Exploring The Rainbow With Tina Holdman

Tina Holdman's Collection #3- "When The Dark Comes In"

During the Dayle Doroshow polymer workshop in Colorado Springs in April, participant Barb Harper brought in a new spiral bound book she compiled of Tina Holdman's polymer color recipes, reprinted from the Mile High Polymer Clay Guild newsletter from 2004-2008. I bought one and have been having fun mixing up samples of the color collections. Here is one of the sixteen recipe pages in the book. I made little square samples and glued them right on the page.

Tina has an interesting and inspiring story with each color collection. She also has a great sense of humor and is fun to be around....I just wish Tina and some of the others in the Denver and Colorado Springs Polymer Clay Guilds had their own web pages! I can't find much of their work online.

Cutting out squares for color mixing

For those who haven't done color recipes, the measuring is easy. I roll the clay to a #1 thickness and use a clay cutter to cut out squares. The squares are then all the same amount of clay. Each square represents four parts, so it's easy to cut the square and follow the recipes for "parts".

I then mix the parts together to get the new color and cut a new square for the sample tile.

Thanks, Tina and Barb, for sharing your knowledge and creating this book!

Trout Stream Pendants

Here are some of the results of my Trout Stream color palette (see a previous post). I made faux ivory fish, backed by a mosaic using the inspiration and colors of Trout Stream. The largest one (middle) is 1 1/2" x 2", the other two are slightly smaller. They will debut on etsy in the near future.

Foredom Bench Lathe

I ordered a Foredom bench lathe from Donna Kato's Prairiecraft.com polymer clay supply site, it arrived in two days! But there's only one imposing mountain range between where Donna lives and where I live, so the fast arrival wasn't a total surprise as UPS and Donna's husband Vern do a good job in getting things out fast.

I put on the muslin polishing wheel, plugged in the bench lathe and proceeded to put a wonderful shine on my polymer work. I have never been a fan of applying a clear coat of anything over my polymer, and with the ease of using this bench lathe, I can't imagine why anyone would want to. It's money well spent and polishing polymer is fun, mesmerizing and relaxing. I was pulling out all my previously-shined-with-denim beads and putting a new shine on them with the bench lathe.

The lathe is small, the footprint is 5" x 6", and it runs very quietly and coolly. I am very cautious about buying new machines and supplies, as I try not to clutter up my workspace with regrettable art supply purchases. For anyone serious about polymer, this bench lathe is a must-have. I highly recommend it. Also, the lathe is made in the USA. Foredom is a company established in 1922 in Connecticut.