Polymer Clay Skinner Blend Instructions

00:00:03 –> 00:00:07 Hi guys, its Cindy Lietz, your Polymer Clay Tutor, and in today’s studio tip, I’m going

00:00:07 –> 00:00:13 to show you how to make a Skinner Blend, I’m gonna show you a couple of different versions.

00:00:13 –> 00:00:20 Now the coolest thing about Polymer Clay is that you can use it in… you can blend it

00:00:20 –> 00:00:27 actually in a beautiful color blend that shifts from one color to another.

00:00:27 –> 00:00:31 And you can do it in a two color shift like I have done here, where you’ve got a White

00:00:31 –> 00:00:42 to Black but you can also do it in more complicated… such as a rainbow blend such as this.

00:00:42 –> 00:00:48 Now in a previous video, I showed you the old school way of making blends, and it was

00:00:48 –> 00:00:54 a stepped blend where you actually mixed different amounts of clay together by hand, and you

00:00:54 –> 00:00:57 got a color blend like this.

00:00:57 –> 00:00:59 But a few years ago…

00:00:59 –> 00:01:05 I don’t know, 20 years ago or so, a Polymer Clay Artist named Judith Skinner came up with

00:01:05 –> 00:01:13 a much simpler method of making a graduated blend, and it’s actually a lot smoother as

00:01:13 –> 00:01:16 well, and I’m gonna show you how to do that.

00:01:16 –> 00:01:23 What you take is…we’re gonna do the 2 color one here, so I’ve got 2 colors…you’ll see

00:01:23 –> 00:01:30 the biggest…you’ll see the biggest effect if you use colors with contrast in them, if

00:01:30 –> 00:01:35 you use 2 colors that are very, very close to each other, you may not see the shift as

00:01:35 –> 00:01:41 clearly, but they’ll still… it’ll still show, it can be quite a pretty effect.

00:01:41 –> 00:01:45 Now I’m gonna use…where is this, I need a little bit of water, I wanna stick these

00:01:45 –> 00:01:52 2 together temporarily, and this clay is quite sticky, and the lights are a little bit warm,

00:01:52 –> 00:01:56 so I’m gonna put some water in between my layers here, but you don’t necessarily have

00:01:56 –> 00:02:01 to do that, depending on if your clay is sticky or not.

00:02:01 –> 00:02:08 And I’m just gonna lay these 2 on top of each other, and I’m gonna cut them into a rectangle,

00:02:08 –> 00:02:14 like this, it could be square or rectangle, with the water in between, it comes apart

00:02:14 –> 00:02:22 super easy.

00:02:22 –> 00:02:28 Now we have a rectangular shape, 2 of them, 1 of each color, and then what we’re gonna

00:02:28 –> 00:02:34 do is we’re going to cut… while they’re stacked together, we’re going to cut them

00:02:34 –> 00:02:39 from corner to corner, and essentially, what we’re gonna do is create some triangles.

00:02:39 –> 00:02:46 So I’m gonna just cut straight through the stack, both stacks at once from corner to

00:02:46 –> 00:02:50 corner, then I’m gonna peel them apart and I have some triangles.

00:02:50 –> 00:02:57 Now I’m gonna dry them off, because I don’t wanna mix the water into the clay when I blend

00:02:57 –> 00:03:04 it, if you have really stiff clay, you won’t have that issue.

00:03:04 –> 00:03:11 Now I’m gonna take this triangle and flip it over so that it matches the one on the

00:03:11 –> 00:03:17 bottom, so the White clay on top of White clay, and this will be the bottom part of

00:03:17 –> 00:03:18 the rectangle.

00:03:18 –> 00:03:25 Then I’m gonna match up the Black on the other side, just to reform the triangle…I mean

00:03:25 –> 00:03:32 the rectangle that was there before, only now we’re gonna have White on one side and

00:03:32 –> 00:03:36 Black on the other, okay?

