Is Your Skinner Blend or Teardrop Blend Too Wide?
Video #435: How to fix wide color blends… and then keep them at a manageable width!
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IN THIS POST: — pasta machine — skinner blend — teardrop blend — too wide — (Topics marked with an asterisk* are discussed in the Comments Section below).
Topics Covered In This Video:
- Have you ever made a Skinner Blend or Teardrop Blend that ended up getting so wide that it would no longer fit through the opening in your pasta machine?
- I have a trick for making it skinnier again.
- First thin it out a bit, so you have a longer length of clay to work with, by rolling it through a thinner setting on your pasta machine.
- Then roll your sheet up, making sure that you don’t change the orientation of the sheet while rolling. Your resulting log should still look like a blend, with one color on one end, blending to another color at the other end. If you roll the wrong way, the outside layer of the log will only be one color.
- Start shortening the log by pushing on the ends and bunching the cane a little at a time, until the log is much shorter in width.
- Flatten out the shortened log and roll through the pasta machine at the thickest setting, so that it is now back into a sheet format.
- You can then continue passing your blend through the pasta machine, but rather than just letting it get wide again, this time hold your fingers on either side of the blend as you pass it through the machine. This will control the sheet and prevent it from squeezing out sideways as it is pushed through the rollers.
00:00:03 –> 00:00:07 Hi guys, its Cindy Lietz, your Polymer Clay Tutor, and today’s Studio Tip, we are talking
00:00:07 –> 00:00:11 about dealing with Skinner blends when they get too wide.
00:00:11 –> 00:00:17 Now, have you ever made a Skinner blend, or Teardrop blend and you go to…and you’re
00:00:17 –> 00:00:21 not using a ton of clay, and you go to put it through your machine and it’s getting
00:00:21 –> 00:00:27 too wide, spreading out and it’s at the point where you’re just not really sure
00:00:27 –> 00:00:31 how to deal with it anymore, well, I can help you deal with that.
00:00:31 –> 00:00:36 What we do is…first of all, what I’m gonna do is just kinda shorten it a bit so that
00:00:36 –> 00:00:43 I can get it to fit within the rollers, just at least within the rollers, so, I’m squishing
00:00:43 –> 00:00:49 it up a little bit, shortening it up and I’m gonna run it through, but this time, when
00:00:49 –> 00:00:56 I run it through, I’m going to go at a little bit thinner setting so that we have a larger
00:00:56 –> 00:00:57 sheet to deal with.
00:00:57 –> 00:01:04 So I’m just gonna run it through, it’s a little bit thinner and I’m gonna do one
00:01:04 –> 00:01:10 more time, and make it a little bit thinner, then we have a little… little bit easier
00:01:10 –> 00:01:12 sheet to deal with.
00:01:12 –> 00:01:18 Now, what I’m gonna do is I’m going to roll up the sheet, ‘cause this is still
00:01:18 –> 00:01:22 too wide, it’s just barely fitting in the machine, I’m gonna start rolling up the
00:01:22 –> 00:01:30 sheet from the one side, now make sure that when you do this, you don’t change the orientation
00:01:30 –> 00:01:35 of the sheet, and that you have your one color on one end and the other color on the other
00:01:35 –> 00:01:40 end, and you’re not folding it up… rolling it up the wrong way, that’s really important,
00:01:40 –> 00:01:43 otherwise, you’ll completely screw up your blend.
00:01:43 –> 00:01:48 So now I have a roll of clay, and this… now that it’s rolled up, it’s gonna be
00:01:48 –> 00:01:55 a lot easier to shorten up, because it’s a thicker piece, so now we can just continue
00:01:55 –> 00:02:08 to shorten it up and make it so it’s a lot less wide, and now, what we can do is we’ll
00:02:08 –> 00:02:12 need to thin it out… and pinch it and thin it out a bit so we can put it back through
00:02:12 –> 00:02:17 the rollers, make sure it’s back at the thickest setting.
00:02:17 –> 00:02:23 And now that we have it at a workable width…and I’ve got it kind of in a triangle shape
00:02:23 –> 00:02:28 here, I’m gonna run it through the machine, but rather than just let it get wide again,
00:02:28 –> 00:02:31 ‘cause it spreads out and gets wider as it goes through the machine, I’m gonna put
00:02:31 –> 00:02:36 my fingers on either side of this blend and just control it, and keep it from spreading
00:02:36 –> 00:02:44 out, so I’m just gonna slowly squeeze this through and now we have a blend that’s a
00:02:44 –> 00:02:45 lot easier to deal with.
00:02:45 –> 00:02:53 So if we… we can fold it up again, and run it through, keeping your fingers on the side,
00:02:53 –> 00:02:57 and rolling through, and now you’ve got a much skinnier one, you can make… push
00:02:57 –> 00:03:02 it in further and further if you like by continuing to roll it up and keeping your fingers squeezed
00:03:02 –> 00:03:07 to the side, and you’ll have a skinny blend instead of a long one that you… or a wide
00:03:07 –> 00:03:09 one that you can’t deal with.
00:03:09 –> 00:03:14 So, I hope that was helpful for you, if it was, make sure to press that like button,
00:03:14 –> 00:03:16 I really appreciate it.
00:03:16 –> 00:03:21 And my question for you today is, were you running into problems with your Skinner blends
00:03:21 –> 00:03:22 getting too wide?
00:03:22 –> 00:03:25 And, do you think this tip will help?
00:03:25 –> 00:03:29 Make sure to leave your comments in the comment section below that would be great.
00:03:29 –> 00:03:33 And don’t forget to subscribe to our channel, we’ve got new videos that come out every
00:03:33 –> 00:03:35 week and you’re not gonna want to miss a thing.
