1. art and entertainment
2. comics and animation
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The Cutting Edge MasterClass Library For Polymer Clay
Relief Beyond Belief
Silhouette Dieforming in Polymer Clay
© 2011 Dan Cormier & Tracy Holmes!
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your studio is waiting...
The Cutting Edge MasterClass Library For Polymer Clay
Relief Beyond Belief
Silhouette Dieforming in Polymer Clay
by Dan Cormier & Tracy Holmes
A New Dimension in Learning
Relief Beyond Belief is the debut volume in a project we’ve started called
The Cutting Edge MasterClass Library For Polymer Clay.
Mostly a MasterClass that teaches silhouette dieforming in polymer clay,
Relief Beyond Belief is not a real book you can hold in your hands, but an
instantly accessible PDF document that includes more than we could have
published in a printed volume. It’s history, a gallery, a resource manual, and
a how-to textbook, with more than 140 pages and 180 colour photographs.
The 20-page Introduction tells the story of how a traditional metalworking
it’s a book for your workspace
technique ended up in a polymer clay studio. It features Dan’s dieformed
pieces, and the work of six guest artists. The MasterClass is presented in
twelve detailed WorkPhase chapters, with four bonus KnowHow articles.
The book is written after more than a decade of developing, refining, and
teaching this original technique in ten countries, and the MasterClass LIbrary
project is founded on almost 20 years of experience with this medium.
All this adds up to just one thing: a virtual book on how to make a bead.
But if you make just one bead, you’ll see, Relief Beyond Belief is a very real
technique, with virtually endless possibilities.
SneakPeak
‣ Cover
‣ Preface
‣ How To View This Book
‣ excerpt from What Is Silhouette Dieforming?
‣ sample Artist Showcase
‣ MasterClass Title Page
‣ sample WorkSpace Essentials Tool Tableau
‣ sample WorkPhase pages
‣ sample WorkPhase Title Page
‣ sample KnowHow Title Page
‣ About the Authors
‣ Special Offer: Book + Die Set Combo
it’s a book for your coffee table
(same book, two covers)
BookMarks
Read more about this book here
Visit our website dancormier.ca
Get to know us better here
Check out our blog
Visit The Cutting Edge Store
NetWork
Join our WorkSpace NetWork mailing list
Send us an email
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The Cutting Edge MasterClass Library For Polymer Clay
Relief Beyond Belief
Silhouette Dieforming in Polymer Clay
Dan Cormier & Tracy Holmes
© 2011 Dan Cormier & Tracy Holmes!
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Relief Beyond Belief
Preface
Welcome To The First MasterClass
Since teaching our first polymer clay workshop in 1996, and in almost every
class we’ve taught since, our focus has been on process more than project:
the ‘how and why’ of a technique, and not so much on the ‘what' you might
have at the end of the day. We have always believed that if you can teach
someone essential skills, you give them the tools to realize their own ideas.
Having said all that, this book actually is a project: how to make a bead.
But if you complete the project, if you make this bead, you will have done so
learning and understanding a new process, and also refining some basic
skills at the same time.
As the first in a series of books featuring techniques I've developed for
polymer clay,!we're hoping that this debut volume will not only ground you in
a fundamental understanding of the technique presented here, but also
guide you through a deeper and more detailed exploration of working with
this medium in general.!That’s why we call it a MasterClass. But you don’t
have to be a master to give it a try. Even if all you have is some basic
knowledge and a little hands-on with polymer clay, we encourage you to
jump in. For those that are ready for more, we think you’ll find that here too.
As an artist, I’ve always strived to develop open-ended techniques. I believe
that the more open-ended a technique is, the more room there is for
personal interpretation and adaptation. I hope that my approach to
silhouette dieforming will help you create work that transcends the process,
to become something unique and individualized. Based on dieforming
workshops we’ve taught to students around the world, this book version of
Relief Beyond Belief is a start-to-finish, theory-and-practice dossier on
silhouette dieforming in polymer clay. It shares the intricacies of a process
that began for me in 1998 with a mysterious brown envelope. Actually, it
started a few years before that, because this book is also about
beadmaking, something I’ve been doing since I first started working with
polymer clay in 1992. After almost twenty years, we thought it was time.
© 2011 Dan Cormier & Tracy Holmes!
