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.

Clay Inclusion Jewelry

I finally finished some jewelry pieces using the clay inclusion technique I wrote about earlier. In the first one I used a base of translucent clay with a hint of black combined with ground pepper. The delicate pink flowers, inspired by Japanese cherry blossom imagery, are also created from translucent clay finished to have a frosted glass appearance.

For the second one I used a combination of cinnamon and nutmeg in the base to simulate stone. The vibrant color in the marigold flower petals comes from a red pepper, paprika blend toned down with some of the cinnamon/nutmeg blend. I added a touch of red clay for the darker petals.

I'm so happy with how they turned out that I decided that these two pendants would be the first pieces of jewelry I offer in my store.

Cherry Blossom Polymer Clay Pendant
Spicy Clay Polymer Clay Pendant

Clay Inclusion Technique

Cool Technique: Inclusion, the Art of Sprinkling Things into Clay
A couple snow storms and a head cold have me trapped in the house so I am experimenting with clay inclusions. The technique is pretty simple. You add things, like herbs, colored sand, fibers, etc., to translucent polymer clay.

Ground rules:
Really the only rule is that the substance has to be inert (meaning something that won't rot). That makes this a great technique for beginners. For these sample chips, I used Fimo translucent clay. It stays white. Sculpey translucent is darker and would have a different look. The beauty of sample chips is that you can test things quickly to see what you like best before you do something large scale.

Spices aren't just for cooking:
I had a good time adding just about every spice/herb I had in my cupboard. I used ground pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, mint, red pepper, cumin, and basil. Each gave a different look. Now I'm making my favorites into jewelry. The only problem I had was that my husband was a little disappointed to see cinnamon and nutmeg on the counter and no dessert in sight.

Let me know if you've made anything with clay inclusions. I'm kind of addicted now, and I'd love to see what else I could do with it.


Projects using inclusions:
Clay Inclusions Jewelry
Faux Terracotta