This one uses the recipe from Carol Blackburn's book. The more I look at it the more I like it.  This slice looks the most natural out off all the pieces I made.

These are my failed attempts at faux paua.  The first uses oil paint and the second uses black clay. Neither look real but I did get some good looking pendants anyway.

Lori, nice job on the top one! It looks just like abalone to me.

What's the difference between abalone and paua? 

thank you : )

I was not sure so I looked it up... paua is a type of abalone from New Zealand. no wonder I was confused.  I believe Paua is dark blue/teal, whereas other abalone can be more greyish/pastelish.

Aha! I googled "paua" for some images, and I like it! Really rich teals and blues.

 

Your abalone came out GREAT!

Even though the paua wasn't what you were after, it's still pretty cool.  And the colors are great. 

I surrendered and tried this technique, well, sort of. I didn't follow the recipe exactly, used mostly inks to get the colors. I was mostly interested in seeing how the black oil paint + liquid clay worked. Very interesting. My slices didn't have the authentic-looking abalone patterns that Lori got. I'm terrible at slicing anyway, must be my dull blades.

Anyway, despite the messiness of applying the paint, I like the way it made a very thin black line. It has potential for other uses. I was looking at something towards the back of D. Kato's book and found she uses Genesis heat-set paints in red/orange/magenta (love!). Might be something to try.

I ended up rolling the above into beads. Not my colors at all, but not bad. Still, they cry out for some translucence. 

I'm glad you tried it. did you use Carol's book? would you post?  

I'm glad I tried it too. Yes, it was Carol's book, but I didn't follow her recipe in terms of mixing colors or amounts of this or that. I used her general guidelines, but I was really most interested in how the oil paint plus liquid clay worked (it does). It sure is messy to spread on thin clay! And of course abalone doesn't come in bead shapes, so it further diminishes its faux factor. I'll try to take some pics later on.