Make a Cute Reindeer

Today we have a video demo showing you how to create a cute little reindeer with polymer clay.  But this blog is suppose to be about air-dry clay, right?   It is.   This demo is a good one to use as an example of how to modify a polymer clay tutorial when using air dry clay.   The types of air-dry clays that work best for this sort of project are the soft, pre-colored clays such as Makin's Clay, Hearty Clay,

Mixed Media Clay "Face of Mother Nature"

Hearty Clay and mixed media combine to create this nature-inspired wall hanging.  Created by Judy Ross of Sun City, Arizona.   Judy first creates molds from quick-set plaster or mold compound.  Next, Hearty clay is pressed into molds to create embellishments.

Tutorial: Make Some Funny Bunnies

Video demo from TatyanaBel  doesn't say what kind of clay she's using but this would be a good project for the pre-colored air-dry clays such as Cloud Clay, Makin's Clay, Hearty Clay and Model Magic. Cold porcelain should work well for these bunnies also.  Bunnies are colorful and the simple shapes make it kid-friendly.  TatyanaBel says: "This is just to show how easy to create something that can bring an instant smile on your friend's face or someone's you care about. I've created few dozens during Easter and placed them in the kitchen at work. Easter Bunnies had their new friends very quickly!"

Tutorial: Clay flowers-Make this festive rose arrangment

This flower arrangement is very striking. I like the red, green, white color combination.   This would make a lovely decoration for the Christmas holidays.   Maybe if I get started on making an arrangement like this now, I might finish it by December!  LOL  


Deco Clay was used to create flowers shown in demo.   Homemade cold Porcelain, purchased Craft Porcelain, Delight, Daisy, Hearty and Makin's Clay are a few other clays suitable for this project.


See tutorial at Craft Ideas for All


Red, white and green clay will be needed.   For cold porcelain and clay brands that aren't available pre-colored, tint your white clay with a little acrylic paint, with color paste made for cake decorating & sugarcraft or with colorants made especially for cold porcelain.    


If you're not familiar with colorants, Wilton Icing Colors, shown here, is one example of colorants that are available in paste form from cake decorating suppliers,  at Michaels and online at Amazon.   Jars of paste colorants can be purchased as individual colors or as sets. 


Colorants specifically for cold porcelain are not readily available in USA, but you might find a supplier on the web. 

Fetcher: Figure Modeling with Hearty Clay

Fetcher

'Fetcher' is one of the comical pack-rat characters seen in one of my favorite claymation movies, 'Chicken Run'.    For my first project with Hearty Clay, I thought I'd try to re-create Fetcher.   Following are the steps I used to create him and the problems I ran into!   (This is a follow-up to my Hearty review posted yesterday)

Hearty Clay is soft, pliant and easy to work with.  Ready to use right out of the package.  Cured Hearty is lightweight, firm and a little flexible.   Because this clay is very soft,  it does not hold detail well when modeling.  Definitely not suitable for making fine-featured dolls, but OK for whimsical figures, flowers, push molds and such.

#1 Armature

Step 1 is making the armature.  This figure is about 6" tall, which is large enough where it will need some support.  First I made a 'stick' figure of wire.  Then, to save on clay, I filled up parts of it with rolled up aluminum foil.    Next, I used floral tape to wrap everything up and hold it together.  I usually use white floral tape, but I happen to have a roll of brown that needed using up!   Wrapping the wire with floral tape (or any tape) helps the clay stick to the armature. 

#2  First layer of clay for 'pants'

Photo #2 shows where I have applied the first bit of colored clay to my armature.   Hearty Clay stayed moist enough to handle for quite a while, even after going thru pasta machine a dozen times to custom mix the colors I needed to match the movie character.   The pants for my 'Fetcher' figure had a lot of wrinkles in the clay as I worked, so I used water to moisten and smooth the surface.   But!  When I wet the surface to smooth it, the color in the clay transferred to my hands.....so hand washing is important.   I didn't see any color transfer on my hands from clay out-of-package,  just when water was added.

Lots of shrinkage around tail and cracks on back of knee and elsewhere

Twenty-four hours have gone by and my first application of Hearty Clay to the 'Fetcher' armature has dried.   It has a matte suede-like appearance that looks soft but isn't.   I think it's attractive.  It was easy to mix the colors and easy to apply clay to the armature.   The only problem I had was a lot of shrinkage and some cracking when dry.   It shrank quite a bit and pulled away in the length and around the tail.   Cracks are not too bad and mostly my fault for wetting surface too much when trying to smooth it.  One of the reasons given for surface cracking is ..."when there is an excess of water or when there is water added on top, varying the degrees of humidity in the same mix".    Well, I DID get surface pretty wet....and it DID crack...no surprise!   But it looks repairable.

Cracks repaired.

The photo above shows the cracks and gaps all filled in and repaired.   I just took some fresh clay in the same color and blended it in.    It was easy to patch and you can't even tell where the cracks used to be on back of knees.  (Those cracks you see around the tail and around the waist are just rough edges.... I haven't finished that part yet!)