00:03:35 –> 00:03:37 We’ll see you next time and bye for now.
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Resource Links:
- Related Article: Skinner Blends Too Wide For Your Pasta Machine?
- Related Video: Lietz Teardrop Blend – Color Gradients Made Easy
- Related Video: Polymer Clay Skinner Blend Instructions
- Related Video: Stepped Graduated Color Blend – Old School Gradients
- Related Article: Modified Rainbow Skinner Blend Tutorial – No Measuring
- Amazon: Marcato Atlas Pasta Machine **
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Thank you so much for this. I seem to have some kind of mental block when it comes to Skinner blends. Your teardrop method has made my life a lot easier since I always managed to mess up the triangles, but I still have had terrible issues with the clay getting too long and narrow or not being able to make it narrow. This video series has been a great help.
I have seen a great looking tool on the internet, Dan Cormier’s Shark.
It has been mentioned here on this site by a couple of people (I was a good doobie and searched the site before writing this!) but it never got a lot of discussion, and I thought it deserved a little more attention. And I’d like to know if anyone out there has one besides Gayle Thompson. If so, do you like it?
It is a set of a magnetic ruler and a magnetic wedge that you put onto your pasta machine and the wedge totally controls the width of the sheet of clay. There are only 2 types available, for the Atlas, Makins, and the AMACO. Here is a link to Dan’s video demo….
Check it out! It looks cool.
Wow, Cindy & Doug! thanks for embedding Dan Cormier’s video right here!
Thank you Cindy for the information. I am having so much fun experimenting with new things. I am trying to master the two videos I purchased and then I plan on buying more. I am happy with what I have done so far. You are an inspiration to me and one day I hope I can be as good as you.
Used Skinner Blends almost since I started using PC, so I encountered this problem immediately and could not find an answer anywhere. I set out to find my own solution, which is basically the same as Cindy’s. I make a Skinner plug and then work from there. I have seen some of these other work-arounds to the problem, but have been loath in buying anything because I’m not sure if the clay wouldn’t do what it wanted to do anyway.
Another artist (Katers Acres) added their take on a polyclay jig to narrow clay on Tonya’s FB tutorial site, and Cindy’s video is featured on this page as well (congrats, Cindy!).
Thanks Cindy ! I have just started making skinner blend and was facing this problem. You were the first one who came to my mind to ask query to..and voila i see your post on this already! That is a wonderful way..Amazing.
Oh my gosh but that was wonderful. I have ended up with long skinny blends and you just solved that issue totally! Can’t wait to tell my clay-play-day pals….
Thank you so much, marilyn
I haven’t attempted Skinner blends for fear they will be unmanageable. Your tutorial is encouraging and I will probably attempt a Skinner blend soon. Thank you Cindy.
Wow! I never would have thought of that. GREAT tip! Thanks.
I have never understood why, even though you use exactly the same amounts of each clay color, the edges come out uneven no matter how carefully you roll the blend through the pasta machine. Can anyone explain this phenomenon?
Hi Maria, the uneven sides happen on blends because the clay wants to push out whichever way is easiest. So it goes out sideways as well as out through the rollers. Then when the sheet gets wide, the sides of the machine drag on the clay and you end up with little ears on each side.
Now if one of the clays is softer than the other, or if the rollers are uneven, they will skew even more.
Those perfectly square blends you see in tutorials are fake. The artist trimmed those to make them look nice. So don’t worry if they don’t look perfect when they come out of the machine. They rarely do! :)
For those that wish to make narrow blends, perhaps the first step should be starting out with narrowed teardrops, made with long tails and tinier blobs on the top ends. That way, when you use Cindy’s teardrop blend techniques, the strip stays contained and doesn’t spread out as much.
Several folks have developed products that help keep the clay narrow. Desiree at DesiredCreations developed one made from clay and adjusted by magnets.
I agree with Cindy’s concern about magnets marking your rollers, and really like the wooden dowel technique Carrie mentioned, so maybe using Desiree’s clay “narrower” jig plus a set of dowels made to various lengths might just be the ticket.
Another fabulous poly clay artist, Dan Cormier developed a tool called the S.H.A.R.K., which adjusts the width of the clay.
I have trouble with my hands and use a motor on the pasta machine, so for narrower pieces, I think I am going to try the multi sized dowels and Desiree’s homemade poly clay jig. But to start a narrow blend, I always narrow down Cindy’s teardrops to produce a long thin blend to start. I definitely will stop using my big magnet, as I do not want to mark the rollers of my new Atlas machine.
Thanks Cindy for tipping us off to this problem of roller damage, plus giving us an easy way to condense big blends! In the past, all of my blends somehow end up the full width of the pasta machine, LOL!
I had such a hard time with this happening to me. I looked all over and couldn’t really find something that would help until this. Thanks. You have saved my buns with skinner blends :)
Why yes, in fact, I was having a problem with this the other day actually! Great tip! Will use from now on. :-)
Great tip!
I have some short pieces of wooden doweling about half inch diameter which sit on the rollers and help keep the blend from widening too much.
And I thought it was something I was doing wrong! Like Jeanne, I wonder now why it wasn’t obvious…….. But I am so glad to have the answer to this problem I’ll be too busy to keep kicking myself.
Small magnets placed on the rollers also help contain the clay to a certain width.
Hi Cindy! Great suggestion. I thought I was the only one that happened to! Not only does it get wider, but it gets all wonky too…you know, one side much wider than the other. Can’t wait to try this tip.
Jan
I have had this problem so I really appreciate this tip. Thanks Cindy!
Wonderful! I will have to try a skinner blend again. Love your tips!
I love this tip. It may be something obvious to other people but not to some of us slow medicated thinkers. lol.
:)