How To Use a Pasta Machine to Make a Skinner Blend

Maureen Carlson Design Studio
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Color is the key to creating eye-catching designs in polymer clay. Whether you are making beads or butterfly wings, choosing and mixing the right color of clay is your first step to success.

One of the easiest and most successful ways to create stunning mixes of color is to use a technique called the 'Skinner Blend'. If you have not yet learned the Skinner Blend, do so now. Once you master the few basic steps, you’ll wonder how you ever mixed clay without it.

The only tools you will need, besides basic supplies and a place to work, are a pasta machine and a PolyBlade or other sharp blade.

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Project Tip:

Save yourself some work, clay, and time. Once you understand how the Skinner Blend works, you’ll be able to predict your color results. It’s all about what happens when two or more colors of clay mix together. To test a color mix, just break off tiny pieces of clay, and mix and twist until the colors blend. There’s no need to use a whole package of clay for this experiment. Look ahead at picture 3 (below) to see how the colors mix in a Skinner Blend.

To illustrate why understanding colors is important for success with the Skinner Blend, let’s look at yellow and blue. Most school children know that mixing blue and yellow makes green. But, if we use a yellow that has a lot of red in it, or a blue that has a lot of red in it, we’ll get a brownish green rather than a bright green. This may be fine, but not if we were aiming for spring green.

The reason for the color change is that we mixed all three primary colors, red, yellow, and blue together. And using all three primary colors always yields some version of muddy brown.

To get a bright green mix, we would want to choose blues and yellows that contained no red in those particular shades.

Note: Wonder why this technique is called the Skinner Blend? Well, a woman named Judith Skinner developed this technique and shared it with the rest of the polymer clay community. So the technique is named after her. Thank you, Judith!

Heart Skinner

A heart, a ball and a chunky block are three of the most common shapes for jewelry or accent designs. What make these particular pieces interesting are their swirls and blends of color. All three of these shapes were made from clay scrap, then covered with Skinner Blend slices like those in the next picture.

Skinner Blend Slices

Once you learn to make a Skinner Blend, you’ll be able to create slices like these from just one slab of mixed clay. The secret is to cut the finished Skinner Blend into sections and then roll or fold each section into a different shape. Each roll or loaf is then sliced. Note that some of the slices were then cut into pieces in order to make even more shapes. The wavy floral slice was made by pressing a toothpick against the sides.

Curious? Let’s start.

Skinner Blend

Begin by choosing three colors of polymer clay. Condition each color, then flatten and roll through the pasta machine. If you are making only a small amount, use a middle setting of the pasta machine. Otherwise use the widest setting, which on the AMACO pasta machine is No.7.
Lay colors next to each other at an angle, as illustrated in photo 3. This makes the basic pattern for the Skinner Blend. Trim the edges in a rectangular shape. The rectangle should not be wider than the width of the pasta machine. The exact size is not important for this technique.

Folded Skinner

Fold the clay in half, folding the yellow over the yellow and the dark blue over the dark blue. Keep the edges as straight as you can.

Roll Skinner

Lay the folded clay on top of the pasta machine roller, with the fold at the bottom. Be careful to line up the fold with the roller. Keep it as even and straight as you can. Roll the folded clay through the pasta machine, using the same setting that you used when you rolled the first sheets of clay. Fold the clay again, exactly as you did the first time, with the side colors folding on top of themselves. The middle colors will at first look confusing, but after about 8 times they will start appearing in stripes. Repeat this 10 to 20 times, until the colors blend as in the example.

Once the sheet is blended, cut off a strip from the top of the clay. Be sure that you cut across the stripes so that the resulting strip includes all of the colors.

Set the pasta machine at a middle setting. Roll the cut strip through the pasta machine again, but this time turn it 90 degrees clockwise so that one color goes in first. DO NOT FOLD.

First 90 degree Turn Second 90 degree Turn

The strip of clay may get very long, so you might need a helper to hold one end.

Skinner Variety

There are several ways to use the resulting strips of clay. In this photo, the first two strips were rolled up like a jellyroll. Because one was rolled from the yellow end and the other from the dark blue end, they look like two different designs. The last two strips were rolled very thin through the pasta machine. One was then rolled up like a jellyroll and the other was accordion folded to create a gradated chunk.

To use the Skinner Blend, slice with a very sharp blade so as not to smear the colors. Use the pieces as they are for buttons, earrings or accent designs, or apply over scrap clay as a surface design.

Skinner Blend rolls or loaves are also wonderful elements to use within other rolls and loaves, using the millefiori technique.

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Bonus Techniques

Mud Layer

Changing the Shade of Your Finished Skinner Blend Sheet

If your finished Skinner Blend is too bright for your design needs, flatten a sheet of pale gray or muddied clay. Lay the gray sheet over the Skinner Blend sheet. The exact thickness of the gray sheet depends on what percentage of gray you would like to add into your colors. Until you are comfortable with this technique, make the gray sheet slightly thinner than the blended sheet. Roll through the pasta machine to press the two sheets together. Be sure to roll in the same direction as you did when making the blended sheet.

Fold in the middle and roll through the pasta machine again, keeping the direction the same. Continue until all gray clay is blended into the colored layer. After about 8 times it will look streaky, but keep going. Almost magically the colors will be transformed.
It’s Never Too Late To Change the Color!

White Layer

Changing the Tone of Your Finished Skinner Blend Sheet

If you would like the finished sheet to be more pastel, add a sheet of white clay over the top of the Skinner Blend. Follow directions for 'Changing the Shade', above, except use white clay.

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Click here for another informative article from Maureen Carlson about Using Your Pasta Machine.

Click here and find Maureen's Clay Decorative Pin project.

Click here to learn about Push Mold Techniques by Maureen Carlson.