I recently started working with polymer clay , just a few weeks back and I am seriously hooked.I am no good at it yet but I am surely getting there.The amount of possibilities totally floor me! And then there are some amazing artists out there who are willing to share their experience and help us newbies out.
The Blue Bottle Tree is an amazing place , the explanations are simple and easy to understand even for a newbie.I keep visiting to learn new things.
On a separate note ,this post is mainly for me.I am really bad at remembering things , I mean I forget everything from where I kept the keys to whether I have written an exam.Its pretty bad.What I do to combat this ,is make lists.They remember for me. All I have to do is remember where I have kept them.So you understand why a floating list is so appealing to me.
As somebody incredibly new to polymer clay, I have found there are "plenty" of mistakes to make.While mistakes are the greatest teachers , it might be more cost efficient and prudent to learn from others mistakes as well.I would like to list here the problems I have faced , the "what do's" vs the "what not to do's ", so that you need not repeat it ( unless you want to of course).I don't mind mistakes so much, as they normally direct my attention to something I have ignored till then, and usually gives me a different perspective.However I do not like to repeat mistakes if possible.So this is a selfish list ( primarily) ,however I do hope this would be highly useful to you also.
The list is just what I learned so far ,which is not a lot.What I intend to do is regularly update this by learning from my own mistakes, hopefully learn from the more experienced and ask their permission to share their advice.This is not in any particular order, just as I learnt them.
1.Conditioning is important. Soft clay makes it easier to work with , and once the clay is soft enough , I find that my hands do a lot of the work without much prompting from me.
2.Store them safely and out of the sunlight. I left a half used cane on the table and pretty much forgot about it. Nothing happened to it per se , but it became much harder.The cane sections were easier to cut , but they were not adhering very well to other clay .Another version of the same clay that I had stored in a Ziploc bag , and that in a container, remained quite soft.
3.Clean work space. I am a lazy person so cleaning is a conscious act for me.There were some minute specs of polymer clay left over on the plastic sheet I use, before I kept it away, I did not really pay any attention to it when I opened it out even though I had made a mental note to clean it and use it, the aftermath was that my clean white clay had little specs of colour. While cute, I eventually had to use them as scrap clay.
4. Effort and imagination.Most of those gorgeous canes ,beads trinkets that you see online are the result of a lot of hard work and thought.The finish that they have ,it cannot be achieved within a weeks time(Maybe you could , but it would definitely be difficult and you might be a genius at this ). I think this statement is relevant " the master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried".
5. Patience. 1.It is very important to let the canes rest a bit before reducing them.
2.It is also very important to let them rest a bit after reducing them so that it cuts better.
3.Let the beads rest for a while before piercing them, they hold better then.
( I have read your fridge can be used to speed up the process, I haven't tried it yet.Nothing against fridges , I just forgot about it)
6. Utilize the resources at hand : I despaired of not finding a pasta machine but I think a roller does just fine unless you work with a lot of clay.I wanted texture sheets , so I made a few impressions by using the things around the house.If you have graph paper , tape it neatly to your work space and top it with glass rather buying a fancy table for this.You already have a lot of the things you need , just start looking from a different angle.
The Blue Bottle Tree is an amazing place , the explanations are simple and easy to understand even for a newbie.I keep visiting to learn new things.
On a separate note ,this post is mainly for me.I am really bad at remembering things , I mean I forget everything from where I kept the keys to whether I have written an exam.Its pretty bad.What I do to combat this ,is make lists.They remember for me. All I have to do is remember where I have kept them.So you understand why a floating list is so appealing to me.
As somebody incredibly new to polymer clay, I have found there are "plenty" of mistakes to make.While mistakes are the greatest teachers , it might be more cost efficient and prudent to learn from others mistakes as well.I would like to list here the problems I have faced , the "what do's" vs the "what not to do's ", so that you need not repeat it ( unless you want to of course).I don't mind mistakes so much, as they normally direct my attention to something I have ignored till then, and usually gives me a different perspective.However I do not like to repeat mistakes if possible.So this is a selfish list ( primarily) ,however I do hope this would be highly useful to you also.
The list is just what I learned so far ,which is not a lot.What I intend to do is regularly update this by learning from my own mistakes, hopefully learn from the more experienced and ask their permission to share their advice.This is not in any particular order, just as I learnt them.
1.Conditioning is important. Soft clay makes it easier to work with , and once the clay is soft enough , I find that my hands do a lot of the work without much prompting from me.
2.Store them safely and out of the sunlight. I left a half used cane on the table and pretty much forgot about it. Nothing happened to it per se , but it became much harder.The cane sections were easier to cut , but they were not adhering very well to other clay .Another version of the same clay that I had stored in a Ziploc bag , and that in a container, remained quite soft.
3.Clean work space. I am a lazy person so cleaning is a conscious act for me.There were some minute specs of polymer clay left over on the plastic sheet I use, before I kept it away, I did not really pay any attention to it when I opened it out even though I had made a mental note to clean it and use it, the aftermath was that my clean white clay had little specs of colour. While cute, I eventually had to use them as scrap clay.
4. Effort and imagination.Most of those gorgeous canes ,beads trinkets that you see online are the result of a lot of hard work and thought.The finish that they have ,it cannot be achieved within a weeks time(Maybe you could , but it would definitely be difficult and you might be a genius at this ). I think this statement is relevant " the master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried".
5. Patience. 1.It is very important to let the canes rest a bit before reducing them.
2.It is also very important to let them rest a bit after reducing them so that it cuts better.
3.Let the beads rest for a while before piercing them, they hold better then.
( I have read your fridge can be used to speed up the process, I haven't tried it yet.Nothing against fridges , I just forgot about it)
6. Utilize the resources at hand : I despaired of not finding a pasta machine but I think a roller does just fine unless you work with a lot of clay.I wanted texture sheets , so I made a few impressions by using the things around the house.If you have graph paper , tape it neatly to your work space and top it with glass rather buying a fancy table for this.You already have a lot of the things you need , just start looking from a different angle.
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