Video #427: If measuring color parts and fractions is confusing for you, this lesson will help.
Topics Covered In This Video:
- If you have been a member of the Polymer Clay Tutor for any time, then you will know that I mix up color mixing recipes based on photographs. To date, I have made about 65 color palettes, each with 4 colors per palette. That comes to more than 520 individual color recipes. Wow… that’s a lot of colors!
- Each month I create two new color palettes… an A-Series and a B-Series. The A-Series palettes go to paid members only, and the B-Series are available to everyone who subscribes to my free Guest List Newsletter.
- If you are not currently getting the free recipe cards each week, you can sign up here: Polymer Clay Tutor Color Recipes
- In this video, I show the recipe cards in a palette and how to mix up one of the recipes.
- Using a pasta machine and a square cookie cutter will make the mixing much easier. I didn’t mention it in the video, but once you have mixed your recipe, it is a good idea to bake a small circle of the clay, and glue that sample onto your recipe card for future reference.
Question of the Day:
Are you signed up to my free weekly newsletter yet (the Guest List)? Signing up for this email subscription will allow to collect new color recipe cards every week.
By the way, if you have a polymer clay question or challenge you’d like me to address in an upcoming video vlog, do post it in the comments below. I’d love to help you find quicker and easier ways to bring up the professionalism in your polymer clay art.
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Also, by subscribing to our YouTube Channel directly, you will receive notifications as soon as new videos are uploaded. To subscribe, click here… How To Mix Polymer Clay Color Recipes. The Subscribe Button is right near the top of that YouTube page.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
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I love those colour recipies. Thank you !
Cindy, you have made color receipes so easy to mix and use. Thanks for all the great colors you have put together over the years.
Without watching this tutorial, I would have normally made by ‘parts’ by cutting a box and then dividing it into equal (?) squares but without a ruler, it would not possibly have been as exact as going from corner to corner. Saw that hint and went “duh!”. Thank you again. marilyn
Thanks a million for the color recipes. Without them, I would be experimenting myself more colors All day long. Your recipes help to know what the color looks like an ease my curiosity. :D
Thank you girls!
Hi, I am a newsletter guest and was wondering if you had a certain website that has all the B colour recipes as I have not been financial enough to purchase the members section and I would love to get some ideas from the B section.Thankyou Karenlee…
Hi Karen
Nice to hear from you. At this time, the complimentary B-recipes are only available to those who remain subscribed to our weekly email newsletter.
And please note that the links for the B-recipes do expire two or three weeks after they are posted in each of the newsletters… so you must download the cards to your computer when the emails arrive in your inbox each Friday.
Also note that the B-recipes cycle through the newsletter twice. This gives you a second chance to collect ones that you may have missed on the first go round.
All the best.
Thankyou for your reply Cindy..unfortunately,I did not know that the only way of getting them was through email and I have deleted my emails (newsletters) so I must not have read them properly,anyway thankyou so much for taking the time to reply. Kindest Regards..
Hi everyone,
loooove those recipes.
if i want to make my life simpler (certainly if there are a lot of fractions), i recalculate the recipe so that i only have whole numbers and no more fractions anymore. For instance, if the smallest fraction is 1/8, i multiply everything by 8, if 1/16 everything by 16. This may give me large numbers, but afterward, all ineed to do is count the parts going into the mixture.
And depending on the project, i decide on the cutter-size. All i need to do know is count and no more dividing. That way i can also use a very small cutter. And much easier on my brain since i tend to do the color-mixing late at night. So relaxing.
hope this helps
greetz,
Elke
Thank you thank you thank you for all of your knowledge. I just spent the last three hours watching your videos and filling up a notebook. Many more hours of watching left.
Just found you on Youtube – just getting into polymer clay – love your colour mixing tips and have joined your mailing list. Many many thanks, and I look forward to receiving some of your free colour mixes – thanks again.
Ann
Hi Cindy, could you please tell me if there is any difference (other than brand of course), between Premo Orange 5033 and Sculpy III Just Orange color-wise and if I can substitute the Sculpey color and still end up with the color recipes you have for Chevy Bel Air Palette?
Also, if I don’t have Cadmium Red can I sub another red like Pomegranate?
Hi Christine, that is a very good question! Actually when it comes to mixing exact colors in a color recipe, you can not substitute any other color no matter the brand and expect to get the same result. You might get a very similar color, but never the same.
This is because of the formulations of the colors are never identical, even if they look the same, especially from brand to brand. One brand might use a more saturated formula, or use different pigments to arrive at a similar color.
Color recipes are similar to cooking recipes that way. You might use two different brands of Paprika and end up with a similar but different flavor or one that doesn’t work at all.
So what I’m saying is that if you try and substitute any of the colors in one of my color recipes, you most likely will not get the result you expect.
