Another way to make faux ivory with polymer clay

This method is slightly simpler than the last one I talked about, and it gives a different result.  In my opinion this method gives a more bone-like appearance.  I'd use this method if I wanted a faux bone effect, or for imitation boar's tusk like the sample below.


Close up of the bone effect.


As before, I mixed up some off-white clay using white, grey-brown, and a small amount of yellow, but this time I mixed in some translucent clay.  My ratio was one part off-white to one part translucent.  Then I rolled this translucent/off-white mix into a snake, and I rolled a thinner snake of plain translucent clay.


Two snakes.  Smaller snake is translucent; larger one is off white.

I laid these two snakes beside each other and folded them up, accordion style, so they looked like the picture below.


A snake accordion.
Then I rolled them lengthwise, until I had just one snake.  I folded that up accordion style and rolled it out again, and repeated that a couple of times.  This process gave me a snake with thin translucent striations running though it.  I made it into a block that I could cut slices off the way I did with the previous method.

Here you can see a cross section through the clay block.


This is quite an attractive effect too.

And here you can see the block after it's been sliced lengthways.  If you don't plan to use the block all at once, you can store it wrapped in cling film.  


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