Creative Polymer Clay: Over 30 techniques and projects for contemporary wearable art

by Heidi Helyard

Overview

Discover a world of creative and colourful jewellery making from the comfort of your own home. 

In this comprehensive guide to modern polymer clay techniques, artist and designer Heidi Helyard reveals the simple techniques that can be used to create one-off, contemporary jewellery pieces with minimal tools and equipment. 

Polymer clay is possibly one of the most accessible yet versatile art materials currently available. As readily accessible and easy to use as paint, you can make everything (and anything) with it, from sculptures and figurines, to artworks, decorations, homewares, and wearable jewellery. It’s lightweight, flexible and strong. No special tools or equipment is required to cure it, it is relatively cheap, and you only need to start with the primary colours, plus black and white, to mix any colour you like.  

Polymer clay, which has been around for nearly 80 years, is currently finding itself popular amongst contemporary jewellery makers as the bright colours and sheer versatility of the material allows makers to create bold and graphic modern designs. 


The beauty of polymer clay is that it presents so many opportunities to explore colour combinations, patterns and texture. In this book you will learn 10 easy yet exciting techniques including slab and cane making, marbling and colour mixing, inlay techniques, printing onto clay, surface embellishments and more to create 20 unique jewellery pieces. 

The projects in this book vary in complexity, but are accessible to both novice and advanced makers alike. If you are a beginner, the extensive step-by-step photos and instructions will help you develop your polymer clay skills and complete the projects with confidence. As you build your skills and learn the techniques via the book, you will realise that you can combine techniques to create all-new results. 

The skills you learn in this book will open up a limitless world of further experimentation for you to discover.

Just make, bake and wear!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781446308417
Publisher:	David & Charles
Publication date:	06/08/2021
Series:	Creative , #1
Pages:	144
Sales rank:	642,533
Product dimensions:	8.80(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.20(d)

About the Author

Heidi Helyard is a leader in the popular contemporary polymer clay jewellery movement. She’s a lifelong artist, a graphic designer, and innovator, based near Sydney, NSW Australia. She has a large audience of faithful followers on Instagram, and a wealth of subscribers to her Studio Scraps newsletter, which explores the making process of her popular wearable art pieces. This is her first book.

Preface

Polymer clay is one of the most accessible yet versatile art materials currently on the market. As readily available and easy to use as paint, you can make everything (and anything) with it, from sculptures and figurines, to artworks, decorations, homewares and wearable jewellery. It’s lightweight, flexible and strong. No special tools or equipment are required, it is relatively cheap, and you only need to start with the true primary colours, plus black and white, to mix any shade you desire. Polymer clay, which has been around for nearly 80 years, is currently finding itself popular amongst contemporary jewellery makers, as the bright colours and sheer versatility of the material allows for the creation of bold and graphic modern designs. New polymer clay products, tools and colours are being released all the time, which is exciting for designers like me. I believe that experimentation is important to creativity and it plays a huge part in developing my new collections. It is how ‘happy accidents’ occur, a pathway to unique techniques and aesthetic styles being formed, and at the very least, a lesson in what not to do next time! And polymer clay is a perfect material to experiment with as it’s such a forgivable medium: when you ‘fail’ you can recondition and re-roll and start all again – paint can always be scraped off and the clay salvaged. In this book, I’ll be introducing you to some of my favourite techniques, and following these tutorials are projects that allow you to practically apply these new capabilities. Extensive step-by-step photo instructions will give you confidence to complete the projects and develop your polymer clay skills, even if you are a beginner. Once you’ve tried the techniques and made the projects, I hope that you will be inspired to explore further. Try your own ways of incorporating chalk into clay, for example, or attempt a different way of texturing a mokume gane slab. Combine techniques to create all-new results. Take what you learn and go beyond, to experiment, to play, to push yourself and, above all, to develop your own original work.