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Fulgorine

~ My adventures with polymer clay

Fulgorine

Tag Archives: Fimo

Polymer Clay Challenge – week 11

19 Sat Mar 2016

Posted by fulgorine in 2016 Polymer Clay Challenge, My work, painting

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

2016PCchallenge, Fimo, howgills, landscape, mountain, polymer clay

I’m afraid that for this week of my 2016 Polymer Clay Challenge, my vessel (the lantern) is still in progress. I didn’t even get ballet-time to do some beading :o. However I do have a 10cm x 10cm tile I have made for the Fimo 50 World Project.

Polymer clay painting by Cate van Alphen

“The Road Home” by Cate van Alphen
Polymer clay painting

I was starting to get intimidated by the gorgeous entries on the facebook page, so I thought I’d better do something before I chickened out completely! It seemed like a good reason to finally get around to completing this painting. I planned this image ages ago, so I don’t actually live in that valley anymore, but the name stuck.

 

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Red colour palette recipes

16 Mon Nov 2015

Posted by fulgorine in 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge, Tips

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

colour mixing, colour recipe, Fimo, polymer clay, red

Here are my colours for the red palette of my Spectrum Year. I had a bit of a struggle adding a sixth colour, but I decided on something eventually.

BerryHues

Here are the recipes using Fimo Professional. The numbers are percentages. I wrote an earlier blog explaining how I measure colours.

scan_red02

Light Grey

  • 95 white
  • 1.5 true magenta
  • 3.5 true blue

Red

  • 60 true red
  • 40 true magenta

Carmine

  • 20 true red
  • 79 true magenta
  • 1 black

Plum

  • 19 true red
  • 76 true magenta
  • 5 black

Purple

  • 50 white
  • 40 true magenta
  • 10 true blue

Blue Grey

  • 65 white
  • 10 true magenta
  • 23.5 true blue
  • 1.5 black

Violet colour palette

25 Fri Sep 2015

Posted by fulgorine in 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge, Tips

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

colour mixing, colour palette, Fimo, polymer clay, purple, violet

I’m a little late with the start of violet since I wanted to finish my indigo beads. Here are the colour recipes I plan to use. I’m using Fimo Professional and the numbers represent percentages. Previously I wrote a post on how I mix colours.

Violet colour palette

Violet colour swatches

Light Grey

  • 95 white
  • 1.5 true magenta
  • 3.5 true blue

Grey Green

  • 61.5 white
  • 3 true yellow
  • 10 true magenta
  • 23 true blue
  • 2 true green
  • 0.5 black

Indigo

  • 30 true magenta
  • 70 true blue

Dark Purple

  • 59.5 true magenta
  • 39.5 true blue
  • 1 black

Violet

  • 80 true magenta
  • 20 true blue

Purple

  • 50 white
  • 40 true magenta
  • 10 true blue

 

Let the purple-fest commence. Yippee!

Blue colour palette recipes

06 Sat Jun 2015

Posted by fulgorine in 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge, Tips

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

blue, colour mixing, colour palette, colour recipe, Fimo, polymer clay

Today is the start of my blue period 😉 so here are the colour recipes.

GlobalHues_2 scan_blue

Light Grey

  • 95 white
  • 1.5 true magenta
  • 3.5 true blue

Light Blue

  • 80 white
  • 20 true blue

Blue

  • 100 true blue

Purple

  • 50 white
  • 40 true magenta
  • 10 true blue

Yellow

  • 100 true yellow

I haven’t quite finished with green yet as I still have some beads to show for this week of the 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge. Also I’m hoping that I will be able to get some of the green components listed in my Etsy shop soon.

Green colour palette recipes

15 Wed Apr 2015

Posted by fulgorine in 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge, Tips

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

colour mixing, colour palette, Fimo, green, polymer clay

Today is the start of green. This time I’ve prepared some ideas so the transition should be easier than the switch to yellow.

Here are my green colour palette recipes. I’m using Fimo Professional, and percentages for the quantities (click here to see why):

RiceFieldHues

Green colour palette scan

Beige

  • 99 white
  • 0.45 true yellow *
  • 0.05 true green *
  • 0.5 black

* (0.5% mix of 90 true yellow 10 true green)

Light Green

  • 95 white
  • 2.75 true yellow
  • 2 true green
  • 0.25 black

Green

  • 89 true yellow
  • 10 true green
  • 1 black

Dark Green

  • 57 true yellow
  • 38 true green
  • 5 black

Grey Green

  • 61.5 white
  • 3 true yellow
  • 10 true magenta
  • 23 true blue
  • 2 true green
  • 0.5 black

Light Grey

  • 95 white
  • 1.5 true magenta
  • 3.5 true blue

Yellow colour palette recipes

22 Sun Feb 2015

Posted by fulgorine in 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge, Tips

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

colour mixing, colour recipe, Fimo, polymer clay, yellow, yellow palette

Here are my colour recipes for the yellow colour palette of my Spectrum Challenge. I have used Fimo Professional polymer clay.

