Pebbles and Striated Rocks

One of the very first posts on this blog showed photos of polymer stones sporting a variety of three dimensional dragonflies. I was experimenting with my first wing canes, and I had just discovered that mixing a spot of colored clay and a sheet of metal leaf into translucent polymer created a nice stone effect.  The 3-D dragonflies seemed to find the stones to be perfect perches.  As I've mentioned before, I really like the fact that polymer is such a cameleon medium, able to imitate so many other materials.  Making pebbles and rocks, with all the variations in color, type and texture, is a process I find both fun and fascinating.

Several months ago, I was fortunate enough to take a workshop with Cynthia Tinapple. She has an incredible mastery of a wide variety of rock and stone types, and she shared some of her techniques, tips, and tricks with us.  It was a marvelous workshop, and I knew I had to explore more. Here are a few of the beach pebbles I made that day.

The rock making process really took a step up for me when Cynthia showed us how to use embossing powders to create realistic stone colors and then to combine them just right to make rocks with striations like agates.  These two rocks are pretty big - at least by my standards - but oh, I loved the way the colors blended and yet kept separate.



The part that got me the most excited, however, was learning how to make some of the veins sparkle like quartz.  If you look closely in the last photo, perhaps you can see the glitz in the large white vein on the gold/green/tan rock.


This look inspired me to try a slightly different rock form which I'll share with you in my next post.  It's late, and time to put the computer to bed.