There are so many reasons to love this new color Sculpey Premo™. This teal is a vibrant on trend fashion color by itself, straight out of the package. Even more exciting are the colors you can mix using teal: rich verdant dark teals, Caribbean inspired aquas, a scintillating range of purples and luscious emerald greens. These resultant energizing, inviting colors point to the possibility of using this Teal as a blue pigment primary in a three color mixing system.
Maggie and I were quite excited to receive pre-release samples to try out some instinctual and measured mixes using one red = Fuchsia, one blue= Teal and two yellows = Zinc Yellow (cool) and Cadmium Yellow (warm). The inclusion of Cadmium yellow was a concession to my preference for that version of yellow that is available in the Premo™ line.
Eventually we ended up mixing two versions of Maggie Maggio’s Smashing Color™ Mixing Map along with two sets of color chips made from those mixes. That works out to be 88 for each map for a total of 176 measured mixes using just three primaries in each set! You may not want to go that far, but we consider any time spent mixing colors as an investment in our artistic futures. By spending time mixing swatches we are able to discover the relative tinctorial strength of the primaries involved and compare them to the other primaries we have used in the past.
If you love Teals, that alone could be your reason to opt for using Teal as your mixing primary blue in a limited palette but there are is another reason.
The first is that it is impossible to mix a vibrant teal using the Premo™ Cobalt, Turquoise or Ultramarine clays. The second is the clear greens that result from mixing the new Teal with Yellows.
Two arrays of the Zinc chip set are pictured here to give you an idea of the possibilities.
If you find the notion of mixing 88 samples daunting, you could opt to mix the following twelve colors, in order to explore the mixing possibilities with the new Sculpey Premo™ Teal.
I began by making this series of measured mixes. This will give you an idea of starting points for future mixtures while exploring how Teal interacts when mixed with other colors. After sheeting each of the colors on the same thickness of my pasta machine, I used a small square cutter to measure and cut the polymer for each of the mixtures. The resultant mixes were then sheeted thin and cut into the sample squares and cured according to the package directions. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Teal only darkened slightly after baking.
This first set of sample mixes includes: Teal with 25% black, Teal with 25% white and Teal with 50% white.
This array of sample chips is made from the mixing map mixtures. When mixed with Sculpey Premo Fuchsia, Sculpey Premo Teal yields a fabulous range of purples. This sample chip array includes tints of Teal, blue-violet, violet, and red-violet. These colors range from a pale orchid to a vibrant blue-violet.
The smaller holes allow the chips to be held together in order with ball chain. The larger holes may be used to hold over another color to audition color combinations.
The photo above shows three different proportions of Sculpey Premo™ Fuchsia mixed with Sculpey Premo™ Teal. From left to right, 25% Fuchsia, 50% Fuchsia and 75% Fuchsia. This is a fabulous range of vibrant purples that could be darkened by adding black or tinted by adding white.
This sample chip array, shown above, is made from the mixing map mixes that include includes mixtures of Sculpey Premo™ Teal and Sculpey Premo™ Zinc Yellow with tints with white. These colors range from a lovely mint green to a verdant Emerald green.
Three different proportions of Sculpey Premo Teal and Sculpey Premo Zinc Yellow are shown in the photo above. From left to right 50% Zinc Yellow, 75% Zinc Yellow and 87% (7/8 Zinc Yellow). Note that it takes a lot more yellow to get a yellow green. One part Teal with 15 parts Zinc Yellow will make for a nice version of yellow green.
As a nod to my personal preference for Sculpey Premo™ Cadmium Yellow here is a warmer set of green mixtures using Sculpey Premo Cadmium Yellow. From left to right 50% Cadmium Yellow, 75% Cadmium Yellow and 87% Cadmium Yellow (7/8 Cadmium Yellow).
There are lots of reasons to love this new color Sculpey Premo™ Teal whether by itself or as a mixing primary to create a set of cohesive harmonious colors. My next mixing experiments will include variations of green made with Sculpey Premo™ Fluorescent Yellow instead of Zinc or Cadmium Yellow. And since I love purple, I will try using Sculpey Premo™ Fluorescent Pink instead of Fuchsia.
We would love to see how you use this New Sculpey Premo™ Teal in your projects or mixing experiments. When you post on social media please use the hashtag #howdoyousculpey.