This very problem happened to one of our long time members a while back. She ran out of Zinc Yellow and replaced it with Cadmium Yellow, thinking Yellow is Yellow and it wouldn’t make much difference at all. But the two Yellows have very different properties and instead of getting a nice green color that the recipe made, she ended up getting a odd taupe color.
If you are not picky about getting the identical colors to mine in this palette, you could test out the other Orange and see how it turns out… but I can’t guarantee you’ll get a nice color from it… but I can guarantee it won’t be a perfect match! :)
Hello again Cindy,
It has taken me a week to figure out how to ask this question. There is polymer (Premo). There is polymer translucent clay, and colored translucent clay. What are the measuring parts amounts when working with regular clay, translucent clay, white translucent clay, or color translucent clay. I can figure out that the more translucent clay you use the (lighter) it would get but what about the measurement amounts (I did accounting before so numbers are important). What if you use a colored translucent do you still use the same regular color ? I hope this makes since to you.
Sandy Dellinges
Hi Sandy, I really don’t understand your question. Are you trying to replace a translucent clay for a solid clay in a recipe or something?
Hi Cindy,
Just popped in here to say I am still around but recovering from op so am staying at my daughter’s house in France. Will be back home in the UK in July, so will look forward to catching up with you all. …….cheers xx………
Nice to hear from you Elaine! Sorry that you have had to have some surgery. Hopefully it has made you feel better and that you are on the mend. Have a lovely time and a quick recovery in France. We’ll be here when you get back! Hugs and Kisses to you across the pond!
Hi again Cindy, I watched your PcT on how to mix colors, it was good but my question is more to do with translucent clay and colored translucent clay mixing them together with regular clay. Using just clay and measuring it I understand from your receive cards, it is when you want to make a pickle or tomato color (like green in a pickle) I have seen people say use translucent clay with green what would be the amount of regular green and add how much translucent green or just plain translucent. The question is more about amounts you need of translucent clay be it plain translucent or white translucent (in this case maybe green translucent). Is there some type of recipe like you use to get a translucent color. I am just guessing but I would start with 1 part green, 3 parts plain translucent. Then the next question is green translucent what would you use that for. It could be very costly even using the tiny square, to figure out how to get a green translucent for a pickle or tomato recipe. I hope this makes since. It would be a very interesting class for students to understand your recipe cards which are perfect. This is something I have been trying to figure out.
Thank you so much for your PcT videos on you tube.
Hi Sandy, I understand better now. I know that you are an accountant and that you would prefer to have exact measurements, but I’m afraid that would be a little tricky. It is a little like asking an water color artist, the exact amount of water to add to white to get the perfect cloud…. the answer is, “well that depends.”
If I was teaching you how to make a pickle, I would give you the recipe I used to get a pickle that looked like mine. But every pickle could be a little different, and you may need to experiment until you arrive at the perfect pickle recipe for you.
I would start with the translucent clay first though and then add teeny tiny amounts of color till you get close to what you think you want. Then bake up a little sample of the color and see how it looks. Does it need more color? Or is the color too opaque and needs more translucent?
Your starting point of 1 part color and 2 parts Trans might be a little opaque for what you’re trying to get. Something more along the lines of 1 part color and 10 or 20 parts Trans could be closer, but like I said, you’ll need to play with that.
If I ever have a tutorial that includes miniature fruits and vegetables, I promise I’ll give you something more precise than that.
Have fun! Let us know if you figure it out…
Hi Cindy,
Thank you so much for the information. I will give it a try and see what happens, I will look for you pickle recipe. I have already joined your newsletter, I now have to remember how to be a paid member. Here in California we have been having a heat wave and it just fries your brain, and of course my computer is in the hottest room in my house.
I some how found the place in Brazil to buy the cutter blade but it did not recognize a Calif. Zip code???
I will keep trying. I am always the one who will get cut.
Buy for now.
Sandy Dellinges
Cindy,
I have been downloading the B series colors for the last 6 months or so and have recently joined the polymer clay tutor classes so will start getting the A series too. I have the pictures downloaded to my computer, but when I try printing them out it comes out wonky. How do you recommend printing the recipe cards and how do you recommend storing and organizing them so they are actually a usable tool in our polymer clay activities.
Thanks for the great tutorials.
Beth Sullivan
Hi Beth we are currently working on a new format for the color recipes that will be much more printer friendly. I would just store them on your computer and wait until the new ones are ready before going to the effort of printing these old ones out.
I would love it if you would provide a way to print 4 blank recipe cards on a sheet of letter size paper. I love to mix my own recipes and could then just fill in the blanks.
Hi Eloise – In several other posts we’ve provided a link that allows you to download a blank recipe card. Using your Word or Paint program, you can then arrange four of the individual recipe cards onto a single page and print them out.