Beginning of final layers

For the next step I added more clay for his shirt and shoes.  This is just a base layer and will be built up with more clay and more detail as I work.

I found in working with Hearty Clay that building up thin layers of clay seems to work best.   Hearty is very easy to work with, but thick layers of clay seem to crack.  For most air-dry clays, adding clay in layers or sections seems to work the best, especially when working with an armature....but it seems especially important for the soft air dry clays like Hearty Clay.  The thinner layers allow the clay to cure more evenly.   Uneven curing causes cracking.

   

Here's the finished 'Fetcher' character!   I didn't have any more trouble with cracking once I learned to limit use of water for smoothing.    What looks like cracks around the sleeve and neck edge of his sweater, isn't.  It's "torn".  Fetcher is a pack rat and he is wearing a sweater made from a recycled argyle sock...with 'torn' edges for neck and arm holes!

Sorry, I forgot to take more photos as I was finishing his head, his sweater and other details.   The main focus was to discuss Hearty Clay and I wasn't even thinking of step-by-step photos as a WIP demo!   But, if you have any questions about how this was done... I'll try to answer!  ;-)

Review of Hearty Clay

Fetcher, from Chicken Run

my first Hearty Clay project

A while ago I purchased a few packages of Hearty Clay because it was soft to handle (but dried hard) and because it was suppose to have true primary colors for color mixing. However, the thing that interested me most about Hearty Clay was the fact that it dried to a matte, velvety-like finish that has a unique feel.

Manufacturers description:
Hearty Air Dry Clay is super lightweight and air dries to a firm consistency in 24 hours or less. When dried, Hearty has a soft suede-like feel that is pliable. It is suitable to make delicate objects like flowers as well as jewelry, pins, sculptures, magnets and other crafts projects. Hearty does not stick to fingers and it is easy to work with. It comes in 13 colors (including flesh) that can be mixed together to create infinite varieties. Color pigments used in our primary colors of Hearty Air Dry clay are faithfully reproduced for consistent color mixing results.

Cured Hearty is lightweight, firm and a little flexible. The package label says "no kneading" is needed. The clay is "ready to use" right out of the package.  But...if you plan on mixing the colors...you'll have to knead to mix or use a pasta machine to blend colors..

Hearty feels quite different from Creative Paperclay or LaDoll. Out-of-the-package it has the consistency of soft pie dough. I didn't find it specifically written anywhere, but I believe that Hearty Clay is a polymer-based clay and has many similarities to other polymer-based soft clays (the air-dry polymers...not at all like the oven-baked polymers).

Using Hearty's cyan, magenta and yellow (plus black and white) you can make any color on the color wheel.  I was very interested in being able to mix my own colors from these the 3 primaries, but, because of RA (Rheumatoid Arthritis) in my hands, kneading is painful for me, so I tried sending the Hearty Clay thru the pasta machine....no problems at all!  It went thru without sticking and colors mixed well. Before I tried that, I had heard you couldn't use the pasta machine with air-dry clay. Well, that may be true for some brands which are really sticky....but you can use pasta machine with Hearty Clay. I can vouch for that!

I found Hearty soft, pliant and easy to work with. It's a bit softer than cold porcelain, if you're familiar with CP.  Except for color mixing, no kneading is needed, which is good news for those with arthritis in their hands or other problems that make kneading of some clays difficult. However, because of that softness, Hearty does not hold fine detail well and realistic figure sculpting would be difficult.  It's great, however, for simple, whimsical figures.  Hearty can be pressed thin and it's pliable when cured, so works well for making flowers. It also works well in small press molds, which makes it suitable for jewelry, pins, magnets, scrapbooking and other crafts projects.

Hearty sticks to it's packaging (mine stuck quite a bit) and will stick to itself but does not stick to your fingers when modeling. However, if you use water with the colored clay to keep it moist or to smooth the surface, the color will come off on your hands and also smear onto adjacent clay pieces. This characteristic could maybe be used to your advantage to create blended colors for flower petals...I've haven't tried that yet!

I didn't see any color transfer on my hands from clay out-of-package, just when water was added. To avoid this, use cold cream instead of water. 

Hearty shrinks quite a bit when cured and cracks can appear. However, I didn't have any trouble patching these cracks with some new clay. Mixed colors stay true and it's hard to tell the difference in color between 'wet' clay and cured.

Un-cured balls of clay on top of cured

figure....comparing wet & dry colors

Hearty is readily available...carried in many craft stores and can be purchased online at a number of sites, including Amazon. Hearty may be a similar formula to Artista in Europe and Angel in Asia. It also has a similar consistency to Claycraft by Deco but they're not exactly the same.

I'm a little confused about this Hearty Clay and who in the heck manufacturers it. Project tutorials for Hearty Clay can be found on both websites for 'The Clay Company' and 'The Mountain Idea'. The website for The ClayCompany.com has a bunch of tips for using and coloring the clay but doesn't say much else. Hearty Clay is also shown (on website) as one of the products for 'Padico' (makers of LaDoll) but the package label says 'Venture Crafts' (Japan). Recently it has been advertised as Activa Hearty Clay and is also on their website!