00:03:36 –> 00:03:44 So as we blend this whole stack together, it’s going to be similar to this one here,

00:03:44 –> 00:03:51 where…if you look carefully, you can actually see a triangle shape here, and you’re going

00:03:51 –> 00:03:54 to be…we’re gonna be blending this together.

00:03:54 –> 00:04:02 But on this side, basically you’re gonna have more White and just a touch of Black, half

00:04:02 –> 00:04:07 way through, it’s gonna be 50-50, you’re gonna have equal amounts White and equal amounts

00:04:07 –> 00:04:11 Black, and then by the time you get down to this side of the blend, you’re gonna have

00:04:11 –> 00:04:18 very little White and a lot of Black, so it’s the same idea only much simpler.

00:04:18 –> 00:04:24 And I guess Judith had a background in Science or Math or something and that’s what made

00:04:24 –> 00:04:31 her think in this Geometric kind of way, which was nice for all of us.

00:04:31 –> 00:04:36 So I’m just gonna roll this a little bit so that I know that they’re stuck together, and

00:04:36 –> 00:04:39 a little thinner so that I can put it through the pasta machine.

00:04:39 –> 00:04:48 Now, we’re going to run it through the pasta machine at the thickest setting, and I’m putting

00:04:48 –> 00:04:55 it in carefully, that I have White on one side and Black on the other, I don’t want

00:04:55 –> 00:05:01 to turn it this way, I’m gonna turn it this way, and I’m gonna kinda try to control the

00:05:01 –> 00:05:07 sides with my fingers here, so as I roll it through, we’ll have one sheet of clay.

00:05:07 –> 00:05:15 Now what we have to do is put it…fold it in half, always fold it in half the same way

00:05:15 –> 00:05:19 every time, and then we’re going to run it through the pasta machine again, and what

00:05:19 –> 00:05:29 this does is each time we do that it starts mixing those layers together and starts creating

00:05:29 –> 00:05:30 a blend.

00:05:30 –> 00:05:37 Now at first, it will look terrible, or you won’t see much of an effect, but as you keep

00:05:37 –> 00:05:48 doing it, the colors will start to blend together.

00:05:48 –> 00:05:58 So you can see it’s starting to blend, so I’ll keep doing that and come back and show

00:05:58 –> 00:06:00 you a little further along.

00:06:00 –> 00:06:07 Okay, I’m about halfway through the process, it’s starting to blend together, it’s still

00:06:07 –> 00:06:11 quite streaky, and a little bit uneven, there’s still little bits here that aren’t completely

00:06:11 –> 00:06:17 folded in, but I will just continue to do this folding in half and running it through

00:06:17 –> 00:06:20 until it’s much smoother, and then I’ll come back.

00:06:20 –> 00:06:26 Okay, so I went through another bunch of times, and it is much smoother now, I could probably

00:06:26 –> 00:06:30 go on a little bit further if I wanted to.

00:06:30 –> 00:06:36 You’ll find that you’ll need to go through…depending on how soft or hard your clay is, you know,

00:06:36 –> 00:06:42 anywhere from 15 – 40 times before you have it properly blended, so that’s how you do

00:06:42 –> 00:06:48 that one, as you can see, it’s quite Gray, there’s not any really pure White at this

00:06:48 –> 00:06:54 side, and not really any pure Black because there was still just a little touch of Black

00:06:54 –> 00:06:58 here, remember when the triangle was there, and just a little touch of White, so you never

00:06:58 –> 00:07:02 really get a completely pure color on either side.

00:07:02 –> 00:07:10 Unless you do something that’s called an Offset Skinner Blend, so I’m gonna show you that.

00:07:10 –> 00:07:17 So we got 2 more pieces of clay here, and I’m gonna use the water again, you can use

00:07:17 –> 00:07:25 this water trick on anything that you don’t want your clay to stick together on, and…

00:07:25 –> 00:07:36 when it’s raw of course, so I’m cutting out another triangle again…or a rectangle,

00:07:36 –> 00:07:45 it’s getting late in the day, I’m surprised my brain is still even working, anyways, so

00:07:45 –> 00:07:50 here we go we have a rectangle.

