Thursday, June 28, 2018

Creative Paperclay Heart



    Creative Paperclay® Covered  Heart with Delight TM Roses 













Hi everyone and welcome to my new tutorial.

Supplies

Creative Paperclay®

Delight TM  air dry modeling compound

6 inch Paper Mache’ heart  from https://www.joann.com

Acrylic paints; soft pink, soft yellow, white, light green

Silk baby’s breath

20 inch of ¼ inch wide ribbon

Gesso paint

Paint brushes

Strong glue

Hot glue

Sand paper

Matt spray sealer

Water


Clay rolling pin

Scissors

Your favorite sculpting tool to attach petals




Step 1:   Roll out the Creative Paperclay with a clay rolling pin to about ¼ inch thick. Paint a thin coat of glue on the heart then cover the heart but not the string with the clay. 
Let dry. 

If you get cracks in the heart after it dries, brush a little water on the crack and add some more clay to fill it in. After the heart is dry sand smooth.


















Step 2:  Paint the heart with Gesso to seal the clay then paint the heart with soft pink acrylic paint.
Let dry.

















Step 3: Make the flowers with Delight air dry modeling compound. 

To make the roses, take a small piece of clay and press it thin in the shape of rectangle that is about ½ inch wide and 1 inch long.

Roll it up for the center of the rose. 






For the petals, make tear drops and press them flat. Use a little water for glue and put the petal around center of the rose. Smooth the edges to attach with your sculpting tool. 
Continue making petals till you have the size of rose you want. The roses on this heart are about 2 inches wide. 
Let dry.








To make the small flowers, make a tear drop that is about 1 inch long. Cut the fat part in half about halfway down then cut the two sections in half again. You will have for 4 petals. Wet your fingers and press each petal flat then gently turn them so each one is slightly turned.  


Let dry.




























Step 4: Take scissors and cut the stems off the flowers so they have a flat bottom. You can sand the bottoms so they sit flat on the heart. Paint all the flowers with Gesso to seal.
 Let dry.






Take a dry paintbrush put a small amount of paint on the brush and wipe most of it off on a paper towel, dry brush the paint on the petals to get a soft color to each flower. Do the same to the roses.














Step 5:  Arrange the flowers on the heart the way you want it. Glue the roses on first, you can use hot glue to attach them.
 Let dry, then add the small flowers and the baby’s breath.


Spray the entire piece with matt sealer.




Step 6:  Cut the ribbon 10 inches long and tie two bows.  Press the center of the bow together and glue. Then glue the two bows together and glue at the top behind the first rose. 




 















You now have a pretty heart to hang on the wall. 




Thank you for checking out this tutorial. 
I hope you have fun making this.


Creative Paperclay® and Delight™ are available online and at retailers listed below.






                         

Monday, June 25, 2018

Let's Make a Beautiful Candle Votive!






Let's make a simple candle votive with Creative Paperclay! I am just now getting back into working with Creative Paperclay and I'm loving it! I keep coming up with ideas faster than I can make them.

These are the items needed for this project:

Creative Paperclay
Glass Votive ( I used a short one for this beginning project )
Assorted tools for rolling the clay out and making marks
Some metal tools for cutting out spots
White Acrylic Paint ( I used outdoor paint )
Plaid Glitterific Paint




I know it's hard to believe that you can make a votive candle cover out of simple Creative Paperclay and a glass votive that you purchase at the Dollar Tree. I did indeed purchase the candle votive at the Dollar Tree so you know that I didn't spend much money. I rolled the clay out until it was roughly 1/4 inch thick, wrapped it around the candle votive, smoothed out the crease where the ends met and trimmed up the top and bottom. I left the top a little wonky because I wanted it to be that way. Once the clay was ready I used a clay mark maker and made all sorts of lines on the clay, going in different directions. I then used some metal clay cutters and cut out shapes in the clay to let light through once a candle had been placed in the votive. Let your clay dry as long as it needs to and in this case I just left it for a couple of days




After the clay was dry I used the white outdoor acrylic paint that I had to paint the outside of the clay.
Once the paint was all dry I thought it looked a little plain and decided to use the Plaid Glitterific  to bling it up a little, and it really worked!



Nothing left to do but to put a candle in it, turn the lights down low and see how it looked.



I set the candle on the hearth of my fireplace which is rock to take this picture and look how pretty it is! I hope you can see the light shining out of the cutouts and leaving spots of light on the rock. The picture really doesn't do the glitterific justice though as the sparkles are the crowning touch. Rather a romantic candle votive if I do say so.

