{"id":4836,"date":"2009-07-17T03:05:36","date_gmt":"2009-07-17T10:05:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/?p=4836"},"modified":"2009-07-16T18:52:48","modified_gmt":"2009-07-17T01:52:48","slug":"managing-color-contrast-in-your-polymer-clay-cane-designs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/managing-color-contrast-in-your-polymer-clay-cane-designs\/4836\/","title":{"rendered":"Managing Color Contrast In Your Polymer Clay Cane Designs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Polymer<\/p>\n

“The Colors Looked Fine When I Started… But then they Reduced Down to This!”
\n<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

A big mistake many people make when learning about polymer clay canes, is not using colors with enough contrast. Today’s photo shows one of my early canes<\/span> that illustrates this point very well. It was supposed to be used as a petal in a larger sunflower shape. But when reduced, the two colors blended together visually, to almost become one. Not the desired effect I was going for.<\/span><\/p>\n

Has this ever happened to you? You take two lovely colors that look good together and plan them into your cane design. You want your cane to be natural looking, and not garish, so you pick shades that are equal in tone. They seem to be different enough to create interest, but once they are next to each other and reduced in size, they merge into one color and the pattern disappears.<\/span><\/p>\n

It can be very disappointing for a beginner to go to all the work of creating a polymer clay cane, only to have the design fade away into an uninteresting image.<\/span><\/p>\n

This need for contrast in colors in your polymer clay canes, is especially important if you are reducing your designs to be used for Fimo Nail Art<\/a> applications. This is where the pattern becomes tiny enough to place slices of the cane onto your fingernails as decorative elements.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you look at these tiny nail art canes<\/a>, you’ll see that even though they are only a 1\/4 inch across, and the designs are fairly detailed, you can still see the cane images very clearly. This is because of contrast.<\/span><\/p>\n

Black and white are obvious choices for high contrast, but other colors can work well too. The trick is to be more extreme with your initial color shades than you would think is necessary. In other words, if your colors seem to look fine together during the initial planning stages, that is when you need to lighten your light colors by 2 or 3 more shades.<\/span><\/p>\n

In my sunflower petal cane above, I could have added white or Ecru to my light yellow to give it more contrast.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since colors tends to darken and concentrate as they are reduced, I feel it’s easier to “manage” contrast by lightening your lights as opposed to darkening the darks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another method for managing contrast is to shift the hue. With my sunflower petal cane, I could have added more red to the darker shade to make it less yellow, and therefore give more contrast to the yellow. But still maintain that orangey feel.<\/span><\/p>\n

So if you ever end up in a situation where your cane colors don’t seem to be reducing properly, remember that contrast is key.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you have questions about this article or any other polymer clay cane making topic, I’m here to help. Use the comment section below.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Cindy\"Polymer<\/p>\n

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