How-To's & Projects at The PolyClay Gallery
Making
miniatures and making dolls are ongoing projects here along with all sorts of
other media work, including these web pages detailing them.
Aunt Acid is a polymer clay headed puppet with a cloth body. She wears polymer clay accessories too, of course, and hand dyed clothing along with vintage bits and pieces.
The step-by-step tutorial on how she was made is found on her own website.
In the process of putting together The Aunt Acid Show we are building mosaic sets and props, dyeing curtains and costumes, and getting all sorts of stuff and nonsense to come together in new ways.
Images of Bryan's recent mosaic tiled piece The
Little Blue Glass Guitar are used in creating graphics for one of the set
at the Blue Swirl Bar & Grill (where Aunt Acid appears, coming
soon!)
He's working on tiling several new instruments and furniture.
See his mosaics here.
Take a look at his latest table using ceramics and two part epoxy resin here.
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Covering eggs and decorating them with polymer clay is fun and the results are beautiful! Learn how to easily empty and prepare the eggs and decorate them. Decorative filigree cut-away is a great technique to use with mica bearing clays.
Miniature dioramas and doll furnishings like the mini bedroom set make great use of polymer clay for decorative details when used with all sorts of different techniques. Rubber stamps and molds let you bring a lot of detail into this kind of work. The set above uses polymer clay to mimic wood, ivory, marble and more.
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The vanity
sets seen above also made of polymer clay, and there is now a PDF how-to
available for purchase.
Here's a tutorial on painting cloth faces onto canvas bags, or for use on dolls!
Spirit Dolls can be made of all sorts of materials including of hand dyed cloth and sewn from your own or other patterns, or pre-made bodies that are commercially available can be dyed, painted, beaded and embellished in countless ways.
They can be made in all sizes and styles, however you want them to look is completely between you and the doll!
I like making dolls of all sorts, cloth, polymer clay, ceramics, and paper.
When I scanned and digitized my line of paper dolls I began to play with them in Adobe Photoshop. Digital doll art is lots of fun! See how I dressed Belle in her Christmas Outfit.
Here's
a free downloadable PDF that includes a pattern I've designed for making Spirit Dolls like the fiery
one seen at right using the materials of your choice for the body.
The simple pattern can be enlarged or reduced as you choose. I like to use the polymer clay faces or ceramic faces that I make. I put them together with dyed cottons and silks as well as other bits of ribbons and sequins and package them as Spirit Doll Kits.
Look for more of them to be available this Spring through our etsy store, including new versions with ceramic faces, buttons, and hand dyed fabric and ribbons.
We're
also selling supplies for you to use in your projects. These are
some of the items currently available in our
storefront at Etsy where we have mosaic tiles,
faces, beads and other items there for purchase. Etsy.com is an online artisans' venue where handmade and vintage items are
featured. for purchase. Check back to see what comes up next as we get ready
for Spring!
The picture at right shows some of the the face cabochon styles that you can now purchase and use in your doll and wearable art projects.
Click
here to see more about the face
styles available in polymer and ceramic clay. We're also experimenting
with precious metal clays and new glass frit clay too. We like to live up to
our "polyclay" name!
Making your own faces is a lot of fun, as any kid knows! Make face cabochons for decorating boxes, wall hangings, wearable art--and dolls!
You can costume and style a face in lots of different ways.
To put together this red hot Red Hat wall hanging, you start with sculpting the face, and then dress it up. This four page tutorial starts you out with step by step instructions on sculpting a face using scrap polymer clay. The next part makes replication a breeze with easy to use silicone RTV mold materials. Make faces or make texture sheets and use them to dress up the faces as shown in the fourth segment of this fun filled project.
The Bead
Bugle is an online magazine for bead enthusiasts, and I'm very pleased
to have written several articles and projects for them. Click here to see the first part of a recent
project for them using blue and white Premo polymer clays to create shower
curtain decorations. Part Two is found here.
Make a dozen of these lentil beads and practice your bead making and wire wrapping techniques--and use up some of your collected beads!
Polyform Products manufactures Premo clay, and has many fun polymer clay projects at their
web site.I'm honored to be one of their contributing artists.
These currently featured articles include how to get decorative with my Faux Cinnebar Project. Perfect for an oriental note to your home decor!
Use the same techniques for
beads and more.
Another project I've done using Premo is Star Students--a great project for teachers and group leaders as well as for families. These make fabulous ornaments and gifts for family members to cherish for years to come.
Try making the Miniature
May Flowers Mask with Premo and rubber stamps. It's sweet and dainty--perfect
for use as a pin or as a decorative ornament.
You can see more miniature masks by clicking here.
There are many pictures of masks from the Internet Mask Swaps in 2002 and
2003. Swaps are a great way to build collections and to participate in
group art!
View the miniature masks made by Columbine Elementary School Students in the Artist In Residence Project "Best Faces Forward".
This installation of pictures of the over 200 masks and a garden of polymer clay flowers was created by all the students (K-5) and staff with the assistance of the resident art teachers.
Valentine's Day Hearts
Use polymer clay to make Holiday Ornaments using cookie cutters! It is so much fun to decorate holiday cookies--its even better when you make them out of polymer clay, and can enjoy them for years to come!
This featured project can be done with other shapes as well as the bears and stars that are shown. It is also a good idea to have a separate batch of cutters to use for clays, and to keep the food and clay tools separate.
Although polymer clays ARE certified non-toxic, being careful is always a good thing when dealing with art supplies of any sort. You don't want anyone to get baked clay in their next bite of cookie!
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Click here to see a recent Rec.Crafts.Beads challenge.
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Click here to see what some polymer clay swappers did with Ready Stamps and polymer clay.
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Click here to see the logo pins for the NPCG made with Ready Stamps and polymer clay and the local Colorado Guilds.
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Click here to see some examples of polymer clay used with rubberstamps, inks, and embossing powders.
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Click here to learn about miniatures and scale conversion.
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Click here to see how molds are made.
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Click here for a how-to on stringing that combines polymer clay beads with glass, metal and other treasures to create pendants that really dazzle!