What do you think? Please leave me a comment here on the blog, I do read everyone and appreciate them very much. If you are even thinking about trying out some clay, then please go to: www.creativepaperclay.com and check it out. I also use this paperclay on gourds and I see a post on that in the future.

Barbara

Friday, June 22, 2018

How to Create an Artdoll Bust with Creative Paperclay®



Hello everyone! My name is Cinnamon Willis and I am going to show you all how to create an Artdoll bust using Creative Paperclay®.

Supplies
  • Chicken/poultry Wire
  • Thin wire
  • Pliers
  • Scissors
  • Creative Paperclay®
  • Newspaper
  • Masking tape
  • Sand paper
  • Wool
  • Acrylic paint
  • Sealer, Varnish
  • Fabric
  • Needle and thread
  • Aleene's Tacky glue


Start with a sheet of chicken wire, cut it down to the size you would need it to be for the head, neck and shoulders for your piece. Start shaping it with your hands and pliers, be careful not to poke yourself. I usually take the ragged ends of the chicken wire and fold them into each other. Take the lose wire and weave it if needed to fasten the ends of the chicken wire together.


Take your masking tape and wrap it around the piece completely. You could paint a layer of gesso on top of the tape so that the clay could adhere better to it, or you could cover it with a layer of newspaper with paper mache paste as I have done here. The paste could be as simple as water mixed with flour if you take that route.


Which ever way you decide to go, make sure that the piece is dry before you start adding the clay to it.




Start adding clay to the base. Once the piece is dry, you could begin working on the details such as the face shape and features. This can be done by adding a drop of water onto the places that you would like to add clay to and blending the new clay into it. Don’t worry about getting things perfect when working with moist paper clay, most of the sculpting is done when it is dry.

Allow the piece to dry for roughly 30 hours depending on how thick the layer of clay is. This can also be sped up with a toaster oven set to approximately 200- 220 degrees. Make sure to check on it every twenty minutes to ensure it doesn’t get burned.


Use an exacto knife to carve out features and sand the details until you are satisfied with them. This takes a few attempts of building up with the clay and taking it away to get things right or close to how you would like them. When I am happy with the piece, I use a 400 grit sandpaper to get the piece smooth.


When you are done with sanding, you can paint your piece. I use acrylic paint, soft pastels, and sometimes colored pencils for the details.


When I am done with this process I use a sealant to protect the paint job. I like the results I get from the Winsor and Newton Matt varnish, as you can see, it gives the doll a nice satin finish.


At this stage I add the hair. I like to use wool since the strands are thin and don't look like spaghetti in proportion to the size of my dolls. You can use hair from the hair shop as well, but keep the thickness of the strands in mind, and figure out what is right for you. I use Aleene's Tacky glue to attach the hair to the piece.

When you are done with the hair, you can now make an outfit out of fabric for the piece and adorn as you would like.

Thank you for stopping by, and I hope that you enjoyed today's tutorial! You can find Creative Paperclay® at the below listed retailers.


Thursday, June 21, 2018

Molding and Repurposing with Delight®

Hello everyone! Jenn here today sharing a fun project! Have you ever tried Delight™ air dry modeling compound from Creative Paperclay®? It is so versatile and dries fast! When used with silicone molds it holds its shape and so much detail can be achieved!
I had this boring cardboard box that I wanted to use. With it's tall shape it will make a great storage box for markers!

I coated the box first with heavy white gesso twice and allowed it to dry. Next I used a Prima silicone mold with Delight™ to create the pretty strips. I bent them around the box to get the right bends and let them dry.

Using a matte gel medium I adhered the strips around the top and bottom of the box. I then created some flowers using silicone molds and Delight™. These were also left to dry.

Supply List:
Silicone molds
Matte Gel medium
Heavy white gesso

The Delight™ is amazing for molding embellishments for any project! Join me for my July post here where I will reveal the finished, painted, and embellished box!

Thanks so much for viewing my post today! I hope that you are inspired to give this amazing clay a try and create something amazing!
Creative Paperclay® and Delight™ are conveniently available for you to purchase online and at the below listed retailers.

Until Next time Stay Creative!










