Did you know you can make your own polymer clay textures?  Custom textures would be a fantastic way to make your jewelry designs stand above the crowd.

My friend Helen Breil is a whizz at making beautiful textures and at coloring them. You may remember her clever Magnetic Pendants as well as her Mad About Bowls classes?  (My reviews are linked below).  Her latest class, Six Exceptional Textures, is all about making textures out of polymer clay itself using common tools and even household items!

Helen is an excellent instructor - and I am not saying that just because she is my friend!  She has many years of experience and like many good teachers explains clearly and succinctly.

This new class covers 6 textures, each of which is demonstrated with many variations - almost 3 dozen in total!

The class assumes you know the basics of polymer clay work. Helen rates the class as advanced beginner.  I reckon if you know how to condition, roll out and cure clay, you are good to go!

The Project Essentials section teaches you how to use your newly made cured polymer clay textures using Helen's fun way of making impressions onto raw clay! She doesn't cover how to add surface color pigments in detail  -  her Mad About Bowls class has better demos for this.


All the textures are easy to do and the potential for all kinds of patterns is there for you to create. Using a wire brush and a circle tool produced this set of textures :


The magic happens when you start adding color to the impressed clay!


The second texture section is all about stamp making.


Helen creates different stamps which can be used alone or in combination. What is striking is how she combines different texture techniques on to the same sheet of clay.  You can see the underlying wire brush texture below :



She also uses carving tools in clever ways to get raised designs :


Who knew common tape would turn out textures looking this good?


One of my favorite parts of her class was how she use tape to create a multi-layered design which can be cut to make a focal, buttons or earrings!

Helen is right when she said that rubber stamps are wonderful but their one limitation is their uniform height. Your textures can be much more complex when you use her way of making organic patterns using a common art paste. 


Some fun use of a palette knife is involved, I might add! Not to mention, very easy to do. 



The final texture technique was my overall favorite.  Helen used real plants - leaves and flowers - to create the texture plates.  Note that she overlaid the plant material on other textures. 


The results are stunning!


The class is truly inspirational - a great jumping off point to take your polymer jewelry and other designs to a new level. Highly recommended.


Giveaway 

If you'd like to win this giveaway for Helen's Six Exceptional Textures class, please make a comment below. Make sure you leave contact info below if you do not have an online shop or blog.

Email subscribers need to scroll down the post they receive, click on Share Comment and enter your comment. Pick Name/URL. If you don't have a store or blog, leave the URL blank.

This giveaway is international.

Extra entries if you become or are a blog subscriber or follower etc. If you also do shout outs about this giveaway, those will count as additional entries too! Please say so in the comments. (The exception is Facebook - just like/comment on the giveaway status there!!)

It ends in a week's time at 6 pm EST Monday, April 8, 2019. I will pick the winner randomly and announce the results as soon as possible after. So be sure to leave a contact email if you don't have an online link or make sure you come back and check! Otherwise I will redraw in a week. Good luck!

Before You Go:

Disclosure
This blog may contain affiliate links. I do receive a small fee for any products purchased through affiliate links. This goes towards the support of this blog and to provide resource information to readers. The opinions expressed are solely my own. They would be the same whether or not I receive any compensation.
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Original Post by THE BEADING GEM
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