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Preface
Relief Beyond Belief begins with an Introduction. Part history, part memoir,
part textbook, part gallery, it retraces the journey we’ve taken in the
development of this technique. Read it with a nice latté, a hot cuppa tea,
maybe a glass of wine... It’s story time.
Following that is the MasterClass itself, where you roll up your sleeves and
get to work. There are twelve chapters in this section, one for each of twelve
different steps in the process. We call them WorkPhases. They’re meant to
help you focus on what you’re doing ‘now’ instead of what you’ll be doing
‘next.’ From making your design choices, to giving your bead its final buff,
the illustrated WorkPhases outline the process in detailed words and full
colour pictures. Enhancing some of the WorkPhases are survey articles that
go a little deeper into some of the fundamental techniques for this medium:
Burnishing, Baking, Leaching, and Finishing, to give you the KnowHow
you’ll need, not just for this MasterClass, but in general. It all starts with a
TimeLine, and a comprehensive list of WorkSpace Essentials, the tools
and supplies you’ll need to prepare your workspace and complete your
project (the master list comes first, and Tool Tableaus follow). In summary,
we’ve included everything we believe you’ll need to learn sound technique,
develop solid craftsmanship, and, with patience and practice, complete a
high calibre, museum quality piece.
Read through everything first. Take your time. And most of all, don't be
intimidated. Dieforming itself is a very simple technique, and it’s fun. From
beginners to experienced polymer clay artists, we believe anyone can
master Relief Beyond Belief. The more you do it, the more natural and
nuanced your technique will become, and the better your results will be.
Have fun!
Dan & Tracy
Nayarit, Mexico
December 2011
© 2011 Dan Cormier & Tracy Holmes!
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How To View This Book
How to Tap Dance
There’s nothing quite like holding a real book in your hands, turning each
Step, tap,
page with your fingers to reveal its words and colours, feeling its weight on
double tap,
your lap. But times have changed. Now, when you mean a real book, you
shuffle, ball
actually have to say, ‘real book.’ Because now, you can click, scroll, zoom,
tap, and double tap your way around a book faster than you can say
Johannes Gutenberg (with no risk of paper cuts). Sure, an ebook doesn’t
have a hard cover, but an iPad does, and you can feel the weight of an
ebook on your laptop. And yes, a printed volume of 150 glossy pages might
seem more ‘weighty’ than a PDF, but how much does a megabyte weigh?
Can you send an email from a printed book? Can you listen to music? Can
change...
Click, tap,
double tap,
hyperlink,
zoom!
you search for a word, head off to a related website, or even go shopping,
without ever getting out from between the covers?
This book was completely designed on a computer. Aside from occasional
notes on a real notepad, the desktop was virtual. No lead was used to set
the type. No emulsions were poured to develop the photos. No screens
were cut to add colour to text or make a headline pop. There was Tracy,
with a quietly clicking keyboard, a wireless mouse (scurrying around late into
the night like mice often do), and a clean bright screen to display the pages
as they unfolded. Dan took his photos on digital cameras (or, if they were
real photos, they were scanned). He used an iPad to create or refine almost
all of the final visual elements, and he did his writing there too. Words and
pictures were sent back and forth, Dan to Tracy, studio to office, via email,
drop box, and flash drive. Facts were checked on the web, drafts were
uploaded and downloaded to proofreaders, and backups (plural) are stored
safely on various external hard drives. It may be hard to believe, but
throughout the entire process of writing our first real book (and yes, we’re
calling it that), we never actually printed a single page. Isn’t that unreal?
Best of all, after all that, now you have joined our virtual party. Via the web,
through our NetWork, or some shared link, like, tweet, search, or stumble,
you found our site, shopped in our store, downloaded your very own copy,
and here we are. It may not be signed, but when you go to a book launch
on line, you don’t have to wait in line.
© 2011 Dan Cormier & Tracy Holmes!
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How To View This Book
How To View This Book
You’ve probably figured out by now, we’re not going
to teach you how to tap dance. And nobody needs to
show you how to read a book. But there are a few little
things in this book that we think are pretty cool...
