Workshop with Dan Cormier

This weekend the Southern Ontario Polymer Clay Guild hosted Dan Cormier teaching his Relief Beyond Belief workshop.  Die forming is a technique Dan adapted from metal work and he says "It's the easiest and most addictive system I know to make contoured and voluminous forms from flat sheets of polymer clay, and it remains my favourite way to create beads, buttons, brooches, and other three-dimensional objects in a range of shapes and sizes."

As part of the workshop, we received a special collection of dies to use in class and to take home for future projects.  Dan has a number of different die sets available with each one featuring a particular shape in nine graduated sizes.  The die sets don't seem to be on his website yet, but I imagine they will be soon.

This was a "process" class so we focused on techniques rather than creating a finished project.   You'll have to stay tuned to see what I make using die forming.  In the meantime, you can go to Dan's site to see his extraordinary work using this process.

Some examples from Dan's website: