SEE-THROUGH PATTERNS IN POLYMER CLAY
WINTER SESSION 2025
FEBRUARY 1 TO MARCH 30, 2025
REGISTRATION IS OPEN
JANUARY 16 - 21, 2025
$325 CAN$ 🇨🇦 ≈ $230 US$ 🇺🇸
One of the cool qualities of polymer clay as a full-colour medium is how mixable it is. There are lots of packaged colours, and you can mix them to make lots and LOTS more.
There’s also translucent polymer clay that allows light to pass through it, opening new possibilities for overlapping colours and expanding palettes.
But more translucency can mean compromised chroma. Peekaboo patterns are possible, but intensity of Hue can be missing in the mix, and colourful colours become less ‘colour full.’
What if you could draw on a full spectrum of opaque colours to 'draw' patterns that appear translucent, but actually aren’t?
Welcome to Five Star Colour, an exploration of colour and pattern in polymer clay using minimal clay and methodical mixing to create supposedly see-through shapes with maximum illusion and dimensional effect.
Highlighting Hue, varying Value, and shifting Saturation, Five Star Colour is an open-ended system, a set of principles to create a broad range of colour combinations, arranged to emphasize the illusion of overlap and the optical allure of dynamic colour interaction.
In a curriculum focusing on process as a foundation for future finished projects, Five Star Colour veneers are perfect for a variety of applications, from small-scale jewelry pieces to pictures you can hang on your wall. Starting with just a few colours, every palette and pattern can be personalized with numerous opportunities for iteration, or simply as a way to enhance your colour practice with an elegant archive of sophisticated swatches.
Colour curious, confused, or conflicted? Comfortable and confident, but stalled on a palette plateau? No matter where you are in your colour journey, Five Star Colour will take you further.
Make your work the star of the show…
“Thank you both Dan & Tracy, it has been another truly 5 Star Adventure!! 🤩 One of my favourite courses thus far, offering the best of the dynamic duo that is HoCo! The course perfectly complements Tracy’s BreakThroughColour, bringing colour theory into perspective... the learning truly is in the doing!!! It is also a great lesson on how NOT to mix mud but learning to how to confidently neutralize colour!! Biggest take away is how surprisingly fond I am of the Grey Mode Palette, I will be definitely chasing down that rabbit hole and exploring more pebble-themed variations. Until the next, it’s been an absolute pleasure… 😃”
Five Star Colour is a process-based curriculum designed to pique your curiosity and increase your insight through guided colour and pattern exploration and open-ended extrapolation.
This is not a project-based curriculum. Accessible and as full-spectrum as you want it to be, Five Star Colour introduces a fun way to explore personal palettes and make limited edition veneers that can be saved as flat-tile swatches, or transformed 3-dimensionally into decorative, draped, or dieformed projects.
Object design and finishing will not be covered in this course. But the colour mixing tips and tricks will serve you well across a broad spectrum of media, and honing your composite pattern-making skills will pair well with techniques you may know from Building Better Beads, Relief Beyond Belief, and A Perfect Fit, or for the many other veneer-based projects that are possible in this medium.
Here are some earrings I made with the ‘Five Star’ palette and pattern processes you will learn in this course…
What will you make with your Five Star VENEERs?
“Thanks so much for another great experience! It was nice to have Tracy’s color theory fully integrated into this class. I can’t help being drawn to your exquisite execution and your encouraging teaching style. These classes are just perfect for busy people with artistic yearnings. Please keep on creating and sharing yourselves with us.”
CURRICULUM OVERVIEW
The Five Star Colour curriculum will be presented in three main Modules, each one using intentional colour mixing to focus on a different realm of the colour space: Light Mode, Dark Mode, and Grey Mode.
Each Module will feature a detailed look at mixing a Five Star palette, featuring the mixes in a composite veneer, and exploring some ‘what if?’ project possibilities.
The Five Star Colour lessons will include the same combination of high quality ‘front row seat’ pre-recorded videos, supporting text, images, and graphics that have become the hallmark of our online school experience.
The Modules will also be enhanced with comprehensive step-out images to reinforce each colour realm, inspiring you to make your own design choices and explore more personal palettes.
By the end of this course, you will have a collection of Five Star Colour veneers, plus extra iterations you may choose to explore. Save them as swatches for future reference, or use them in your own ways in finished pieces, during or after the course.