There’s a TimeLine header and a visual Navigation
Grid at the beginning of each WorkPhase. You can click
or tap on their links to easily move around between
chapters. The Table of Contents page numbers are
also links, and there are other links too, here and there,
right in the text. Some don’t take you very far, but some
take you right out of this book, to related websites, or to
get you started on an email. The links are bold and red,
so if you hadn’t noticed them already, now you know
what they look like. In fact, there are two in this
paragraph, Go ahead. Try them out. When you get to
the TOC, just click the page number beside ‘How To Tap
Dance. You’ll end up back at the start of this section.
Three screen shots showing our book in Preview...
1. a series of mini pages all displayed at once
If you’re reading this book on a desktop or laptop
computer, your PDF reading software should let you
scroll through all the pages as thumbnails, see them as
a contact sheet, or zoom in on a single page to get a
closer look (great for viewing step-outs, or seeing glam
shots of work up close and personal). If you like the
conventions of an open book, you can view the pages
two-by-two (we call this ‘Noah style’). With some apps,
you can view the pages as a slideshow.
If you want to make notes, most apps have tools for
that, to highlight or underline text, circle something, or
point something out. It’s your book, why not add your
own thoughts and ideas? You might not be so inclined
to scribble on the nice clean pages of a printed book,
but here? Go ahead. We did.
2. a single page, with the sidebar showing thumbnails
What about talking books? Some PDF readers actually
are readers. You can give the text a voice and have it
read out loud (like, listen to the Finishing KnowHow
while you’re sanding). And by the way, can someone tell
that guy, it’s pronounced ‘COR-mee-ay’?
There are lots of different software programs,
operating systems, and devices out there. For viewing
PDFs on a computer, you may have to try more than
one program to find the one that works best for seeing
ours on yours. We like Preview. What do you like?
© 2011 Dan Cormier & Tracy Holmes!
3. a traditional ‘open book’ view, with two facing pages
spanning the screen, and the thumbnail sidebar hidden
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RBB + iPad + iBooks = iDeal
... and (tap)
here it is,
full size and
ready to read
Even better than Preview, we love iBooks. If you have
an IPad, and you’re viewing this PDF in iBooks, things
can get really fun and interactive (if you’re viewing it on
an iPod or iPhone, it’s a bit too little for learning, but it’s
still fun, and it fits in your pocket). When we were writing
this book, we started using iBooks to review our drafts.
We quickly realized how much its features enhanced the
experience.!This may have gone unnoticed if we’d been
writing a novel, but for a ‘How To’ document like this
one, where images are important and you’re not simply
following a plot, iBooks has some amazing functionality.
We developed and formatted much of this book with
these features in mind.
Just like on your computer, you can use the Search
feature (the little magnifying glass) to find stuff fast, both
within the book, and on the web. You can add a virtual
Bookmark to any page, to mark it as part of your own
abridged version, or to find stuff faster next time. When
you close the book, you don’t even need a bookmark. It
will open up again on the same page.
Just like with a real book, you can move through the
pages one by one in a linear way, tapping right on the
touch screen to advance, or left to go back. But what
makes an ebook on iBooks very different from a book in
print is how you can move further in to and out of the
pages themselves. This lends a new dimensionality that
rivals even the best pop-up book.
© 2011 Dan Cormier & Tracy Holmes!
How To View This Book
Bird’s Eye View
If you tap on the Table of Contents icon
in the upper left corner of the screen,
you can zoom out from a page to see a
tidy grid of several pages at once. This
gives you a quick overview, to see your
page in context within the ‘bigger picture,’ or find
another page by scrolling through this bird’s eye view.
From there, another tap takes you back into the book, to
enjoy it ‘actual size,’ one page at a time.
“there’s that
page I was
looking for,
right in the
centre of this
visual TOC...
... and (tap!)
here it is,
full size and
ready to read”
With a single tap, you can go from the TOC to any
single page, and the words zoom out to a legible scale.
But could that picture be a little bigger? Yes, it could...
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How To View This Book
Little Details
Big Words
The coolest feature in iBooks is the double-tap zoom.
The single page of a printed book may show several
photos grouped together, and that’s a good way to see
part of a process. But in print, those shots are never
going to get any bigger. With a digital document, you
can double tap on an image and it will automatically resize to fit the screen. Need a closer look at a step-out?
