Chapter Three-How to Condition Clay?

Rubber Mallet Method

Clay is put in a Ziplock bag resting on a towel. Take the mallet and hit the clay until it is soft enough to work with. This is only necessary when the clay is too hard to condition by hand or a pasta machine. If it cannot be conditioned right away with the usual methods, the mallet method can be done first.

Ziplock Bag in Pocket

The Ziplock bag method is exactly as it sounds. The clay is put in a Ziplock bag and then in your pocket. This warms up the clay with your body heat. Another way to condition the clay with a Ziplock bag is when conditioned clay is put with firm clay inside the bag together. This allows the conditioned clay to slowly recondition the firm clay just by sitting next to each other.

Zipock bag method

Pasta Clay Machine

This is the easiest way to condition clay. It is much easier than using your hands. Be gentle with your pasta clay machine by starting with the largest setting on your machine. Cut your clay into smaller bits don’t put the entire block into the machine at once. As you condition using a pasta clay machine slowly dial down to the smaller settings as you go. If your clay is crumbling, keep running it through the machine until the pieces come together. Avoids folds at the top, this creates air bubbles that get trapped in the layers of clay. Folds at the bottom and sides are fine. Keep folding over and over while continuously running through the pasta machine.

Pasta machine

Pasta machine dial close up Pasta machine conditioned clay

Clay going thru pasta machine

CH4 Basics of Blending:

How to Make Custom Colors?

To make custom colors you will need to blend two to three or more colors together till you get your desired blend. Options include gold, pearl white or silver and which can be added to make any color an iridescent blend. An iridescent blend means the clay has a sparkle or a shine. Adding black clay can be used to darken a blend. Only a little bit is needed because black is a very strong color. White clay can be blended to make pastels.

*Tip: Mix Your Own Special Blends: When mixing your own polymer clay blends, you can achieve any color.*

One way to do this is to start with the larger packages of Sculpey Premo and blend your own colors. With polymer clay blending, it is hard to get the same color exactly each time, which is what makes blending with polymer clay colors interesting. It will be a little different each time even with the same clay, especially If it is not the exact amount of colored clay you used before. Keep mixing your colors bit by bit until you get the color blend you want. Make a tear drop shape of each color and make a skinner blend, put the two teardrops through the pasta machine for the best effect. A skinner blend is a kind of rainbow effect with one color blending into another.

Custom color blend Custom color blend