00:07:50 –> 00:08:01 And this time, instead of going from corner to corner, I wanna leave a little bit of the

00:08:01 –> 00:08:05 White on one side and little bit of the Black on the other, so I’m gonna offset my blade

00:08:05 –> 00:08:12 and come in about a quarter of an inch off the end here and about a quarter of an inch

00:08:12 –> 00:08:15 off this end here, so I’m off- setting it.

00:08:15 –> 00:08:20 It needs to be about the same size, you can measure it if you want, I tend to eyeball

00:08:20 –> 00:08:26 everything, but I’m just gonna cut through both layers like that, peel them apart once

00:08:26 –> 00:08:33 again, dry them off once again, I don’t want that water mixing into the clay, otherwise

00:08:33 –> 00:08:39 you’ll get bubbles and plaquing and other issues.

00:08:39 –> 00:08:43 Now we’re gonna take this and we’ll have to flip it around to get it to match, we’re

00:08:43 –> 00:08:50 stacking it the same way, only it has this little flat edge on it this time.

00:08:50 –> 00:08:59 And we need to do this Black one here, and it’s got the Black flat edge, like that, so

00:08:59 –> 00:09:06 that’s why it’s called offset ‘cause that cut is offset a bit.

00:09:06 –> 00:09:12 This time, when we blend it and fold it and do all that, it’s gonna leave a bit of a pure

00:09:12 –> 00:09:20 White section here, and a little bit of a pure Black section, and make for a bit more

00:09:20 –> 00:09:26 of an obvious blend.

00:09:26 –> 00:09:30 We’re gonna run it through the pasta machine the same way, I like to use my fingers on

00:09:30 –> 00:09:36 the side so it doesn’t get too wide.

00:09:36 –> 00:09:42 Fold it in half, again, and keep doing this until it’s blended, we’ll come back when it’s

00:09:42 –> 00:09:45 about halfway blended for you.

00:09:45 –> 00:09:52 Okay, so I’m about halfway through the blending process, I have to be a little bit careful

00:09:52 –> 00:09:56 that I don’t bend it too sideways and get too much Gray into this White, but we still

00:09:56 –> 00:10:02 have some pure White on this side and some pure Black on that side, what I mean is, I

00:10:02 –> 00:10:09 need to make sure I keep them straight together and not like kitty corner or angled at all,

00:10:09 –> 00:10:17 ‘cause then you can mess up the alignment of your blend, so I’ll keep blending and come

00:10:17 –> 00:10:19 back when I’m done.

00:10:19 –> 00:10:25 Alrighty, so this is starting to come along quite nicely, I could blend it a little bit

00:10:25 –> 00:10:31 further if I wanted to, but we have a nice White edge blending off to a nice Black edge.

00:10:31 –> 00:10:39 Now clay blends can be used for all kinds of beautiful projects for Polymer Clay.

00:10:39 –> 00:10:46 The Skinner Blend is a nice simple way of making a gradiated blend.

00:10:46 –> 00:10:52 You can, like I said, you can get really complicated and have all these different angled ones and

00:10:52 –> 00:10:56 make some Rainbow blends.

00:10:56 –> 00:11:02 Plus there’s a bunch of other neat ways as well, other techniques and faster ways to

00:11:02 –> 00:11:06 do color blends as well, which I’ll show you in another video.

00:11:06 –> 00:11:12 So my question is, have you ever made one of these Skinner blends?

00:11:12 –> 00:11:15 Do you have any challenges with them?

00:11:15 –> 00:11:22 And make sure to leave those in the comment section below, and let us know what you think.

00:11:22 –> 00:11:25 If you like this video and it was helpful for you, make sure to press that like button;

00:11:25 –> 00:11:27 that would be great.

00:11:27 –> 00:11:32 And if you have suggestions or anything for future videos, please let us know.

00:11:32 –> 00:11:34 So we’ll see you next time, and bye for now.

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