I discovered polymer clay in 1993 and have been fascinated by it ever since. It's one of those art mediums that continually surprises and delights me, in both it's simplicity of use and it's endless possibilities. I mostly made buttons in the early days for a knitwear/yarn design company, Longreach Yarns here in Australia. Because they were an Australian company selling knitwear overseas as well as locally, I was delighted to discover Modelene, an Australian polymer clay, that I now use exclusively.

Polymer clay is deceptively simple to use. Once it's conditioned you are ready to create your artwork using one of the many, many techniques available. Then, when you are finished you simply bake it in an ordinary home oven for 20 mins at 130°Celsius or (275° F). And that's it! As for what you can do with it, there are far too many possibilities for me to mention here, so I've added some links to some of my favourite polymer clay artists' web pages for you to visit.

One of my favourite things to do with polymer clay is to simulate ancient artifacts using some of the 'antiqueing' techniques available. Since is is very easy to simulate metals, semi-precious stones, slate, timber, ivory etc, it is therefore very easy to simulate art pieces that reflect some of the 'finds' from archealogical digs.

Note: The framed black and white drawing of an old house at the top of the page is a pencil drawing that was transferred to polymer clay, then covered in a very thin layer of translucent clay to protect it.