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."