Author Statement: Marie Segal
Audience: Trade
Specs: full color throughout, index, list of clay artists,
Pages: 160
Trim Size: 8 3/4" X 8 3/4" X 11/16"
Language code 1: eng
Publication Date: 20130912
Copyright Year: 2013
The Polymer Clay Artist's Guide: A Directory of Mixes, Colors, Textures, Faux Finishes, and Surface Effects
A directory of mixes, colors, textures, faux finishes and surface effects.
This resource provides polymer clay artists with a library of 100 finishes and techniques suitable to a wide variety of applications. Illustrations demonstrate various combinations of the finishes, with detailed instructions on how to recreate the effect. An inspiring gallery of work by professional artists puts it all in context and provides endless inspiration.
The Polymer Clay Artist's Guide contains three sections. The first covers the types of clay and other materials, tools and equipment, and setting up a workspace.
The second section uses step-by-step color photographs to demonstrate the core techniques for working with polymer clay, including health and safety, baking, mixing, cutting and sanding.
The Directory of Effects comprises the bulk of the book. Organized by color and then by technique, there are 100 polymer clay swatches with detailed captions identifying the technique used and cross-referencing to the page showing how to recreate it. As well, the captions give ideas for how the effect might be used in jewelry and other applications.
The Directory has three major categories. Each contains a Tile Library of effects created by the world's best polymer clay artists.
- Inclusion and Additions -- Cloisonné, using leaf, powders, brushes
- Surface Effects -- Glazes, enameling, resins, tints, gels
- Texturing -- Stamps, sheets, masks, stencils, frisket, creating textures
- Screen Printing -- Making screens and tools, silk-screens, paints
- Embossing -- Relief plates, embossing, bas relief, stamps
- Carving -- Tools, sgraffito, carving through layers, incising
- Encaustic Effects -- Working with wax, covering, embedding
- Decorative Embellishments -- Securing objects of metal, wood, chain and found items
- Pavé Effects -- Combining clay and beads, rhinestones, huichol beads
- Pre-Made Clay Finishes -- Application methods and drying, liquid clays, lacquers, glazes.
The Polymer Clay Artist's Guide shows how easy it is to use traditional and innovative techniques on the simple medium of clay to produce stunning results.
| Bio: | Marie Segal has been working with polymer clay since 1978. She has demonstrated at large trade shows, taught at conferences and galleries, and appeared on television. She lives in southern California. |
| Preface: | Introduction Working with polymer clay should be fun and give you a feeling of accomplishment. The more skills you add to your body of knowledge, the more you will be able to achieve with your clay and your art. The effects that you can create with polymer clay are many and varied. Polymer clay can be combined with a huge range of materials and adapted to many different applications. The more you play with the clay and try out different techniques, the more things that you will be able to achieve. This book is a compendium of easy-to-follow techniques and ideas to help you on your journey of exploration. Many of them are straightforward and easy to execute, so it does not matter how much experience you already have. Dip into the different sections of the book and simply try things out. Flip around to different pages and try combining the effects you find there. Such experiments will feed your creative mind and help you develop your own distinctive ideas and methods. Although once marketed as a children's toy, polymer clay is now a fully fledged art medium in its own right. It combines beautifully with other mediums, opening up many avenues of experimentation. The techniques in this book can be applied to almost anything--jewelry, buttons, vessels, sculpture, home decorations and more--to add depth, dimension and beauty. Once you begin playing with polymer clay and trying out new techniques, you will soon find yourself able to create new effects and finishes of your own. About this book The first chapter provides an overview of materials, tools and basic techniques for working with polymer clay. Use this information as a quick reference source whenever you need to brush up on the basics. The second chapter, the directory of effects, is what this book is really about. The effects are divided into seven general categories, and each category features three sections: techniques, tile samples and a gallery of finished pieces by polymer clay artists. The seven categories are designed to make the content of the book easy to access and digest, but don't treat each category as a separate entity. Combining techniques from different categories will open up far more opportunities for your polymer clay work. |
| TOC: | Table of Contents Introduction About this book GETTING STARTED
DIRECTORY OF EFFECTS Inclusions and additions
Texture effects
Printing effects
Caning and stacking
Patterns and motifs
Pavé and mosaic
Embellishments
Index Clay artists Credits |