Want to examine the details of a finished piece? Just
double tap to zoom in, and then double tap again to
zoom out. It’s easy, and it’s really fun (try it now with a
picture on this page). With zooming in mind, we framed
and optimized our images so they could be seen clearly
as stand-alones, nearly five times bigger than they are
within a full page.
Double tapping works great with text too (no
magnifying glass necessary).!On this page, the photos
are the feature of this polymer clay tool tableau.!But if
you want to review the tools as they are listed, a doubletap on the text block brings fonts into focus.
Considering this is a book about turning flat sheets of
polymer clay into 3D forms, you can see why we like this
tap-tap thing. Tiny objects on a two-dimensional page
can suddenly pop out, larger than life.
the tool
tableaus are a
great visual
reference to
clearly see
what you
need in a
well-equipped
WorkSpace
making a list
by tapping it
twice
one page, with four step-outs, and then one of those
step-outs, double tapped to fill the screen
© 2011 Dan Cormier & Tracy Holmes!
In a workshop, we always love passing around
samples and swatches for students to hold and see up
close. But you can't always get that close during a
demo. With this virtual MasterClass, it’s all in the details,
and you get a front row seat. So go ahead, zoom! Tap
your way through all the words and pictures, to learn
more clearly than ever.
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Introduction
What Is Silhouette Dieforming?
So what exactly is silhouette dieforming? Traditionally, in metal jewelry, it’s
when a hydraulic press puts about twenty tons of!pressure on a sheet of
annealed metal, to push a part of that sheet through an opening in a die.
Dies are usually small tiles of acrylic or!masonite sheet, or larger steel plates,
with a silhouette shape (geometric, organic, or figurative) cut out of the
centre, creating a negative space through which the!sheet metal can pass.
The resulting piece is a form rising up where
there was nothing to stop it, surrounded in
contrast by the still-flat sheet that held it in
place during the process. This!area of flat,
called the flange, is a biproduct of the
process, and is usually removed with a
jeweler's saw before the form is!completed as
a finished piece of jewelry. Whether in metal
alone, or for pairing with other media,
traditional dieforming requires specific tools
and equipment, and different materials and
Dieformed Chased T-Fold by Charles Lewton-Brain, 2003
This piece features both the form and the flange.
photo by the artist
processes are used for different metals.
Metal forming itself has been around for
thousands of years. Copper and bronze were
hammered and honed to replace the stone tools and weapons essential for
everyday life. In the Middle Ages, blacksmiths made nails, hinges, hooks,
horseshoes and thousands of other iron and steel objects, one at a time,
until industrialization, both in supply and demand, made their trade almost
obsolete. But as industry took over to manage the quantity, artistry emerged
to showcase quality, as metalsmiths shifted their focus to fabricate finer
decorative objects for architectural, domestic, and personal adornment.
© 2011 Dan Cormier & Tracy Holmes!
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Introduction
Barbara Minor & Christopher Hentz
“Dieforming
Barbara Minor and Christopher Hentz live and work in Baton Rouge, LA.
is a very logical,
Combining Chris’s mastery of metals with Barbara’s eye for colour and
direct, and
pattern, these two artists collaborate to enhance the fundamentals of
expedient way
to achieve
dieforming with their use of precious metals and materials, creating work of
unparalleled elegance.
dimensional and
asymmetrical
shapes in metal.”
Architectural Earrings, 1997!
!
Triangular Brooch with Arches, 1999
!
Head, Heart, Soul pin/pendant, 2003!
Triangular Brooch with Pearls, 2003
photos by Ralph Gabriner
© 2011 Dan Cormier & Tracy Holmes!
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Introduction
10 11
A Cutting Edge MasterClass
Relief Beyond Belief
silhouette dieforming in polymer clay
Relief Beyond Belief started out as a catchy name for a new
workshop. Now, as a book with a project, more than ten years later,
we might have renamed it Make A Bead. Because that’s what we’re
about to do: make a bead.
So, just roll some scrap clay into a ball, cover it with something nice,
bake it, drill it, and you’re finished. That’s how it’s done, right?
Sometimes, but not this time.
The most important thing to know about Relief Beyond Belief is this:
instead of making a form and then covering it with a veneer, you can
take a veneer and turn it into a form, to fill and finish as a bead.
In this MasterClass, that’s how it’s done. So let’s do it.
