New Book About Air Dry Clay~FREE TODAY

I just published my new book “TOP 10 REASONS WHY AIR DRY CLAY IS BETTER THAN POLYMER CLAY” and, as an introductory offer, I've made the book available for FREE for the next few days.  Grab yourself a copy at  Amazon. You can thank me by leaving a review.

Make a Mini Roller

Meadow Lane Studios shows us how to make a little roller tool to use whenever you want thin pieces of clay for embellishments, covering small objects, etc.

Problems, problems :(

You may have noticed that MANY of my images have disappeared.    Joining Google Plus made a mess of my image files when I linked Google+ to Blogger.   Now it's no longer linked but please be patient as I re-build the blog.  It's gonna take a while as it effected ALL my blogs.  

Update

Hi all, it's been a long time since I've posted anything new on the blog. It's been a busy year for me.   You too, huh?  As a matter of fact, it's been over a year since I said I was going to make some format changes here and will be converting the original blog to a website format. I haven't quite finished the "new look" but I wanted to let you know these changes are being made in support of my goal to make "The New Clay News" a great resource for all the frequently asked questions about air-dry, no-bake and self-hardening clays.   

All air dry clay tutorials will be published on my other blog: Air-Dry-Clay  (except any existing tutorials will remain in place here).  The "Air Dry Clay" site is tutorials only...categorized by subject and also by tutorials written for specific clay products and brands.  From now on, the "New Clay News" will be dedicated to articles and featured artists along with questions and answers about the various brands of clay and how they're used  A compilation of reference material.  I hope you find it helpful.  Please post a comment or email your questions!

Mary              

How to Paint Air Dry Clay Using Shading Techniques

Today Mauricio Siqueira takes us on a walkthrough of painting a completed air-dry clay or cold porcelain figure using craft acrylics.  Step by step photos take us from a cured completed figure (as shown below) to the finished detailed bunny shown above.   Using the same techniques used by tole painters, the artist shades and antiques the wrinkles in the bunny's body and other accent areas.  Notice where the artist uses thinned down paints to shade some areas.  Blush or pastel chalks are used on the cheeks.

Bunny before painting

Comparing Polymer Clay and Cold Porcelain

DottedKitten has created a video showing us the differences she found between polymer clay and no-bake cold porcelain.   This question comes up often, so I hope you enjoy the video.   Thanks DottedKitten!

New changes in store for New Clay News

Doll made by author (Mary in Oregon) using Creative Paperclay and Robert  McKinley tutorial.

In this, the fifth year of The New Clay News, I've decided to make some format changes.  I'll be converting this blog to a website format for a couple of reasons.   I've gotten involved in too many things (in real life) and just don't seem to have the time any more for daily (or even weekly) blog posts.  Also, I want to make this a great reference site for all the frequently asked questions about air-dry and no-bake clays.   To do that, I plan on adding some more pages of reference material rather than doing any more random posting or how-to tutorials.

All the existing posts will remain in the archives, but, in the future, look for all step-by-step tutorials to be posted at my Air-Dry-Clay (tutorial directory) and, just for cold porcelain, we have Cold Porcelain Tutorials.   Please sign up for RSS or follow those tutorial directories by email.    If you need personal assistance, we still have our Air-Dry-Clay Yahoo Group going strong with over 1200 members!  Join us!

Remember, we're not closing down...we're just changing....so look for more product reviews, more about art dolls, some featured artists, and lots of crafting tips coming soon as our resources for air-dry, self-hardening and no-bake clays grows right along with the popularity of this form of clay modeling!

How to Size Doll Eyes

If you're going to make your own clay doll, you'll need to buy or make some eyes.   There's lots of tutorials for making your own doll eyes.   We've featured some here and also at Air-Dry-Clay Tutorials....but today we're talking about ready-made eyes.   

Slip and Score

Here's a tip from the Creative Paperclay blog for attaching pieces together!  With Creative Paperclay you can create a slip just like they do with traditional kiln-fired clays and use it to bond Paperclay pieces together.

Tutorial: Clay Rose with Color Gradient

Hi, Sorry I haven't been posting every day like I used to.  I got involved in some local projects around town which have been taking a lot of my time.  More than I expected...you know how that goes!   Because I missed featuring a tutorial on Tuesday... let's have one today!

In this video, the well-known South American clay artist Jorge Rubicce shows us his methods for creating realistic roses using cold porcelain. If you don't understand the language, just mute the video and follow along visually as he demonstrates each step for building the flowers and creating his gradient color effect.  Any of the soft air-dry clays would work as well for this project.

Make Your Own Clay Shape Cutters

It's Tool Tip Thursday and Rubina (Gemini Arts and Crafts) has lots of ideas for making your own clay cutters.  Supplies needed for this project are an aluminum sheet or tin sheet, scissors, pen, ruler, glue (steel bond), a wood block, hammer and nails to insert in the wood block to help get shape and curves of cutter.

Tutorial: Black Cat in a Pumpkin

It's Tutorial Tuesday....so let's create this cat in a pumpkin following a tutorial from Makin's Clay  The Halloween pumpkin is made from neon orange Makin's Clay and the cat's eyes are glow-in-the-dark clay, also from Makin's.

Meet a New Clay: Apoxie Sculpt

Most of the time we talk about air-dry clay, but The New Clay News is about ALL no-bake clays and today I'd like to introduce you to  Apoxie Sculpt, a modeling compound that cures with a chemical reaction rather than air-dry.  Apoxie Sculpt from Aves Studio is a 2-part self-hardening product with a putty-like, smooth consistency.  It is easy to mix and use, just mix and knead Parts A & B together for 2 minutes until thoroughly combined and a uniform color is achieved.  Cures hard in 24 hours without oven or kiln.  Working time is 2-3 hours.  Adheres to many other materials and can be seamlessly feathered before set-up or sanded, tapped, drilled, carved, lathed, or otherwise tooled after set-up!    Clean-up with Aves Safety Solvent or soap and water.

How to Make Perfect Ball Joints

Today is Tutorial Tuesday and I found this tutorial on a Russian website to share.  Author describes a great technique for making a perfectly round ball using LaDoll clay.  The artist will use the balls for the joints in her BJD dolls, but I bet there's other uses for a perfectly round clay ball!  This technique may also work for other brands of air-dry clay (such as Creative Paperclay).  You'll have to experiment.

Working With Air-Dry Clay: Art Dolls

"Spring" by Tireless Artist

The Tireless Artist shares her tips for working with air-dry clay when creating art dolls plus some additional tips for saving and restoring "old" clay.

To quote the artist (Dorote): "I can’t describe happiness and excitement when I discovered art dolls. I think this is most complicated and interesting art ever. The doll artist has to be also a sculptor and a painter and hairdresser and couture and also needs knowledge of working with different materials and making different accessories. Doll making is my full time occupation now."

Guide to Aging Characters

Here's another great reference chart from Joumana Medlej, majnouna.com.   The "Artists Guide to Aging Characters" was created for those drawing human anatomy but it is also useful information for those sculpting figures and creating dolls, especially for the facial features.  It shows the changes in proportion and other changes that happen as a person ages from a baby to a senior citizen. See more charts at majnouna.com

Note: The actual size of the image is a lot larger than the way it displays in Blogger.  Chart is much easier to read if you download a copy.

Guide to Body Proportions

This "Guide to Drawing the Body" is a great reference chart from Joumana Medlej, majnouna.com.   It was created for those drawing human anatomy but it is also useful information for those sculpting figures and creating dolls.   See more charts at majnouna.com

Note: The actual size of the image is about 2400x3500 pixels, which Blogger isn't displaying full size.  Chart is much easier to read if you download a copy.

Taking Photos of Your Clay Creations

These violets are less than an inch tall and photo was taken with  a lightbox and average camera.

Taking photos of your clay creations and other small items, especially miniatures, can be challenging.  Here's some tips for improving your photos with better lighting and uncluttered backgrounds.   First we have a tutorial from SmallCreations and then, from CandidAnn, a video showing how to make your own lightbox at home.

Meet a New Clay: Fimo Air

You're probably familiar with Fimo polymer clay, but did you know Fimo also makes a line of air-dry clays? It's called FimoAir and is available in 5 different formulas.   I haven't yet had the opportunity to try them all but I did  order some FimoAir a while back.  That was before I knew there was a "basic" and a "light" version and I ordered the 'basic'.   What got shipped to me was Efaplast, also made by Fimo.  Efaplast basic and FimoAir basic are one and the same thing in different packaging and with a new name!

Embedding Clay Flowers in Epoxy Resin

This tutorial from MinaevaJA, which is translated from Russian, shows us how to embed air-dry clay flowers in epoxy to create earrings like those shown above and below.   At the beginning of the tutorial it says "Part 3"....ignore that.   The full tutorial is on this one page.    First she shows us how to make a tiny flower with Deco Clay and then, after flower has dried and cured, it is lowered into a mold of epoxy resin and left to set.

The computerized translation to English is full of flaws but the accompanying step-by-step photos should give you enough information to try this unique technique with some of your own mini clay flowers!