If there’s one thing polymer clayers love to do, it’s to see how well they can imitate other techniques and materials. In fact, there are entire books on imitative techniques such as Polymer Clay Gemstones: The Art of Deception and The Polymer Clay Artist’s Guide: A Directory of Mixes, Colors, Textures, Faux Finishes and Surface Effects.

One of the most approachable imitative techniques is that of mokume gane, which is a Japanese metalworking technique with quite beautiful results. Above is a screenshot of an image search for mokume gane. Yup, those are all metal. So many lovely things to be made!

Doing polymer clay mokume gane is really quite simple, and even if you only use a small amount of clay you can get lots of material for covering things.

Here’s some mokume gane I made several years ago. I used it to cover pens for Christmas gifts for guys. (They were a big hit!) Even though I made at least a dozen pens I still have this chunk of lovely striated blue, green, silver and white to use in other projects.

In the mokume gane project I show in today’s video I use a very definite pattern but you can just do it randomly. One artist who has done some beautiful things with this technique is Julie Picarello. You can check out her book, Patterns in Polymer and see all the different variations she’s come up with.

Tools and Materials:

• Sculpey cabochon mold
• Polymer clay in colors of your choice (see my Pinterest board, Color Inspiration, for ideas)
• Metal leaf, if desired
• Pasta machine or acrylic roller
• Clay blades, rigid and flexible
• Tools for compressing clay stack, such as cutters and dotting tools
• Sculpey gloss glaze

Enjoy the video and happy creating!

Watch the Mokume Gane Cabochons-Polymer Clay Tutorial video at YouTube.

Like my tutorials? Support me on Patreon for weekly peeks into my creative process and a bonus video every month!