Watercolor or Torn Paper Technique

  It came up innocently enough at our last guild meeting.    One of our guild members was do a fabulous job demostrating a polymer clay technique called "watercolor"or some call it "torn paper".   Maggie Maggio is the polymer clay artist who, as far as I know came up with this technique.  Other artists are Jeanne Rhea and Judy Kuskin, who use this technique. There are many other artists who have created with this technique, also.  Someone at the meeting suggested a challenge to create something with this technique.  Another member suggested a heart swap for February's meeting.  This is a challenge in it's self.  When the final watercolor sheet is applied to the scrap clay shaped heart, it has to be even and free of hills and valleys and smooth as much as possible.  Sanding is not a part of this technique, as we usually do to create a smooth piece and eleminate small divits or marring.

Watercolor Technique:

In using this technique, you would choose your pallette by begnning with red, yellow and blue.  A very nice selecton of these colors are Magenta, Zinc Yellow and Cobalt Blue. Mix  your palette to primary stage for these hues.  Take small amounts of three of these colors mix and run thru pasta machine until your are pleased with the mix---do not overmix to mud stage.  Run this mix thru pasta machine to (no. 6 on a Atlas Pasta Machine), place a prepared sheet of white (no.1) with color mix until you reach thru (no.6).  Prepare a sheet of  black to a (no.6) and place behind the white sheet and run thru pasta machine back to (no.1) You can add a sheet of metal leaf between the color mix and white, if you choose to add a little sparkle.  All of us polymer clay people have mud mixes--scrap clay--so take scrap clay run thru Pasta Machine on no. 1.  Use a cutter to keep beads the same size and roll and shape your base bead.  Begin tearing selected sections of your watercolor sheet and applying to your bead.  Roll each bead in palms of your hands.  Remember you do not sand these beads, so try to round your beads as smooth as you can.  Decide where you want to make holes or drill after baking the beads.  Bake beads at clay manufacturers instructions.