in love....I really enjoy doing it since it's quite easy and fast. I didn't follow directions to the T... I'm a messy clayer and I just layered the clays any way sometimes with 2 colors or more in a layer. I wish I had taken pictures along the way. But, being so excited I forgot to pull out my camera. Anyway, it was my first time and I thought it wouldn't come out very nice.

Here's the final cube I made....top....

 and from the bottom...

In the top picture, I already have a few layers sliced off...I sliced off the top layer because I like the simple pattern...here's what it looked like....

I'm still thinking if I should make this into a pendant  as is. Although, I may cut it out into an oval...

This one will be used as a veneer...I made it from the thin slices I took from the block above...

And here are a few of the beads I have made so far...covering a black piece of clay with pieces from the veneer above...

The one above I also put a black frame around but I think I also wanted to make it a bit thicker so I'm thinking of adding another layer underneath...

For the bigger oval cabochon below, I made from scraps slightly kneaded together. I have yet to think of a use for the one I rolled up into a spiral...but, you can always find use for the scrap clays so, I am setting them aside...even that little round ball on the top left....

Now, that I am totally addicted, I wanna keep making these Mokume Gane blocks.... Next time, I'll have to take step by step photos. I think I need to add translucent clay as one of the layers and maybe incorporate more of the glitter while conditioning the clay so it really gets in there in different layers of the clay. 

My final goal here, actually is to try to get to that faux lampwork beads....I think with just the right polishing and gloss, I'm almost there...

That's all for now..have a good day!