Saturday, June 16, 2012

Coloring Polymer Clay: Cinnamon Bear


That little gray bear head that I shared with you on Thursday now has some color thanks to one of my favorite spices. Cinnamon, combined with translucent polymer clay, makes a great color enhancer. I love the depth that this cinnamon inclusion technique gives the bear's fur.

cinnamon bear work in progress
Cinnamon Color Technique
I've been experimenting with different techniques to add color to sculptures without painting them, but to be honest, I hadn't planned on using the cinnamon inclusion technique on this piece.

I started with a dark brown base of pastel chalks on the unbaked gray form. I tinted some satin glaze to go over the baked chalked head. While it looked nice, it was darker and shinier than I wanted.

unfinished pastel chalks on polymer
To try a different approach, I mixed a batch of translucent clay with some latte alcohol ink and some cinnamon. I gently added a thin layer of the mix over the existing head, rubbing in additional cinnamon with my finger to increase the color before reshaping the fur. After baking, I followed up with some light sanding and buffing to get the result you see in the first picture. Read about my past adventures in polymer clay inclusions.

4 comments:

  1. Wow he's looking great - cinnamon, perfect with the translucent for the depth! He looks a little like a doggy in the chalks, not so with the translucent. You sure have a knack for the sculpting! I love watching what you do. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you, both! The technique works great for a stone feel too. I've done some pendants using it. Red pepper is great too!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love the way your creative mind thinks. Who would have thought of making a CINNAMON bear! He's a cutie.

    ReplyDelete

Ooh,a comment! How delightful.

recomendations

share icons