more on Premo cobalt blue and zinc yellow

Polyform Products has announced that cobalt blue and zinc yellow will continue to be available through Polymer Clay Express, Munro Crafts and Creative Wholesale.

While it’s wonderful that these colors will still be available, I get the uneasy feeling that it may not last. Why? This is the way that Polymer Clay Express announced it on their blog, “We will be carrying Zinc Yellow and Cobalt Blue Premo throughout 2011!!”. The throughout 2011 part is what concerns me. My guess is that Polyform Products will reevaluate 2011 sales of cobalt blue and zinc yellow and may or may not continue them beyond 2011.

Unfortunately the sales will probably not end up being enough to support continuing these colors. The main reason being the limited availability. While the die hard professional artists will order the colors to be able to continue their color palettes, hobbyists will probably not bother. Pörrö, brought up another issue in her comment to this post, mainly that these colors won’t be available wholesale to non-US businesses.

What does this mean for my Premo polymer clay color recipe ebooks? Well, for now they still include cobalt blue and zinc yellow in the mixes, including the most recent spring/summer 2011 version. Sometime after the first of the year when I get my hands on the new colors I will do some mixing, but I just don’t think that you’re going to be able to match the colors without cobalt and zinc yellow. I do have plans to add color recipe ebooks for FIMO, Kato and possibly Pardo Art Clay.