Here’s a closer look at each Module Mode…
MODULE 1 :: LIGHT MODE
Starting with colours right out of the package, Module 1 will introduce a key ‘Five Star’ concept: the Pentaradial Palette. This will provide the foundation for all the colour mixing shared in the course.
Shedding light on the implied interaction of these initial colours, Light Mode will introduce translucency with bright colour schemes.
Choosing from several DIY Venn Flower templates (digital download PDFs included in your tuition), you’ll use your personal palette of mixed colours to build your first composite veneer. Starting small, these ‘see-through’ veneers will be well suited to see through into something wearable, like these three brand new beads made especially to feature some Light Mode possibilities…
MODULE 2 :: DARK MODE
After developing your second Pentaradial Palette, Module 2 will take you deep into Dark Mode. Here you’ll build a bigger veneer, with more complexity and depth, that will become a polymer picture, perfect for framing to feature on the wall.
And BTW, Dark Mode doesn’t have to mean dark colours… like a neon sign at midnight, sometimes the contrast of a darker context can really make bright colours pop even brighter.
MODULE 3 :: GREY MODE
Module 3 will take us on a journey to the center of the colour space, the desaturated realm of Grey Mode.
Underexplored and often misunderstood, neutrals can be confounding, especially since we sometimes end up with colours that are muddy by mistake. But toned-down Tones are more prevalent in the world around us than all the pure Hues, Tints, and Shades combined. When they are the destination instead of an unexpected detour, these muted palettes can resonate with subtle elegance.
Not as bright as Light, and not as stark as Dark, Grey Mode takes a little of both and gives us more to explore in the middle.
Drawing inspiration from beach pebbles, our final Five Star Colour Module will reference both the reduced chroma and asymmetry of these organic forms. Our composite veneer will be an overlapping pebble pattern suitable for a pin or statement pendant.
Here are some pieces from my portfolio, Grey Mode activated…
As you can see, Five Star colour and pattern concepts can be applied to all kinds of creative projects.
But just a reminder, Five Star Colour is not a project-based curriculum. Detailed instructions for completing veneers into finished pieces is too much to include in a course of this size.
But to make sure you leave the classroom with some knowledge to integrate Five Star patterns into your work, each Module will include strategies for fortifying your composite veneers, and some surface finishing techniques will be discussed.
Like with any decorative polymer clay veneer, the fate of a Five Star veneer is up to you…
LIGHT, DARK, OR MUTED IN THE MIDDLE, WHERE WILL EACH MODE TAKE YOU?
Eileen La Russo : USA | Jayne Traeger-Bliss : AUSTRALIA | Katarzyna Stefaniak : POLAND
“Five Star Colour was another excellent course from Dan and Tracy. The exploration of different color modes opens a world of possibilities to apply to my own creative style. The use of a hub color to harmonize a palette is a game-changer. I appreciated that this class was process-driven, not project-driven. I had looked at photos of Dan’s Five Star pieces for several years and hadn’t figured out how he created the “illusion” of transparency, so taking this class gave me a real understanding of the process. Thanks a lot, Dan and Tracy. I’ll look forward to being in the classroom with you soon again.”
LITTLE DETAILS, BIG RESULTS
Alumni students who have graduated from any one of our online MasterClasses know the value of ‘Mastering The Mechanics,’ and even though Five Star Colour is a shorter-format course experience, the first Module of lessons will follow the same philosophy, starting things off with a deep dive into all the little details that give us the big results.
Foundational lessons will enhance and expand the curriculum beyond the ‘what’ and ‘how,’ and into the ‘why’ and ‘what if…?’
Add to that, tool tips, digi-downloads, and a soundtrack you can bop along to while you work, Five Star Colour is a great opportunity for you to learn new concepts, refine your skills, and have a lot of fun while doing it.
A combination of ‘focused at first’ and then ‘choose your own (design) adventure,’ Five Star Colour is an exploratory course that’s structured to give you a strong foundation on which to build your own signature palettes and patterns.
The learning is in the doing, and the growing comes with the guidance of an experienced polymer professional, a ‘breakthrough’ colour coach, and the inspiring peer-to-peer support of our diverse global classroom community.
GET TO KNOW COLOUR, PIECE BY PIECE
“This has been a truly five star class, as always. I love Dan’s techniques and Tracy’s insights into color. I can’t wait to display my veneers to my friends. They’ll be impressed! I love you guys and love the courses you teach. Thanks for your wonderful instruction and thanks for providing a forum for all these people to share. I love seeing everyone’s work.”
Theresa Zerrenner : USA | Natasha Weppner : AUSTRALIA | Eileen La Russo : USA
NOT JUST JEWELRY
Our courses (and projects made with polymer clay in general) are typically bead and jewelry focussed. But the patterns we’ll be making in Five Star Colour also lend themselves to being featured flat. Making 2-dimensional art with a 3-dimensional art medium might sound counterintuitive, but perfectly flat surfaces are actually a fun way to emphasize the illusions of overlapping inherent in Five Star patterns.
For the first time ever, we’ll be offering instructions for a non-jewelry option, all-polymer pictures that can be framed to hang on the wall.
WEARABLE OR ‘WALL’-ABLE… FIVE-STAR DECOR FOR YOU AND YOUR HOME
Yves Lafont : FRANCE | Elaine Wood : ISLE OF MAN | Karen Hammers : USA
“Once again Dan and Tracy have organized and presented interesting and innovative ideas and techniques in a manner that is clear, incremental, thorough, and inspirational. Each step is well documented, one thing building on the next. In Five Star Colour (yes, happy to yuze the “u”) the colour part was particularly yummy. It’s a great system for creating the mixes and just by its nature, invites such a wonderful range. I found myself intrigued and delighted by everyone’s palettes. I wanted to look at each one and take part in the conversation about the results. And fun to see how the colours came together in the final compositions in ways that were hard to predict. I’m looking forward to experiment and run off in some new directions.”
BEGINNERS WELCOME
Just like most art materials, there are plenty of colours available in polymer clay. And beyond the clay itself, polymer people love their tools. A skin-coloured sculpting material that was once very niche (designed for dollmakers in the 1930s… did you know?) it was subject to a scarcity of accessories. Now, there’s an abundance of add-ons, a tool for every tip and trick in the book.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a tool guy. I even make my own, and share many of them with you in our online store. But I can see how getting into polymer clay now could be a little overwhelming. So, let me say here, if you’ve been thinking it might be fun to try working with polymer clay but you don’t know where start… start here.
In Five Star Colour, we take it back to the basics. A pasta machine, some cutting tools, a small cache of clay, access to an oven, and few other supplies will be all you need to get started.
A simple set-up, with five-star results
Valérie Ronval-Blaya : FRANCE | Heide Teruelle : USA | Katarzyna Stefaniak : POLAND
“I learn so many things from you, Dan! You have the inspiration and knowledge of how to teach us new ways of working with polymer clay. I love the developing community in your online classes, too. It is fun to think of what different directions we’re all going in, from the same techniques.”
“Once again, you guys outdid yourselves. Thank you for another wonderful masterclass that keeps pushing me out of my comfort zone. Really, I never thought I’d love these colors so much. ”
REGISTER HERE
FOR THE WINTER 2025 SESSION
FIVE STAR COLOUR
TUITION
$325 CAN$ 🇨🇦 ≈ $230 US$ 🇺🇸
Please note, we are based in Canada, and our tuition prices are listed in Canadian dollars. If you are outside Canada, you will be charged an equivalent amount in your currency.
The US$ price is included as an estimate based on current exchange rates.
The FIVE STAR COLOUR CLASSROOM OPENS FEBRUARY 1, 2025
ALL WINTER 2025 MASTERCLASSES END MARCH 30, 2025
REGISTRATION CLOSES
TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2025
ANY QUESTIONS?
WILL I NEED ANY SPECIAL TOOLS, EQUIPMENT, OR MATERIALS?
Other than the basic tools and materials found in a typical polymer clay studio, and the downloadable extras you will be getting as part of your tuition, you won’t need anything special.
A complete Tools & Materials List will be available inside the classroom once you are registered and enrolled. It will include recommended amounts of clay (don’t worry… it’s not much!). And we’ll be reviewing everything together as part of our orientation.
If you have any other questions about Five Star Colour, we’d love to hear from you.
Please contact us via email and we’ll reply as soon as we can (thanks for your patience… Registration can be a busy time!).
We hope you’ll join us for this colour-full course experience…
Dan + Tracy
