Chatoyant by Gail part 3

FAUX CHAROITE AND BRONZITE

The technique for faux charoite and bronzite is the same; only the color is different.  The technique is based on the instructions for burled red maple by Irene Semanchuk Dean in the book "Faux Surfaces in Polymer Clay".



FAUX CHAROITE

Charoite is quite a variable stone, mostly purple, but it can also have patches of orange, and spots of white, black, and/or a silvery color.  Only the best quality charoite has chatoyant effects.  I developed my color recipe to match a quite bright purple slab of charoite that I have.  The Fimo Soft sunflower (see below) was added to tone down the purple somewhat, as the Premo purple and blue were even brighter than the charoite.  You can use any golden yellow instead of the FS sunflower, although you might have to adjust the amount you add.

1. Mix a charoite purple base color:

Premo purple:       1 part
Premo ultra blue:   1/2 part
FS sunflower:       1/16 + 1/64 part

2. Mix two purple pearl colors:

purple 1: 1 part Premo pearl + 1/2 part charoite purple base color

purple 2: 1 part Premo pearl + 1/16 part charoite purple base color

3. Pass each of the purple pearl colors separately 12-20 times on the thickest setting of your pasta machine to align the mica particles in the clay.

4. Each of the purple sheets now needs to be broken up into smallish pieces to be put in a food processor.  I did this by cutting each sheet in two and stacking one piece on the other to form a double thickness block, and then cutting up the block.  You could instead simply tear up the sheets into smallish pieces.

5. Put the purple pieces into a food processor bowl.  If you want to have spots of black or white in your faux charoite, you can add tiny balls of these colors at this point to have a random effect, or if you want more control of their placement, you can add them later. Run the food processor in short bursts until the clay has formed into small balls. 

If you don't have a food processor dedicated for use with polymer clay, you can chop the clay into small pieces with a blade, but you will end up with sharper edges between the colors.

6. You can now gather up small amounts of the chopped clay and form into beads.  If you wish, you can add small bits of black or white at this point.  Try not to handle the clay too much, or you will realign the mica particles in the clay and lose the chatoyant effect.

7. If you want to make a sheet, spread the clay evenly on a piece of wax paper, place another piece of wax paper on top, and press down on it with a piece of acrylic sheet or glass.  Fill in the gaps with small bits of purple pearl, black, or white.  Roll with a brayer or rod.  Once you are sure the sheet will hold together, you can pass it through the pasta machine.  Again, handle the clay as little as possible to avoid losing the chatoyant effect.

8. Sand and buff your piece after baking to obtain the best chatoyant effects.



FAUX BRONZITE

Bronzite consists of patches of various brown colors and often exhibits chatoyant effects. There are may ways to mix brown pearl colors.  Here are the formulas I used:

1. Mix a bronzite brown base color of 1 part copper pearl and 1 part Premo sea green.  I used Kato copper, since that was what I had on hand at the time.

2. Mix the following 3 brown pearl colors:

brown 1: 2 parts base brown + 1 part gold (again, I used Kato)

brown 2: 2 parts base brown + 3 parts gold + 3 parts Premo pearl

brown 3: 2 parts base brown + 1 part FS sunflower + 2 parts black
 
3. Follow the steps 3 - 8 above for charoite, using 'brown 1' and 'brown 2' instead of the 2 shades of purple, and adding 'brown 3' instead of the black or white.


Gail