Layering Fabrics and Florals

I’m riding the coattails of last week’s theme, layers on simple forms, and segueing into a week with a focus on combining with other materials. I thought this particular idea shown here, using organza as an overlay onto polymer, was a fantastic idea, both for visual and tactile texture. It also could be a great alternative to silk screening or stencils when you are looking for  graphical or well-defined additional imagery for your piece.

The generous artist sharing this little tidbit is Marcia Tzigelnik, a masterful caner that hails from Israel. She wrote up a tutorial for Polymer Clay Central some time back, but I think it’s time to pull it back out and see what more we can do with it these days. It seems to me, from this tutorial, that you could use any kind of sheer fabric, thin lace, tulle, and other fabrics that will allow the layer below to show through. Additionally, using the liquid polymer on top gives you an instant finish to work with.

I might add to her notes that you will want to work with a clean bit of cloth, free of any kind of dirt or debris including lint (try running a piece of masking take over both sides to help). Every little possible floater you have can mar the finish on the liquid polymer. Alternately, if you have a fair amount of experience laying out thin layers of translucent clay, you could use that too. Just be sure to burnish the cloth into the translucent clay and then burnish it onto the raw clay form to eliminate any air pockets.

Take a look at the full tutorial here. You can find more tutorials, and Maria’s beautiful canes, in her Etsy shop.

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