Relief Beyond Belief
MasterClass Bead, 2011
from decorative veneer
to finished form
© 2011 Dan Cormier & Tracy Holmes!
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MasterClass!
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WorkSpace Essentials
Polymer Clay & Polymer Clay Tools
1
2
3
4
1.
2.
3.
4.
a glass work surface
liquid clay
scrap clay
sheeted clay, in colours to
complement your veneers
5. decorative veneers
6. burnishing paper
7. a Cutting Edge Burnisher
8. a straight pin or fine needle
9. a tissue blade
10.a needle tool
11.a ball stylus tool
12.a pasta machine,
with a C-clamp (shown here
with a Cutting Edge ShARK
and Magnetic Ruler)
6
5
9
10
11
12
8
7
© 2011 Dan Cormier & Tracy Holmes!
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MasterClass !
WorkPhase 1
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Make Your Design Choices
My Short List
For my project, I started with a short list of two different die shapes, a circle and a stamen, and three different sizes, one
small (#2) and two large (#7 and #9). I also chose a few different veneers to try with these dies.
1.1 Choose Your Die
1.2 Choose Your Veneer
The shape of the die’s window will give your object its
silhouette. The size will determine its volume.
If you already have your die picked out, keep it handy
when looking at veneer options. The opening in the die
works great as a window to isolate patterns and better
visualize your finished piece.
Think about what you want to make. For a single
pendant bead, or a pin, try a larger size: #7, #8, or #9.
The smaller dies are better for charm pendants, accent
beads, earrings, and ring forms.
Remember, the flat shape is just your starting point.
Adding form to the flat will add volume, so keep that in
mind when you make your choice. The larger the
window in the die, the more clay area you will have to
work with, so the higher the relief possible. You don’t
have to push high if you don’t want to, but If you want
more volume, you’ll need to use a larger die.
Bigger windows are also better if your veneer pattern
is bold, complex, or larger in scale.
© 2011 Dan Cormier & Tracy Holmes!
If a veneer is your starting point, choose a die shape
and size that really shows it off.
Your veneer can be any small sheet of clay with any
kind of decorative design. A blend, a texture, some
mokume, or a Cutting Edge Peeler pattern, are all good
choices.
This veneer will be the final decorative surface of your
piece. But it will also provide its structural exterior, and is
the sheet you’re actually going to push through the die.
Make sure it’s big enough, at least 1/4” (!.6 cm) bigger
than the perimeter of your die window, and make sure
it’s the right thickness (about 1/16” !.15 cm).
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MasterClass!
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Prepare Your Form For Baking
5.2 Secure Your Form To Your Glass Baking Tile
Now that your form is properly placed in position on
your glass baking tile, you want it to stay there.
Gently pat the flange in place on the glass tile.
If there are still places where the clay isn't properly
adhered to the glass, go back over it with the ball
stylus. Work any air pockets out to the edges.
define
Use the point of the ball stylus to get as close to the
edge of your form as you can, further defining the
silhouette that was made by the die window.
patting the flange in place
I use a ball stylus tool to really secure the flange to the
glass all around, so it will stay flat during baking.
sketch
defining the silhouette line
To adhere your flange to your glass, go over the whole
thing with your ball stylus. Use small strokes, almost
like you’re sketching or cross-hatching in the clay. You
don’t need to go deep, just enough to make sure the
underside surface of the clay is making full contact
with the glass.
Pay special attention to that silhouette line, where the
flange ends and the form begins, rising up from the flat
around it. But remember, this is the ‘good side,’ the
final veneer. You haven’t touched it so far, so be
careful not to touch it now with your ball stylus.
check
Turn the tile over and look to make sure your
silhouette is clearly defined on the back as well.
Being able to look through the glass and see where
the adhered clay of the flange stops and the hollow
beneath the form begins is crucial if you want to create a
crisp clean silhouette edge for your form.
‘sketching’ the flange on to the glass with a ball stylus
How will you know your clay is adhering? Just turn the
glass baking tile over and have a look. Other smooth
baking surfaces (like ceramic tiles) will also ‘grab’ the
clay and keep the flange in position, but with glass, you
can clearly see the underside of your veneer, and know
for sure that your flange is completely adhered.
