Can you mix Kayto Pearl Clay w/Kayto regular and get the same shift as metalic clays?

Question

I need some Kayto colored metalic clays for a project. I am not sure if pearl clay is the same as metalic and can I make a colored metalic clay by mixing pearl with a color.

Answer 1

In the Kato line of polymer clays (and also in the Premo line), "Pearl" contains mica particles too and strongly enough to do the special mica-"shifting" techniques well just like the gold, copper, silver (Pearl just doesn't contain any pigment to make it colored).

As for mixing the mica-containing clays together with themselves, that's totally fine and some fabulous colors can result. Mica-containing clays can also be mixed with regular polymer clays *up to a point* (and some fabulous colors also result), but if too much of the regular color is added the special effects will not be possible or be much weaker

Actually mixing Pearl with a little bit of a regular color is the best way to get pastels and even stronger colors which will do the mica-shifting thing. As an example, here are a whole bunch of colors that were created by adding regular clay colors to (Premo's) Pearl clay, and each color has also been manipulated to do the special effects thing too:
http://www.clayfactory.net/pier/PIER1.htm
(click on all 4 pgs)

There's loads more info on using mica-containing polymer clays on this page at my site if you're interested:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/mica.htm
And this page has more on mixing clays together for new colors:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/color.htm
(... click on the subcategory *Metallic & Pearly* for mixing mica clays with other colors)

HTH,

Diane B.


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