Fun Challenge For You:
Linda Knight, a valued member of the community here, sent me a photo the other day with a request for information. She phrased her question in the form of a challenge, which got me to thinking. Why not turn this into a fun and interactive learning experience, where you guys get to come up with some ideas for Linda to try out. She agreed.
Here’s Linda’s Original Email:
OK – I am a NEWBIE for sure to polymer clay beading. I’ve been beading for a couple of years. My friends call me a technique junkie – but I love learning new things. I’m just trying to figure it all out – your tutorials are truly the best and so clear and easy to understand.
I have a challenge for you – I was at a bead show last weekend when I visited friends in Texas. I bought several beads like the one pictured in the photo above – they called to me. Then I realized, I bet I could make matching beads to go with them with polymer clay. What do you think?
They are about 1 and 1/4″ square.
Thanks again – love your tutorials!
~Linda Knight
So what do you think guys? Let’s give Linda some creative feedback about which polymer clay techniques could work to create some beads that will compliment the one in the photo above.
** Please note the bead pictured above was purchased by Linda and she is simply looking for input on how to create complimentary beads using polymer clay. It should go without saying that outright copying of exclusive designs is not going to win you too many friends in any artist community. Be unique. Be creative. Be respectful. The possibilities are truly limitless when it comes to developing your own personal style. ‘Nuf said :-)
Wow they’re nice aren’t they – looks like they’ve been layered with different coloured sheets of clay, then cut and stacked then cut and stacked again and then possibly sliced to cover a form – but hey what do I know? Lol!
Another idea has just come to me as I was reading back -thin strings of different colours using an extruder which are laid onto a backing sheet, that is then rolled in the pasta machine and cut into squares or whatever to make the bead?
When I first looked at the bead, I was excited to find out how it was made. LOL. Then I read on and the first thought that came to my mind was lentil beads with similar colors. Please post a picture when it is completed. I cannot wait to see what everyone comes up with.
I would suggest using your graffiti beads, not too many colors since the focal bead is “lively” to start with choose one or two colors from the bead,(most likely choices are the colors that appear least in the bead)then use one color choice in a bead with black and white or black and silver/gold. the black should make the colors in the focal bead stand out. IMO
Beautiful beads. I think some graffiti beads or using a rubber stamp technique the Beta Fish pallet would be a nice compliment. I suggest making a focal pendant that is slightly rectangular and round the edges so it is similar to the beads you bought. You could also do Mokume Gane in the same color palette.
If you are going to do anything with stripes go large with the stripes. i think small stripes would compete too much with the beads you bought.
For other, I made some beads that looked similar in the past using a braided cane technique. I will try and find a picture and directions.
Complimentary beads right? Well 1 and 1/4″ is a fairly big bead so perhaps smaller beads made out of the mod cane using a similar palette of colors. The ordered lines of the cane should contrast nicely with the irregular stripes. Or perhaps I pretty little flower cane made from a few of the colors made into pillow beads. For some reason I want to stick with the squarish shape but match that fabulous bead with is gorgeous colors with something of concrete form and design.
I tend to like to put solid colors with something like this so I would just try to match some of the stripe colors and make a few solid colored beads. I think the graffit idea is cool though too. Maybe also pull the colors from your bead and make some wild ones using the same color palate but make some (heck, I don’t know what they are called) beads with varied spots on them. You know, the kind where you take a base bead and cover it with little circles of various colors from a little snake.
I’d be boring and pair these with black beads so they really stood out.
Here’s how I’d make something similar – take small pieces of your chosen colours and gather them together on your work surface so they stick together to form a thick “sheet”. Then roll until it will fit in the pasta machine.
Roll at the thickest setting, cut in half and stack the sheets on top of each other. Roll again.
Keep stacking and rolling a couple more times. When you cut the clay you’ll see that the cut edges have thin stripes in them – it’s these edges that you’ll use for the pattern (NOT the “face” of the clay).
Once you’re happy with the thickness of the stripes, stop rolling. Cut and stack (without going through the pasta machine again) a few times to make a block. You can then cut slices of the stripy cane and add them to whatever you like.
Hope that made sense!
I tend to agree with Laurel in putting solid color beads with these, using several of the colors in the beads you bought. It really has pretty colors in it.
I go for solid colors, too. Black would be stunning, but you could also make solid beads in a variety of sizes matching colors from the purchased beads. String together with some metal or glass beads (clear, colored or black??) as spacers. When you get it done, it would be great for you to post it so we can all see what you decided to do!
That is one spectacular focal bead. Sure like to see a tutorial as to how that one was made, it’s beautiful.
Complementary colors make things pop, so with that primarily red bead, some calmer green tones would go well. Similar tiles done in maybe a mostly granite or stone looking green clay, perhaps textured in a subtle way. Maybe a moss agate style that’s mostly moss, lol.
Being a Beader and Clayer myself. I would use Linda’s bead as my focal bead and make some Green Jade and Rose Jade beads and some high gloss black beads. The black beads in two sizes. One the same size as my green and rose Jade beads. The other slightly large. In most of the magazines today you see the necklaces with the focal beads off center. So I would have Linda’s bead off center and string my slightly large black beads and my focal bead on one side and the other make it three strands with the other Black beads, Green Jade and Rose Jade beads on the other side. For the earrings and bracelet I would use my polymer clay Faux jade and black beads.