© 2011 Dan Cormier & Tracy Holmes!
the form and flange adhered to the glass baking tile
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Drill Your Bead
in this WorkPhase
When your form comes out of the oven for the third and final time, it’s fully
baked. Using modern materials, some specialized tools, and a traditional
metalworking technique adapted for a 20th century medium, you have
1. choose your drilling line
2. mark your drilling entry
points
3. mark your drilling line
4. drill your form
transformed a flat sheet of polymer clay into a permanent 3D object. As far
as the ‘making’ is concerned, you’re done. Dieforming lesson complete. You
have made a form. But have you Made a Bead? Not yet.
‣ your finished form,
When you drill a hole through your form, with the simple spin of a pin vise,
you connect this modern object to a rich history of beadmaking that dates
back thousands of years, and spans cultures across the globe.!From the
bits of bone, rock, shell, and teeth worn by our earliest ancestors, to the
intricate glass beads of Murano and beyond, used for currency, adornment,
status, storytelling, medicine, magic, protection, and prayer, your personal
polymer bauble is about to join an amazing tradition.
what you need
‣
‣
‣
‣
‣
‣
‣
‣
‣
© 2011 Dan Cormier & Tracy Holmes!
now fully baked
a cutting mat with a grid
double stick tape
your original die
an extra fine permanent
marker
masking tape
a craft knife,
with a #11 blade
a needle tool
a small drill handle
or pin vise
a drill bit in a size that suits
the hole you want to make
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MasterClass KnowHow
Finishing KnowHow
In a workshop, when students see my work up close, or they touch it, they
often ask, ‘How do you get that nice finish?’ Well, if you’ve come this far in
this MasterClass, you know that doing good work means doing things
carefully and thoroughly at every step of the way. We call it ‘finishing
right from the start.’
For me, a ‘nice finish’ is not something you put on your work, like glaze,
Varathane, or floor polish. Sometimes I use liquid clay to add a very fine
texture, for a matte or satin finish. But most of the time, it’s all in the sanding
and buffing. Think of ‘finish’ as a verb, something you do to your work. The
noun is what you get as a result.
The very first time I ever sanded and
buffed a bead was at the Northwest
Polymer Clay Guild’s weekend ‘Clay
Camp’ hosted near Seattle in the fall
of 1995. Artist and bead historian
Jamey Allen was there, and he
showed me how to buff polymer clay,
using the edge of a muslin buffing
wheel attached to a bench grinder.
Jamey knew a lot about glass beads,
and thanks to his demo, I got a very
glass-like finish on my polymer clay
finishing flashback: buffing a bead
at the NWPCG’s ‘Clay Camp’ in 1995
surface. I still have that bead.
Good finishing gets better with
practice, and for sanding and buffing,
it helps to have a little theory too...
© 2011 Dan Cormier & Tracy Holmes!
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About the Authors
That’s Dan, on the left, standing beside his
three Tin Toy inro vessels at the Terra Nova
polymer clay exhibition opening at the Racine
Art Museum in October 2011.
That’s Tracy, proudly standing beside him,
with her cool purse, made with beer can tabs
and plastic bags by a nice lady in Mexico.
They wrote this book.
photo by Dan Adams
Book + Die Sets now available!
buy the book
Originally a hands-on workshop in silhouette dieforming for polymer clay, our
Relief Beyond Belief digital MasterClass is a brand new book that teaches
this original, accessible, and elegant way to turn a decorative veneer into a
finished bead.
In adapting the process from metalworking, we made our own dies, from
cardboard, sheet metal... whatever worked. Once we got the technique
figured out, we designed our own set of custom tools to go with it.
The Cutting Edge Die Set Collection features 18 different shapes, in nine
sizes each: six classic Geometrics, and twelve nature-inspired Organics.
The workshop is now a digital book. A Cutting Edge Die Set is the perfect
tool to go with it. And right now is the best time to get both.
Get the book to learn
Relief Beyond Belief is now available for purchase as a downloadable PDF
(shipping and handling not necessary).
about the book
Get the tools to make
Cutting Edge Die Sets are now available for purchase and shipping
(shipping and handling not included).
about the tools
buy the tools
Cormier & Holmes
The Cutting Edge MasterClass Library For Polymer Clay
RBB Sample Booklet