Colors Used

Stacked Sheets

Rolling the pressed colors

A pressed slice

Un-pressed slice

The chop

Natasha bead

Starting the tube

Open the tube

Cutting the tube open

Fill with white

Long bead

Straight chop

With filler

Purple, blue, light green, gold, black, pearl. These are the colors I see in oil slicks.

Pressing the different colors into sheets, stacking them and pressing them again until all the colors are pressed together. Then slice, stack, and press the last time.

Taking the pressed colors I rolled it into from both ends, changing direction a couple of times.

This is how one slice looks like pressed as thin as I could get it. It shows how the pressed sheets were rolled up.

This is how a slice looks like not pressed. It's hard to see the different colors.

This is a section of the oil-slick chop.

I started out making natasha beads with the chop and the experiment starts from this point.

After matching the four mirror images I rolled the bead into a tube shape, sticking a skewer down the center.

Roll the tube holding on to both ends of the skewer and press to the work table, it opens the tube.

After opening the tube stick something down the center, like a chop stick or pencil, then cut the tube open.

I filled the cut open tubes with white. I wanted to stretch out the design by using white as a filler.

This is how a long bead looks like with the design stretched out with white filler clay.

These are beads made with the oil-slick chop without using filler to stretch out the design. The beads without the chop had better designs but they are so dark it's hard to see the design unless you have your nose right up against them.

These beads have the white filler stretching out the design. One can see the colors more but we loose some of the detail of the design by stretching them with filler.