Polymer Clay Canes & Things

While waiting for my order of white Pardo Art Clay to arrive I made a few canes using a variety of colors. I got the colors for this one by adding a little brown to orange,  a touch of black to yellow to get the lime and a touch of brown to yellow for the mustard yellow.  

Click on the photos for a closer look. 

Until now I've found the Art Clay very easy to condition however I ran into a problem with the black clay. I opened a new package of black clay, cut slices a little wider than the #1 setting on the pasta machine.  When I ran it through the PM it was very crumbly and got more crumbly each time I put it though the PM.  I then put it in a plastic sandwich bag and tucked it in my bra to warm it up.  The warming up helped but the rollers on the PM were cold.... my craft room was a little chilly ( I'm being stubborn about turning on the furnace)  and once the clay cooled off it was crumbly again... weird huh? I finally coated it with a little Kato liquid clay, let it sit overnight, and tried again. Much better but still a little crumbly.  When I conditioned the rest of the block of black clay I added a slice of translucent and that made a big difference. Now I'm wondering about the shelf life of this clay or if it may have been partially cured in the mail.  I would love to know if anyone else has had any problems conditioning the Art Clay and if so, how you solved the problem. 

This is a pendant I made with the cane ends.  

For this cane I tinted translucent Art Clay with alcohol inks.  The cane is cool looking but when I baked a couple tiles the colors didn't show up very well, they were way to dark.... I forgot to take a photo of the dark tiles.

I cut a couple thick slices of the cane and ran it though the PM to the #6 setting to make the tiles for the earrings. Since they are thinner and the the pattern is bigger the colors are more pronounced.  For the pendant I backed the cane slices withe crackled silver leaf over black clay. 

This is how the earrings look with light behind them.

I got the colors for the  stripped cane by mixing left over clay from the other canes and then outlining in black.  The colors for the cane on the left are mixes of blue, magenta and violet added to beige.

These pieces are made with the cane ends and left over pieces from the striped cane.

I still had small amounts of the translucent clay that I tinted with the Pardo Metal paints. I made a small cane and used it to make these.  I like the shimmery shine.

I am very happy to announce my white clay has arrived... amazing how hard it is to work without white.