More About Mixing Polymer Clay Colors with a Summer Sunflower Theme

Understanding how to mix Primo / Fimo / Sculpey colors so they flow together, is a big part of creating great polymer clay beads and jewelry!

In today's post I'm going to talk about choosing clay colors for creating palettes, as well as how to get them to 'play nice' together and not clash or fight with each other.

The other day I posted a picture of a Sunflower as inspiration for creating a series of polymer clay color recipes. By looking at the photo I determined that yellow green and blue were the basic colors of the palette.

I then looked at the packages of Premo clay to decide on which colors were the basis of my palette. For example, there are two yellows that Premo makes: Cadmium Yellow and Zinc Yellow, Cad Yellow being a warm rich yellow and Zinc Yellow being bright and sunny. I decided on the Zinc because it looks closer to the color in the photo, and then added some translucent clay to it for transparency to create a color I called Sunflower Petal (Bright). Easy.

Next decision was choosing the right blue. Ultra Marine Blue looked like the right tone but was too dark. So I added equal parts of White and then some translucent to make it look more like the sky. I was still feeling the color was missing something so a tiny amount (1/8th part) of Cobalt Blue was added and it started to head in the right direction. I kept adding 1/8th parts until it looked right, ending up at 1/2 part.

To get the greens was more difficult. Starting with the green that most represented the leaves, I chose Sea Green as the base. To brighten it up and tie it in with the yellow, Zinc Yellow was added to the green. If you notice in the recipe, there is double the amount of yellow to green. Yellow is a much weaker pigment than the green is and therefore you will need a lot more of it.

It is a good idea to start with yellow and add the other color to it so you don't end up with way too much clay for your project.

After looking at the yellow, blue and green together, there needed to be a little more depth to the palette. Some darker shades were in order.

To mimic the darker inside petals I decided to darken up the Sunflower Petal (Bright), with a little Alizarin Crimson. Alizarin Crimson is a highly pigmented color so only a little was added at a time.

To darken the Sunflower Leaf color, some Ultra Marine from the Sky color was added. As well as, a touch of Alizarin Crimson from the Dark Petal color. Having a touch of all the colors in the palette ties all the colors together, making them flow.

If you notice I didn't just add White to make the colors lighter and Black to make them darker. That would have left the color palette looking flat and boring.

Adding touches of the other colors in the palette instead, brings life to the colors and a cohesiveness similar to what you see in nature. Ever noticed how all the colors in the garden seem to go together, though technically they shouldn't? For example, you often see purples, oranges, reds, pinks, yellows, greens and blues all co-mixed in a flower bed. And they all look great without any clashing.

So I'm hoping by taking you step-by-step through these color series, that mixing polymer clay colors will become more instinctual for you. That you will begin to see the base colors, and what other colors could be added to get the color you want. Go now and look carefully at those polymer clay color recipes again and learn from them. See if you can start mixing your own Summer color palette!