POLYMER BASICS

Polymer is a man-made modeling material that remains soft and malleable until it is cured. As evidenced in this book, it is a versatile art medium; it can be sculpted, carved, caned, molded, and so much more. Polymer is readily available in art supply stores and through catalog and Internet outlets. Each brand has different working characteristics, baking temperatures, and is produced in a wide range of colors that can be mixed to create your own custom palette. The brands of polymer featured in this book are those favored by the individual artists, but should your favorite be different, the techniques will turn out just as well; we advise you to experiment with all the brands.

Conditioning

Polymer must be conditioned before you can work with it. Conditioning it ensures that the ingredients are distributed evenly throughout and the end result is strong when cured. To condition polymer, slice the block into sections, and then twist each section with your hands; or if the brand is particularly stiff, use a pasta machine to roll and flatten each slice on sequentially thinner settings; then fold and roll some more until the polymer is soft and pliable. Take care to not trap air in the polymer; this can occur if it is too soft and sticky or if you don’t roll it through the pasta machine with the fold side against the rollers.

“Conditioning creates an even distribution of all solid and liquid ingredients for ultimate effectiveness. Like a can of paint that has been sitting idly, a block of polymer clay contains solids that have separated from some of the liquids. Conditioning polymer clay serves the same purpose as shaking a can of paint—it brings it all back into suspension.”

—Tony Aquino, Technical Director, Van Aken International (makers of Kato Polyclay)

Curing

The curing process is what hardens polymer. Each manufacturer recommends a time and temperature best suited to their brand; be sure to read the instructions offered on the packaging. Cure in a polymer-dedicated convection, conventional, or toaster oven. If curing in your home oven, place items in a roasting bag (used for turkeys or chickens) so any released fumes are trapped in the bag. Always use an oven thermometer and check it often to ensure that the oven temperature remains consistent during the curing process.

“I’m not always good about checking my oven thermometer, but changes in the temperature of my studio or even the weather outside can sometimes affect the oven I use—so it’s a good idea to leave a mercury thermometer in the oven and check it each time you cure.”

—Leslie

Storing

Storing polymer in a cool area away from direct sunlight is important because direct sun and temperatures above 90°F (32°C) will begin the curing process and make the polymer unusable. Once the package is open, store any unused polymer in waxed paper, plastic wrap, or uncoated deli paper; or in a container. Do not use a container made from polystyrene-type plastic (recycling number 6), as it will react with the polymer and make some of it unusable.

“I keep my canes wrapped in waxed paper, in a dark closet.”

—Sarah

“I try to keep pieces in progress dust free, and I also keep all mixed polymer in plastic, divided boxes. My studio, in a perfect world, would be more organized, but as much as I try, my big tables always have—at most!—about a twenty-four-inch square of uncluttered working space. I tell myself, maybe, that’s just the environment that I need to work and design effectively.”

—Wendy

Leaching

Polymer is leached in order to remove some of the plasticizer, stiffen the material, and achieve a desired consistency. To leach the polymer, sandwich conditioned sheets between clean, absorbent paper—like plain white copy paper—and weight it with a heavy book. Check the polymer to ensure that it is still pliable.

“The purpose of the plasticizer is to allow the polymer clay to remain workable and pliable and the baked piece to maintain some flexibility, strength, and durability. If too much plasticizer is taken out of the polymer clay, the artist would be able to tell, as the polymer clay will be dry, crumbly, and difficult to manipulate—the extreme opposite of being too soft. Removing some of the plasticizer should have very little effect on the properties of the final baked piece.”

—Iris Weiss, Education Manager, Polyform Products

Saving Scrap Polymer

When working on polymer projects it is inevitable that you will generate scraps, but these have many uses, so save them as you go. Scrap polymer can be used to make another color less intense, to form the core of a bead, or to make a mold.

To eliminate any air that might be trapped in scrap polymer, cut it into manageable piles and then thoroughly condition it—gently stretching the polymer between each pass through the pasta machine. This breaks the surface of the polymer where a pocket of air lies just below.

“As I work on different projects, I separate my scrap into color families to use in future projects; I am sometimes overrun with bags of color spanning the rainbow. When I am stuck with a particular design dilemma, I use the ‘thinking time’ to condition and sheet the scrap from the bags.”

—Judy

Choosing a Finish

Consider the design of the piece when making decisions about the finish you choose. Uncured polymer is receptive to all sorts of textures: 60-grit sandpaper, textured wallpaper samples, and fabric or mesh screen, to name a few. After curing, you can leave the surface matte or buff it to a high shine. Buffing on a piece of denim will yield a subtle shine. To achieve a high shine, start sanding the surface with wet/dry sandpaper and water, working from 400- to 1000-grit, and then progressing to a motorized buffing machine fitted with a dry, unstitched muslin wheel.

“There are no oven fairies—what you put in the oven is exactly what comes out. Take the time to completely smooth the surface of the piece before you cure it. This simple process will greatly reduce the amount of time and effort required to sand and buff the piece to a high shine.”

—Judy

| WHAT TO CALL IT? BY RACHEL CARREN |

From its beginnings, there have been questions about what to call this modern, synthetic modeling compound. Before 1990, both artists and publications describe the material using a brand name, such as Fimo or Polyform, with a modifier such as “modeling compound.” Then, in 1991, with the publication of Nan Roche’s The New Clay the descriptor “polymer clay” began to be used widely. Roche and her publisher, Seymore Bress, specifically devised the term as a reference to how the material is worked and its chemical properties. During the past twenty-plus years, the use and range of polymer art has evolved significantly. Polymer art is now included in the collections of major American museums, and artists who work with it routinely exhibit at premier shows. The term polymer clay has become puzzling.

For museums and galleries, calling it “polymer” eliminates internal and public confusion over classifications; polymer art is not part of the ceramics collection. From a utilitarian point of view, the use of the material has become increasingly diverse so that many of the claylike qualities are secondary to what artists do with it. The term clay also leads to uncertainty in the retail market. Customers who hear the word clay often assume that an item is heavy and fragile, neither of which is true with polymer.

As polymer art moves forward in time, the term polymer clay is unlikely to be abandoned, but the single word—polymer—can be embraced as a basic description of this material. Whatever one calls it, the material always requires a bit of explanation to the uninitiated, and the question of identification is apt to be refined further as plastics become more prevalent materials for artists.