A place to encourage the creativity of artistic minds of all ages. Offering Ideas, Inspiration and Instruction and sharing the work of others who inspire me!
Yay, Luke, remember our great young artist friend? Click here to see our last article featuring his work as my guest artist at, HeArtfully Creating. Well, as he is growing, so are his artistic skills. This week he brought over some new polymer clay miniature "Creature World" characters. We did a photo shoot of his adorable little guys and he gave me permission to share them here! They are bright, cheerful and well thought out. Luke is now fourteen and hoping to pursue a career in the animation industry!
A video wth more photos are in the works, but for now, here are some sneak peeks of his great pieces.
Something that I learned a year ago when my polymer clay "journey" began, was that polymer clay must be conditioned prior to using it. My young friend Luke who has been working with clay for years now, uses Sculpey 3 and has never concerned himself with conditioning. In fact, I asked him if he knew about this requirement and he said, "no." Several months ago when I decided to try out the other few brands of clay, I did check out the only brand he has ever used and discovered it was super soft and squishy. Which then caused me to wonder if super soft means you do not have to worry about conditioning your clay. Well as always, I researched the hard work already done by fellow clay artists and the answer from the folks who make it, Polyform, is "yes." If you do not condition or mix and knead your clay, it won't be able to reach it's maximum strength potential because the polymers or plasticizers won't be evenly combined through out the clay. That being said, I did discover that sculpted 3 is one of the weakest clays on the market. I do try mixing it with the Premo, Souffle or Fimo to use the great colour selection Sculpey offers, but I have since concluded that Sculpey 3 is just too weak to use on any projects that require durability and strength. It is great for children and people with weak hands like me or arthritis, because of it's easy condition-ability. And it is great for the great little critters that my young friend makes, take a look here:
Just recently he received Premo clay and today, I am going to help him to learn how to use it. I don't want him to give up when he sees how much stiffer it can be compared to S3. On that note, I wanted to share some great Polymer Clay Tutorial Videos about Clay Conditioning and other basics. Hope it helps!! Conditioning Polymer Clay
Most Important Baking/Curing Tip
Thank you to Cindy Leitz from the Polymer Clay tutor Yout Tube Channel. Always bake your clay longer than the package directions. Not hotter, that would burn it and spread noxious fumes into your home. But, if the package say, bake for 30 minutes per each 1/4 inch of clay thickness, bake it an hour. Christi Friesen, another great tutor, artist, also recommended using an oven thermometer. After what I learned, make sure you listen to what these folks say. After all, they have done that work, just to teach us!
Use an oven thermometer to make sure your oven actually is reaching say, 275 fahrenheit. At first I assumed it was reaching that temperature, so, I baked a lot of clay pieces. But, I struggled with breakage even after an hour or more. Lo an behold, decided to listen to their advice, and it turned out our little toaster oven was only reaching about 230 degrees, not 275f! BIG LESSON LEARNED!
A polymer clay stamp I made out of polymer clay!
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