Maine designer, Melanie West, has a degree in natural science and has been a naturalist all her life. She is also a gifted artist specializing in polymer clay and mixed media. Her love of nature and science shows in her work. She certainly is an astute observer of the varied forms, colors and patterns found in nature. 

Her primary medium is polymer clay. And luckily for us, she also instructs in this artistic medium.  Shown here are her polymer clay tutorials on CorvusFiles. 

The cephalopod's eye cane tutorial shown above is inspired by the eyes of the likes of octopuses, squids and cuttlefish.  She offers this tutorial in two parts where the first is suitable for beginners and the second is better for more experienced polymer clay artists who can skip part 1.  Do read Melanie's explanations of what skill or knowledge level for any of her multi-part tutorials, to see which is suitable for you. 

The skinner blend technique is a quick way of making blended color mixtures. You can see the basic tutorial on how to do so here. But Melanie takes it up a notch with her spotted and striped skinner blend tutorials!

Her bangle tutorials are also particularly striking. 

You can see more of Melanie's work on her website, ravensclay. 










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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