How to blend polymer clay colors

You might be wondering how to blend polymer clay colors if you've seen the beautiful art that people make but aren't sure how they do it. Luckily, it is very easy to get a gradient effect while blending your colors and the output is almost always very pretty.

We are going to teach you how to blend polymer clay colors in this tutorial. The gradient and blend effect is often called a "Skinner Blend" because it was created by Judith Skinner. Skinner made the "triangle technique" popular, which is what we are going to do in this tutorial.

We are going to use three polymer clay colors: Neon yellow, Neon Orange, and Neon Peach. But, you can use any colors you want. Keep in mind that if you use primary colors and blend them together you can often get some very pretty rainbow effects. We weren't sure how our color choices would turn out, but it ended up looking quite nice after all.

After you condition your clay, the first thing you need to do to blend polymer clay colors is to shape your colors into triangles. Your triangles do not have to be perfect by any means. But, you can control the length of your gradient or blend by controlling how much the colors overlap when you place them next to each other. You can also shape your clay into teardrop shapes if you do not want to use triangles. The teardrop shape is a very popular often for blending polymer clay colors together.

Arrange your triangles so that the colors overlap each other. You want the colors to overlap because when you start folding the clay over and over you will start to blend the polymer clay colors together and a blend and gradient effect will occur. We encourage you to experiment with how much your colors overlap to see what types of effects you can get.

You can blend polymer clay colors using an acrylic roller or a pasta machine. A pasta machine will be significantly easier and quicker, but it is not necessary. Set your past machine to its thickest setting. Then fold your clay in half horizontally and run it through your pasta machine fold side first. Always put the side you folded in first so that you push out any air bubbles that occurred while you folded the clay.

After running your clay through the pasta machine a few times, you will start to blend your polymer clay colors and see "the magic" happening. Keep on running your clay through and gradually you will start to see a very pretty gradient.

You will also see your clay start to expand and get wider. You can fix that by pushing in the sides or by placing an object at the top of your rollers to help control the width.

Keep on repeating these steps until you are satisfied with the gradient that you created. Now that you know how to blend polymer clay colors, the possibilities are endless!

Although, for our tutorial, we turned our blend into a drink coaster. We put a pattern on top of it, pressed it down, then cut out a circle shape using a cup as a guide.

Check out our YouTube tutorial for even more information: