Polymer clay color palettes guaranteed to look great

As I practice making polymer clay pieces it becomes obvious that you need not only to choose great colors but the lightness should have some contrast as well.  I sometimes make a lovely color palette but the colors all blend in the piece because they are too similar in lightness.  i.e. not enough dark vs light colors

As I continue to play and learn about using polymer clay colors I thought it would be great to have a resource for color palettes that anyone could use to make a stunning piece with.  Here are some of the palettes I love

Ecru (or beige) ,  turquoise and black - I just love how the ecru and turquoise create a green when blended.  Check out the Jessama tutorial here

Navy, turquoise and bronze

Alizarin crimson, blush and white

In general terms I think you cannot go wrong if you choose a bright primary type color and then use a light neutral and a dark neutral.  Here is my experiment with some scrap red, dark bronze and pearl mixed with a little bit of the bronze.

Mud...or is it?

Some polymer clay artists mix their own colours using the three primary colour clays.  I have found that when I try to create a splendid new color I usually end up with mud. Sometimes if it doesn’t seem too awful I will use it in a cane or technique but I have always ended up regretting it.  The colours don’t seem brighter when used and it bothers me.  Better to stick it in the scrap pile for use later.

J

The light purple in this mosaic cane was a little muddy, not too noticeable here but not nice in larger amounts.

I was pondering the distinct lack of dark brown in the Premo clay lineup and then thought, well it’s just mud. Maybe I can make my own?  I found this article and spent an interesting day playing with browns and creating faux Onyx from a book by Carol Blackburn

Basically if you mix equal yellow, red and blue you will get a brown. As you add more red you get a reddish brown, more yellow gets closer to a yellowy tan and blue seems to darken the brown.  If you mix in too much blue and yellow you get a greener brown.

Here are some things I made with my browns.