Next post I'll share photos of work in progress of a small figure made with an armature and Hearty Clay and the problems I ran into...but satisfactory results in the end. That would be "Fetcher" (who is shown at top of this page).

   

Make This Easy Heart Necklace with Hearty Clay

Create this easy and colorful heart necklace with air-dry Hearty Clay.

How to Make This Cute Clay Angel

Here's a tutorial from Ben Franklin Crafts for a cute little angel made with Hearty Clay.   This would make a good beginners project.   http://createyourcrafts.com/Projects/projects/angel.htm

Glue a magnet to the back and you've got a useful and decorative item!  ....Glue a pin to back and you have jewelry!    ....Add a hanger and you have a tree ornament!    ....or ... Make it big and put a hole in the back to  hang on the wall!!   ;-)

How to make a clay Hibiscus flower

This Hibiscus tutorial shows you how to make a Hibiscus flower with Hearty Clay.  Many other brands of air-dry clay would work, as well as cold porcelain.   A set of flower-shaping tools are recommended to make this flower but you might be able to substitute tools you already have.

This flower is a bit challenging to make and is probably not a good choice for your first clay flower!  ;-)  

Meet a New Clay: Makin's Clay

Shape it, roll it, stretch it, sculpt it! Makin’s Clay is a new type of water-based, air-dry modeling clay that requires no baking and dries within 24 hours, depending upon the thickness of the piece. Available in muli-colors, vineyard tones and earth tones.  The individual colors can be mixed together or mixed with acrylic paints to create new colors. Pieces can be sanded and painted when dry.

Makin’s Clay contains no PVC (polyvinylchloride), is certified non-toxic, and conforms to ACMI-AP safety and quality standards. It is safe for children age three and older.  Slightly acidic when wet, Makin’s Clay dries acid-free.

I have not used Makin's Clay myself...it's still on the shopping list!  ;-)   But I was just reading this detailed review of Makin's Clay from Garie Sim, a well-know polymer clay artist, instructor and author (located in Singapore).
 Testing Makin's Clay; My First Impression On Using And Curing The Clay

Garie Sim does some extensive testing of the curing process, commenting that it took 72 hours to fully cure.  I'd like to add that the methods used for air-dry clay are often different than those used with polymer clay. Using the clay as thickly as shown in the testing is not recommended.  Many air-dry clay projects will coat an armature with clay (such as a Styrofoam ball) so clay doesn't need to be so thick.   Using a thinner layer of clay avoids cracks (from uneven curing), shortens the curing process and saves money (uses less clay).

The impression I get from reading Garie's review is that Makin's Clay is very similar to Crayola Model Magic and to Hearty Clay.   All are available in colors and all are very soft, with a sticky consistency.   They are great clays for some purposes but do not take detail well.   Not recommended for detailed sculpting and doll crafting.

Bookmice - Let's Make Some!

This cute (and useful) bookmark is a great little craft to make with the kids or a quick and easy gift for all your friends!

The original polymer clay tutorial is from the National Wildlife Federation crafts page .   We have edited that polymer clay tutorial and converted it to the air-dry clay tutorial shown below.

You'll never lose your place with these easy-to-make bookmarks!

What You Need:

• Leather string (jewelry cord or shoelace)
• brown, gray or tan air-dry-clay (enough for body & ears) 
• black air-dry clay (for eyes and nose)

Makin's Clay, Hearty Clay and Model Magic are some of the air-dry clay brands that are available in colors but you may pre-tint other (white) air-dry clays using your craft paints.  Just add a little paint to a ball of clay and knead to mix evenly.   You may also send most air-dry clays (such as Paperclay) thru a pasta machine to blend color.  If your brand of clay is a very sticky type, it may not work so well in the pasta machine!  ;-)

Note: Delight Clay is a very lightweight paperclay and would be great for these bookmarks.  Das and a few other brands may be too heavy and not suitable for this use.

What You Do:
1.  Cut a piece of leather string about 10 inches long. Tie a knot at one end.

2.   Mold a lump of clay around the knotted end of the string. Shape the clay into the form of a mouse's body, as shown. (large teardrop)    Use very small amounts of water to smooth surface if necessary.

3.  Add clay ears, eyes, and nose. Press them down firmly to the mouse's body so they won't fall off.   Add white glue if they refuse to stick.    Optional:  Two small black beads can be used for eyes.

4.  Set aside on a flat surface to dry!  It may take a day or two.   (Don't try to speed up drying, you may end up with cracks.)

That's it!  Now, put your bookmouse to use!

5 petal flower tutorial

Today is Tuesday and I think I'll start a tradition of featuring a new tutorial each Tuesday and Thursday. Some will be new additions to the directory at Air-Dry-Clay.com and some will old favorites.  Among those favorites are the 5 Petal Flower and the 5 Petal Star Flower tutorials from Hearty Clay that were used to create the arrangement shown here.