Polymer Clay Color Recipes | Viburnum Palette [Premo]

1A: Viburnum Berries
2A: Vermilion
3A: Viburnum Leaf
4A:Raked Leaves

I don’t know what the weather is like in your area right now, but around these parts (Vancouver, Canada), it is starting to feel a lot like Fall. It’s even starting to look a little like Fall too!

The air is cooler, the days are beginning later and ending earlier. And the plant life is starting to show hints of Autumn color. We are by no means in the thick of the Fall season just yet, since it is only August and technically still Summer. But there are whispers that it’s just around the corner.

Of course if you’ve been in a Costco store lately, you’d swear it was already Halloween and Christmas, but they tend to push the holidays ahead by a few months! LOL

Any who… over the Summer my daughter Willow and I have been getting up fairly early and going for a brisk walks on weekday mornings. She wanted to be able to sleep in sometimes, so we took the weekends off.

I used to walk the kids to school everyday. But now that Willow goes with her friends, and Fisher attends a school that is further away, I have been missing that part of my daily routine (so did my waistline).

Sitting at the dinner table lamenting about how out of shape I was, and how much I missed walking in the fresh morning air, Willow piped up and said she’d walk with me. I know… not your average teenager! So I jumped at the chance!

On these daily walks, we have been getting to know our neighborhood (and each other) much better. We quietly walk along, admiring the houses and gardens and discussed what would be nice to do with our place. On one of the walks, we decided to go through the park area by City Hall. Doug used to ride bikes with the kids there, when they were little, but I had not really explored it myself.

Well, it is gorgeous!! There are more plants and flowers than I ever imagined. It was an overload of colors and inspiration. I couldn’t believe this creative treasure trove was less than a mile from our house. Willow was going crazy that she didn’t have a camera with her, and I was seeing bead shapes and color recipes at every turn. Right then and there we knew we had a place to come back to over and over for creative inspiration.

The next day we went back and spent 2 hours taking pictures. In fact today’s photo is just one of hundreds of photos, Willow took that day. We made a plan to go back there every week or two, to catch the different flowers and foliage at various stages, so that we would never run out of inspiring photos for you all.

This gorgeous Viburnum Bush with its fading blossoms and its emerging berries is just the first of many nature photos that will be coming from that park. I hope you’re prepared for all its glory! Enjoy!

The following recipes for this Vol-040 A-series color palette will be added to the Polymer Clay Members Library in September 2011:

• Viburnum Berries (Recipe 040-1A)
• Vermilion (Recipe 040-2A)
• Viburnum Leaf (Recipe 040-3A)
• Raked Leaves (Recipe 040-4A)

Viburnum Berries is the soft and dusty Coral Pink found in the highlights of the fleshy berries of the Viburnum Bush. Vermilion represents the Deep Red undertones found along the bottom edges and belly of the berries. Viburnum Leaf is the pale Dusty Green of the plants leaves as the color starts to drain away and return to the soil for the Winter. Raked Leaves is the dried Olive Green of the crumpled leaves on the ground, as they fall away from soon to be dormant Viburnum Bush.

Beautiful palette Cindy and so relaxing. Thanks so much for the many palettes, you make it so vivid with the descriptions and stories. ~Cherie-H

Cindy. ioining your ‘club’ is the best thing I ever did, I used to mess around with Polymer Clay some years ago, but always had problems and gradually lost incentive. In particular, I have no colour sense, so, having your fabulous colour cards every week is just a dream. I actually read on a beading artist’s blog that she got angry with people wanting to know exactly what colours she’d used and wondered why they didn’t just try for themselves. Well, I could tell her why! Whenever I tried I just got grimaces from people. I think it’s necessary to have someone to get you started and give you a few designs / patterns to practice to gain confidence, so you can then ‘paint outside the lines’ without worrying about how it will turn out. So, thank you again dear tutor, I hope you’ll be around forever! ~Marion-R

I LOVE receipes….because I can’t really make up colours in my head yet. I am very new to polymer clay!! And frankly don’t want to waste my money on making ugly colours!! So it is nice to have that work done for me… gives me more time to play. ~Kam-K

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