Yellow colour palette

Yellow palette swatches

Light Yellow

  • 99 white
  • 1 true yellow

Yellow

  • 100 true yellow

Orange

  • 95 true yellow
  • 5 true red

Chocolate

  • 50 white
  • 17 true yellow
  • 25 true red
  • 8 black

Green

  • 89 true yellow
  • 10 true green
  • 1 black

Beige

  • 99 white
  • 0.45 true yellow *
  • 0.05 true green *
  • 0.5 black

* (0.5% mix of 90 true yellow 10 true green)

Now I’m off to mix colours 😉

Gradient colour mixing

15 Thu Jan 2015

Posted by fulgorine in How to, My work, Tips

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

colour mixing, Fimo, gradient, polymer clay, skinner blend

I mentioned in my previous post that keeping my colour recipes in percentages helped with mixing gradients.

scrap clay gradient

Sometimes I don’t keep track of my gradient mixes. The one above is made up of coordinating scraps of colour…

skinner blend

which becomes a lovely skinner blend…

Aqua and copper patchwork beads by Cate van Alphen

that ends up as beads.

At other times e.g. for the Art Bead Scene challenge pieces, I want my gradient to include specific colours to match the inspiration painting.

Here are my colour recipes using Fimo Classic:

  • Brick = 25% bordeaux, 25% yellow, 50% white
  • Rust = 10% bordeaux, 90% yellow
  • Mustard = 2.5% bordeaux, 47.5% yellow, 50% white

I take my grid paper, and using 1 square to represent 10% of the recipe, I mark out the target colours. I leave spaces between them to allow for a gradient blend. I chose to put the bordeaux in the middle for the mustard colour on the right because it was such a small percentage I thought it would be difficult to cut accurately if it were on the bottom.

marked grid

Then I mark diagonals for the blends. I chose to fade to white on the edges.

colour blend template

Then I cut out the paper shapes to use as a template for the clay.

polymer clay and template

Here is the resulting blend. I’ve included the target colours – there is a slight difference as the swatches have been baked while the blend is still raw. This method means I can mix the colours at the same time that I make the blend (instead of mixing the 3 colours separately and then blending them).

Controlled skinner blendAnd here are the beads I made (with an additional magenta colour).

Autumn leaf polymer clay beads by Cate van Alphen

Orange colour palette recipes

04 Sun Jan 2015

Posted by fulgorine in 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

colour mixing, colour recipe, Fimo, orange, polymer clay

I have been mixing colours to use for my Spectrum Year Challenge. It has taken a while because I have been tweaking the colours slightly in the hope that all 7 palettes will play nicely together by the end of the year. If you are related to several… strong personalities… and you’ve organised a family event you know what I mean!

Autum View by Design Seeds

Orange palette colour chips

My colours are more saturated than those in the palettes because I find desaturating a colour as difficult as waking a baby. Logically I accept that it may be necessary, but it still feels wrong! (By the way the actual colour chips look a bit different in person to how they appear in the scan above.)

Here are the recipes using Fimo Professional, and percentages for the quantities (click here to see why):

Beige

  • 99 white
  • 0.45 true yellow *
  • 0.05 true green *
  • 0.5 black

* (0.5% mix of 90 true yellow 10 true green)

Peach

  • 90 white
  • 8 true yellow
  • 2 true red

Orange

  • 95 true yellow
  • 5 true red

Red

  • 60 true red
  • 40 true magenta

Chocolate

  • 50 white
  • 17 true yellow
  • 25 true red
  • 8 black

Light Grey

  • 95 white
  • 1.5 true magenta
  • 3.5 true blue

Mixing colour scales

06 Sat Sep 2014

Posted by fulgorine in Tips, Tutorial

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

colour, colour mixing, Fimo, polymer clay

I love colour, but sometimes it’s daunting knowing where to start, so I have a little box of baked polymer clay tiles. This allows me to collect up a few colours and see how they look together. I scratch in the colour mix recipe before it’s baked so that there is nothing to interfere with the colour of the tile (e.g. if it was written on in pen afterward).

Yes, as a child I spent hours arranging crayons in a box!

box of polymer clay colour tiles

Box of colour tiles

These baked colour swatches also give me a place to start when I need to mix a new colour. Before going through Maggie Maggio’s colour tutorials I used to mix colours ad hoc, but now I have made some colour scales that are more systematic.

colour scale red, blue, yellow

I used Fimo Classic colours Carmine, Blue and Yellow for the above scale. (Of course I’ll need to start again now for the new Fimo Professional.)

The top row is the pure colour, and the lower row is 50% colour and 50% white. I have added 10% white to all the yellow before any other mixing (see my earlier post for details why).

blue to yellow colour scale

As you can see I work in percentages rather than the usual 2 parts blue to 3 parts yellow etc. This allows me to more easily calculate the quantities to mix based on how much of the final colour I want. I will endevour to share with you the secret weapon I use for this in another post shortly.

More spectrum beads

30 Sat Aug 2014

Posted by fulgorine in My work

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Fimo, focal bead, handmade bead, polymer clay, spectrum

Following my previous post I have been continuing to make spectrum coloured beads. Here are a few…

Spectrum beads by Cate van Alphen

Different sizes…

Spectrum coloured beads by Cate van Alphen

different pattern…

Spectrum beads by Cate van Alphen

different texture.

This fatty was made with the scraps.

Spectrum wobble bead by Cate van Alphen

Spectrum wobble, focal bead by Cate van Alphen

And there is another batch cooling in the oven 😉

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Fulgor, n.
Dazzling brightness; splendor.
Fulgorine, n.
One who creates that which dazzles.

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