Dark Matter - Marilyn's MG Tech again - Polymer Clay

I was so hopeful...after all, I'd never had a bad batch at this technique. BUT, I am not fond of my latest attempt at Marilyn Ray Knopic's Mokume Gane technique.. It looks promising in the photo below, doesn't it? I used some new Alcohol inks I hadn't seen before, Indigo, Mermaid and Teakwood. The reds are mostly from a try at making my own AI, using an alcohol ink marker in 91% alcohol...it's very bright but I like it!

 Here they are, pre-baking. Looks good so far, right?

Pre-baked still. Had high hopes for the one on the right.

These are baked. These are the "uggs". :D They are just SO DARK. I HATE the Teakwood! The indigo ink was waaaay too dark, although I tried to lighten it with some straight 91% alcohol...The one on the right above is the one about 4th from the top below. EW. See what the Teakwood did to it? EW. I think some of them could possibly be salvaged by using some Magic Glos but I may not even bother...

These are the ones that are salvageable. Not finished yet. A note: I used Kato clay on these, I hit a good sale at Hobby Lobby, 30% off all clays, so I got a few big blocks of translucent, white and black. The Kato is shiny while raw! And even before sanding the clay had a shine! Not sure if you can tell in the photo...I am going to use Kato exclusively, I think! I liked the way it rolled out and how it cut...it's a little stiffer than other clays but well worth it. I have a new system for softening tough clays, btw. I keep them wrapped up and place them on a brick, and beat them with my clay roller till they behave! :D It WORKS....Much easier to condition after that! You just have to show it WHO IS THE BOSS....lol.

Here's a closeup of a few that I resined. The bottom one is one of the uggs that I mistakenly wasted resin on. Still not TOO awful buuut...still an UGG. :D HATE that Teakwood with this technique...You can see that bright homemade red I was talking about. There's some Wild Plum in there too. I just wish I had used something besides that teak color! It would have been nice beneath the translucent, not like THAT color looks. :P Ew, ick!  The indigo in the one on the left isn't too bad, but it's probably where I attempted to lighten it with additional alcohol. Sorry for all the whining...

Now, these are still not the best but they'll pass. Was trying to show the shine these got once I buffed them. Sanded with 220 and then 2500, then buffed with my rotary tool. LOVE the Kato for the shine it gets! As I stated above, it almost comes out of the oven shiny...These two are front and back.

To make these hollow beads, you need two different sized (but close in size) cutters. To make the bottom of it, you cut out your clay sheet with the smaller of your two cutters and place it with the side you want to see in the finished bead face down on your claying surface...I used a sheet of copy paper. Then cut your top piece with the larger cutter, and lay the resulting circle (prettiest side down) on top of the BACK dull side of the smaller cutter, so that it lines up evenly with the edge of the smaller cutter and droops into it a bit. (You can make your dome higher by using a smaller circle cutter, but it may be harder to line up the larger cutout on the smaller ones). Make sure it's stuck to the sides of the cutter well, but not TOO well, and flip it over, centering it on top of the pre-cut bottom piece. and press gently to seal them together, capturing air between them. I then flip the smaller cutter over and cut the resulting domed circle out to neaten everything and make the seal better. Then I used a tiny circle cutter to cut out the hole in the center for a donut. The bottom of the one on the right caved in a little. I may have trapped air under it when I went to bake it, not sure. But you can see how shiny they got with minimal sanding. I noticed the other ones I domed like this shined better than the others, as well...

My technique with these stacks is to cut thin slices off the MG clump and place them on other sheets of clay. I decided to try a twist on Marilyn's technique by not using any black or white clay, just the trans. Interesting effect! Below is the raw stack. I used them on the back of the sheets I covered with the other dark stack. I guess I should've taken a photo after I started cutting into it, because this doesn't show much! See how pretty that blue is, though? That is the indigo! Not sure if I had lightened it with alcohol or not....The Indigo kept reminding me of when I washed my husband's pants with a pen in the pocket...that is the EXACT same shade of blue. XD

So, these are the backs of the previous pendants I've shown in this post. I like the effect, it reminds me of watercolor or something. Keep in mind these have NOT been finished. You see the foil much more with this method. Some of them are also very dark but the translucency kept it from offending me as much as the other beads do. :D

I am probably going to use the uggs by making a new clay stack and covering the baked pendants I don't like with it. Never any waste with polymer clay! Thanks for looking - make sure to stop by my Pinterest page to see a lot more of my creations, and please like my Facebook page, Karmic Confetti!