I’ll admit upfront that I am more of a polymer clay artist than a beader. It does make a difference in how you look at things, I’ve found. I would use the focal bead as my color inspiration, pulling colors from the stripes, then make marbeled beads in two or three color variations. For instance, I’m seeing a fair amount of a gray-toned green and a fair amount of orange in dark to light shades. I would marble several shades of green, including as close a match as I could get to the gray-toned green, then roll my beads. I would do the same with the orange colors. I’m not sure whether I’m seeing navy blue or black in there but you could also use a marbled variation of whichever one it is. This would give you 3 color choices to alternate/combine with glass beads and spacers to finish the piece.
To me this bead was made using the Mokume Gane Technique. Personally, I would use faux turquoise beads, very chunky with end caps made from silver foil and as close to the original bead as possible. That way you would have enough beads to also make a bracelet and earrings.
This bead looks a lot like Rainbow Calsilica that I have seen on some bead store websites. It is also shown in beads with many more blue colors. Calsilica may be a manmade stone such as goldstone. There is some controversy about this. One store has calsilica in black and white so I am leaning toward probably manmade. Anyway it is a beautiful bead with lovely colors. Anyone looking for a bead like this should do a search on Google for Calsilica.
Personally, I like the idea of using a few colors and marbeling them for tube or round beads with silver or gold accents.
WOW – Lots of great suggestions – guess I’d better get ‘playing’! The bead was one of a strand that I saw at a bead show, it reminded me so much of clay, I just had to get it! Thanks so much for all of your input! I’ll see what I can come up with!
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Hi Linda, Wasn’t that fun to read all those great suggestions?!
It is such a cool looking material, man made or not. On Bette’s advice I read a little about Rainbow Calsilica and it definitely is unclear whether or not it is real or fake. But looking at the photos (which you’re right Bette it does appear to be the same as Linda’s bead), it sure is a gorgeous looking bead!
Since it is clearly not a polymer clay bead, I would feel very comfortable trying to imitate it. It is always a fun challenge to recreate something out of a completely different material.
One technique I thought of when I first saw this bead and was surprised no one else mentioned it, was the Jupiter bead.
A bead like yours Linda could be made using the same colors of clay, using a smaller die to get the finer stripes. I would try to include crumbly clay in the colors of the speckles in the stone. And rather than making a tight spiral at the ends of round beads, I would make long rectangular wraps on a square flatter shaped bead.
You would need to sand quite a bit to expose the colors underneath and get a more striped look, but man it could be really stunning!
I’d love to see what you come up with Linda. Do share your story when you attempt this. It would be fun to hear how it goes!
Thanks for sending in the photo. From the look of all these fantastic comments, people really enjoyed coming up with ideas for you.
Thank you everyone!
Donna Kato’s new book has a cane called starry night, as mentioned above pick a color that is within your bead and some of the other colors that pop out to you and make your starry night cane, then you can use that to make your beads to compliment your focal bead. The starry night beads when sanded and polished would look beautiful together with the focal bead.(THE ART OF POLYMER CLAY Millefiori Techniques) by Donna Kato
Well Lynn, great minds at work here. My first thought when I saw the pendant was Donna Kato’s Starry Night cane would be the perfect technique to use to match this pendant. As Lynn said it’s in Donna’s latest book “The Art of Polymer Clay Millefiori Techniques”
Pat:c)
I’ll bet that you could duplicate this bead and get near perfect matches…..
Use the same colors in your polymer clay, and roll different sizes of “snakes” of each color. Make a pile of your snakes and start twisting until you get close to the width of the stripes on your focal bead. Then roll it on a thick setting on your pasta machine to get a little bit of blending. Very little. That is if you even wanted a flat sheet. Your could get close just using the marbling.
You could use a round template cutter to get even size cut outs for flat beads….or roll them “very…carefully” so as to avoid distortion.
B.T.W. If you get too much marbling, or too much blending, set aside half of your mixture for experiments.
Just my penny…..
Linda, did you decide? Could you share a pic? Would love to see how you decided to use that delicious focal bead!
Sorry – haven’t had a chance to work on anything…we are doing some home improvements… never watch HGTV with your husband!
I recently began putting my rolled flat leftover clays on top of eachother then rolling it out into a cane
then cut it into 4 segments then rolled those together and they turned out to look much like this when i did some beads.
also I twisted the cane
then halved it then cut out my beads then rolled the sharp edges rounded..
they looked much like this bead…
which seems to have a lot of red and some metallic?
Great ideas everyone!
@Debi: That could work. Especially if you put the right colors together.
@Linda: Welcome! It is nice to see you comment here. You have a good way of duplicating this bead too! Isn’t it funny how there are so many different ways to make the same thing? In situations like this, my Dad would say, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat!” My goodness I hope he was talking metaphorically! :-)
Do you think clay beads would be a good craft for kids? I’ve had them making paper beads for a long time, but they might be ready to move on to something a bit more challenging like this!
@Savannah S: Polymer clay is perfect for kids! In fact it was originally just used by kids until us artists got a hold of it. My kids love working with it. If you click the link by my name, you will see a project my daughter made with polymer clay and an article about teaching kids how to work with polymer clay. You can also use the search box at the top of the page to find out more about kids and polymer clay. There are many members here who watch the videos with their kids and grandkids, so they can learn right along side them. It is such a fun thing for them to do!