Faux Abalone Shell with Black Oxide Powder
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Make a rainbow Skinner blend and make two packages of Premo White Pearl into an even sheet.
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Cut off just a sliver of the rainbow blend and use it to tint the sheet of white pearl clay.
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When the sheet is tinted as evenly as you'd like, fold it in half and feed it through the pasta machine lengthwise.
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Lay the long sheet down and put 8-10 drops of Sculpey Diluent on the surface and smear it over the sheet.
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Sprinkle a tiny bit of Black Oxide Powder all over the diluent. With a gloved hand, smear the powder over the entire surface, leaving the coverage uneven.
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Cut into eighths, roughly and stack. Compress and reduce the stack to one half it's heighth.
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Cut in half (more or less) and stack. Compress, reduce, cut in quarters and stack again.
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I've cut the new stack in two so that I can distress them with two different tools. Here, I'm using a wavy waffle blade and a round garnish cutter.
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After distressing, square up the stack, making it two or three times as tall as it was, before.
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You can then slice from the sides or from the top of this stack.
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The slices can then be applied like mokume gane or cane slices to bead shapes, pens, etc. I like to make a sheet of "crazy quilt" slices on a ceramic tile... I then cut out shapes which will be cured for 10-15 minutes right on the tile. I can embed these cured shapes in raw clay for a second curing. The black powder stretches and pales as you condense and recombine your stacks, so you get soft black lines and an overall silvery color.
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These coordinating pieces have been sanded with 400 grit sandpaper then buffed on a muslin and then flannel wheel.
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