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Layered Flower Petal Bead Tutorial |
Materials 1 small pack Ultramarine Blue Premo Sculpey (56g) 1 small pack White Premo Sculpey (56g) 1 small pack Silver Premo Sculpey (56g) Equipment: Clay dedicated pasta machine Tissue blade Ceramic tile, marble or strengthened glass tile for work surface. Acrylic roller (or piece of pvc pipe) Round kemper cutters or ruler and straw Oval bead roller (or hands!!!) Thick knitting needle Pottery needle tool or thick sewing needle Small baking tray with 2 layers of quilt batting. Oven thermometer Oven 400 and 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper bowl with water and a drop of detergent Armor All upholstery conditioner TECHNIQUE: 1. Conditioning is about working the clay so that it's ready to use. Condition all three colours, separately, by slicing the blocks into around 2/8th inch pieces first, then running through the pasta machine on setting (thickness) #1 on Atlas (or the thickest setting on your PM) Please note. In this tutorial, we leave the pasta setting on #1 for the entire process except for the very last step. Also note, some pasta machine models have their #1 setting as being the thinnest setting. This can be very confusing. Most tutorials are written with the Atlas or Italian pasta machines in mind. 2. Fold this sheet in half, place onto the rollers fold first so as not to create air bubbles and run thru again. Do this to each colour around 10-20 times. Clay should be nicely pliable. Cut white and blue to about the same size, cut off uneven edges. 3. To make this colour blend (called a skinner blend) you need to cut the white and blue sheet diagonally. However, not quite diagonally. Even tho the pic (pic 01) which shows the next step (being white and blue) the cut is the same. Use this as your guide. You'll notice that the cut isn't quite from corner to corner but slightly offset…about an inch. This has been done on purpose so that there is a very definite blue on one side of the blend and a very definite white on the other side of the blend. 4. Take one blue triangle and butt it up securely against its white counterpart to make it a sheet. (pic 02). Set the spare pieces aside, we're using them to make our base beads later. 5. Fold this sheet in half, blue on blue and white on white. (pic 03) 6. Place folded sheet in pasta machine, fold first. (pic 04). Run thru pasta machine. 7. Fold this piece in half, blue colour on blue colour, white on white. Then run through pasta machine again. 8. Continue until streaks disappear and you have a nice smooth blend. Around 20 times. (pic 05) 9. Cut off uneven edge. 10. Roll this sheet up (jellyroll style), blended coloured side all the way thru. ie Do NOT start with either the all white or the all blue side but the edge where all the colours are showing. (pic 06) 11. You'll end up with a roll of clay the length of the pasta maker's width, blue on one end, white on the other and a lovely blend of the two towards the middle. 12. We want to make this long roll (called a cane) into a small fat roll, by rolling outside edges towards the middle with fingers flat and palms outstretched as pictured in (pic 07). Keep pushing the clay towards the middle, not forcibly but firmly, aiming to shorten the cane to about 3 or 4 cms. 13. You'll also pick the cane up and gently bang the edges on your work surface, always aiming to keep the cane even while making it shorter and fatter…till finally you end up with a squat cane about 3 or 4 cm high. (pic 08) 14. Start to flatten this short fat cane by compressing and pulling it lengthways. 15. Continue to pull and stretch and rolling with acrylic roller…see (pic 09)…till it's around 5 mm thick. 16. Place narrow side against the rollers, making sure to butt it up against one edge to help prevent the sheet sliding towards the middle as it's apt to do without 'help'. See picture (pic 10). 17. Cut this very long strip in half and lay one piece on top of the other. (pic 11) 18. The pattern we're interested in is starting to develop, if you look at the cut edges butted up together pictured in (pic 12). 18. Now run this sheet through the pasta machine, cut in half again, lay one sheet on top of the other as before and you'll see a more complex pattern. 19. I personally like this rather bold look but for those who want finer lines, just repeat this step, till you have the finer lined look. 20. Now cut the sheet in half and stack, then cut this stacked sheet in half and stack…see picture (pic 13). |