This week I’ve been playing with not just one but two polymer clay Yorkshire rose experiments. They’re not finished yet, but with a bit more work I should be happy with them.
I haven’t done any polymer clay work for aaaaaages due to a series of illnesses and general disasters, but I’ve always been thinking about it. I think my last tutorial was in 2019. By January 2024 my health and circumstances had improved, so I rejoined both the BPCG (British Polymer Clay Guild) and the IPCA (International Polymer Clay Association) – but still didn’t start doing any more polyclay work.
Then last week I went to the 20Books conference in Sevilla, Spain, and met Angie Scarr. I’m amazed that I’ve never met her before, considering we’ve both been teaching and writing about polymer clay and other crafts for over 30 years. I’d seen she was going to the same conference as me, though, so I took my copy of her classic book Miniature Food Masterclass with me, to see if I could ask her to sign it. She did!
Since that book was originally published (?2009), Angie has been independently publishing her own series of books, so on the plane back from Spain I started catching up on some of her more recent titles, like The Miniature Gardens Book.
Experiments with Yorkshire Roses
That finally tipped me over the edge, back into exploring polymer clay again. When I got home I took out my polymer clay and started work on some new designs. This was the start of a cane:
…which I then sliced into five pieces.
I inserted some leaves between the petals:
Then I added a blue background so I could reduce the cane more easily.
These were the results:
OK, the design’s a bit ‘clunky’, but I don’t think that’s bad for my first attempt at a new cane design in maybe five years! I still need to make some of the lines thicker or thinner, and maybe I’ll add some leaves between the inner petals as well. But within another couple of sessions I’ll hopefully end up with a design that’s closer to the one in my head.
Then I tried to make a more sculpted version of a Yorkshire rose, rather than another cane design.
This was the middle section. I thought it looked OK as a first attempt, but at 2.5ish cm (1ish inch) it was already a bit big because I wanted to use the design as an earring. (Keen-eyed Yorkshire people may think that this one is upside down – but remember it’s the middle section, not the outer petals!)
So again I will need to go back and do a bit of tinkering with the design, but I’ve got some ideas up my sleeve that I think will fix it nicely. Once I’ve improved the design for the polymer clay Yorkshire rose, I’ll turn it into a how-to tutorial. (If I haven’t put a link to it at the bottom of this post by April 2024, please remind me by leaving a comment!)
Read Angie Scarr’s books!
In the meantime, check out Angie Scarr’s website for an updated list of all her book titles. I’ve just signed up as an Amazon Associate this week so I’ve also put some affiliate links below (meaning that if you click and order them then I should receive a few pence but there’s no extra cost to you) – but seriously, you should check out Angie’s website instead.
Angie Scarr’s Colour Book: Nature’s Colours for Polymer Clay
At the time of writing this (March 2024) many of her books are in Kindle Unlimited, so if you’re already a member of Amazon KU you can already read them as part of your membership. If you’re not already a member then KU often has a free trial for new users, so you might be able to read those titles for £0.00! (with Angie still getting paid, depending on the number of pages you’ve read.) But if you’re anything like me you’ll probably want to go ahead and buy the physical books as well. They are proper artistic reference books, and I regard the ebook versions as a ‘sneak preview’.
It was strange coming back to polymer clay after so long. My fingers remembered how to do everything, so the only brainwork I had to do was to come up with the actual designs and the processes for creating them. After that, I just relaxed and got into the ‘zone’.