Watercolour Clay?

Hello,

A blog a second day in a row! This looks a lot like me trying to get organised. My eldest is off school today on an in-set day (teacher training type day) so she is sat next to me chatting and sewing penguins so if my sentences seem illogical it’s because I have a constant stream of thought coming from a 9 year old!

As I mentioned yesterday I am busy getting ready for a craft fair. I have put jewellery down as the main thing I will be selling. I thought it would be fun to try a new technique with the polymer clay instead of churning out the same thing. You have to keep things fresh sometimes.

I discovered the watercolour technique (on polymer clay) on YouTube. With the constant chatter next to me I am going to find it hard to describe it so I’ll let the photos do most of the talking. On the YouTube video I saw she used acrylic paint but I decided to use chalk as I have tons of colours (far more than acrylic paint) and I know they are ok to use on clay.

I started off with a base layer of dark blue (Fimo Windsor Blue) and topped with a layer of white clay. I then picked up each square of chalk and scraped some of the pigment off, with a craft knife,  onto a separate tile. I swirled my fingers in the chalk dust and rubbed it randomly on the white clay and then stuck on little bits of silver foil. This whole piece was topped with a very thin layer of translucent clay and run through my clay (pasta) machine. At this point you tear the whole sheet into little pieces and layer them on another sheet of clay. Smooth it out to make a flat surface and cut into the required shapes. I should have taken a picture at this point as it looked so unpromising but I didn’t……..

It went into the oven and I sat patiently waiting to see the result. I was so pleased with the results I snapped this photo (it was late so a rubbish pic) for Instagram.

The top sheet of translucent clay helps give the colours a lovely muted appearance and little bits of silver sparkle through. I made some beads too on another day from left over clay. They were all given 2 coats of gloss varnish and made into jewellery.

I’ve joked to my husband that I have made a jewellery collection. Feel free to give name suggestions for it.

Quick snap of it all together to give a scale as to how much I made in one go.

I’m thinking of trying again using pinks and purples maybe. Off to tie a knot in my daughter’s penguin – not a sentence I thought I’d ever write!

Thanks for reading.

Hannah x