Two-color Skinner Blend, Step by Step Tutorial

This elegant and clever technique was developed by Judith Skinner in the 1990's, and it is hard to imagine now that there was time when this technique did not exist. The Skinner blend technique is used to achieve smooth gradient of two or more colors. I think this is the single most-used technique in a polymer clay community. This technique is easier to do using a pasta machine, but it can be done with just a roller if you have lots of time and patience.
	Choose two colors of polymer clay you want to use for your Skinner blend and condition them. You will need equal amounts of clays in each color, at least 1 oz. (half of a small package). Use more clay to make a bigger cane. Prepare a rectangular sheet of clay using the thickest setting on your pasta machine (#1 for Atlas, #7 for Amaco). Keep a small amount of each color for future use. Now cut each rectangle diagonally and stack the triangular pieces of the same color on the top of each other. Arrange the two obtained double-thick triangles to form a new rectangle as shown on the picture. Lightly press the parts together.
	Carefully lift the new two-colored rectangular sheet of clay and feed it into your pasta machine, short side first.
	Fold the sheet of clay by bringing its short sides together.
	Roll it through the pasta machine. Make sure that the folded side of the sheet goes into the machine first to avoid trapping any air (please refer to the picture). Air bubbles trapped in the clay tend to expand during baking and cause bulging on the surface of your creation.
	Repeat the last two steps (folding and rolling) until you have a smooth gradation of color. The picture on the left shows the sheet after about 6 or 7 rolls.
	This is how your sheet of clay should look after about 20 to 25 rolls. Please note the distortion of one of the sides of my sheet of clay. It happens because of a slight imperfection in the alignment of the pasta machine rollers and is to be expected. Just trim off the uneven part(s) when your Skinner blend is completed. I will show you how to use the obtained Skinner blend sheet in the bull's eye and leaf cane tutorial.