Thursday, June 14, 2018

Jim Dine inspired heARTs by Linda Hess

In my roll as an art teacher I love to expose the students to new artists as well as materials.  Ask any of my students (no matter the age) what is the favorite medium and you will get a resounding "CLAY!".  What better way to introduce my 3rd graders to the work of Jim Dine than with a mixed media project that includes Delight™ Air Dry Modeling Compound!  Let's get to work.

I have my 3rd graders once a week for 45 minutes.  This project took a total of 3 weeks to complete.  Today's blog post shows the first week of creation: the heart 💜

Materials:
Delight™ Air Dry Modeling Compound
watercolor markers (my classroom is stocked mainly with Crayola⌐)
texture tools (plastic texture sheets, wire tools, toothpicks, etc)
damp paper towel

Step one:  I opened each package of Delight™ clay and cut the block of clay into 8 pieces.  Each student received a piece of clay with instructions that the entire piece of clay had to be used during classtime to create a heart.  The piece of clay needed to be divided into however many colors each student wanted for his/her heart.  Once divided, the clay pieces can be placed on the damp papertowel and the towel folded over to keep the clay moist until ready for use.

The really cool thing about the Delight™ clay is that it accepts color easily.  I demoed how to dab the marker onto the clay and then fold/mix the color in.  Deeper color saturation can be achieved by dabbing and mixing multiple times. (PLEASE NOTE:  Colors will dry lighter than they appear while "wet")

Many of the students were so into the mixing process that I had to remind them to start creating a heart!  Others only heard the "dab color and mix" ignoring the separate colors instruction (ooops).  Thankfully I only had one or 2 who ended up with "mud" clay.

Step two:  Begin forming the heart.  
This (of course) is a freeform project.  I demoed how to take a ball and roll it to form a teardrop.  The teardrop was then flattened and then top dented in with the back of a plastic knife to create the heart shape.  If working with children you will need to give helpful hints such as "Do not flatten it as thin as a piece of paper!" "Use gentle pressure" and "make sure it does not stick to the table!"

The students quickly got into layered hearts much to my excitement.  2-3 hearts were stacked (in different colors), snakes of clay were wrapped around, dots of clay embellished...we had a whole lot of creativity going on!!

  Step three: texture and embellishment
I am all about embellishment!  A plain, colored heart makes more of an imact with the addition of texture and design.  We looked again at pictures of Jim Dine Hearts.  They are so vibrant in both color and design.  The 3rd graders immediately started using wire tools, texture sheets, toothpicks and pencil tips to bring the hearts to life.  Oh My Goodness, so gorgeous!!

I always tell my students "Your piece is not going to look like mine or your neighbor's or your best friend's.  It will look like Yours and that is the way it should be". One of the students who ended up with "mud" during the mixing process was much happier with his heart once the detail was added. 

Step four:  Set the hearts aside to dry
I have stackable wire racks (a clearance find a few years ago) that I placed the hearts on to dry.  The wire rack lets air circulate around for more even drying.  If left on the wax paper (seen above) the top will dry, but the bottom may stay damp.  Since I only see my 3rd graders once a week, the hearts had plenty of time to dry by the next class.

Next up:  More pattern and texture!
Materials:
craft sticks (I used the thinker tongue depressor type)
crayons
watercolors

Step one:  Craft stick crayon resist
Next class I had each student retrieve his/her heart.  Then they chose enough craft sticks to create a surface large enough for the heart to be mounted on without overlapping (most took 6-7 for the base and 2 more for the sides).  FYI for teachers: Have students write names on the back of every single stick!  Trust me, it will make life much easier if anyone doesn't not complete the "backing" in one class!
We talked about crayon resist and the need for a firm pressure when creating the patterns on each stick.  Students were instructed to add patterns to every stick, leaving space between the patterns for paint.  Of course I had a few friends who decided to just color and not paint (gotta love those "dare to be different" friends 💜).  Once the patterns were completed, they began to watercolor.

 We let the sticks dry before arranging them to form the backing. (NOTE:  I used 6 sticks,side by side, for the backing and then glued one more stick along each edge to hold the frame together.  Students decided if the glued pieces would become the top/bottom or the sides of the frame.  Once complete, the hearts were glued in place.
Art by Olivia M (left) & Angelina O (rt)

Step two: Wire & beading
This step was completed during the third class.  I predrilled holes, one in each corner and one in the center of each side and the bottom.  Beads and wire were put out. 
As you will see from the pictures, some of my students do not understand the term "less is more" (haha).  They definitely had a great time embellishing.  I sadly had a substitute for this final day, but she sent me process pictures and I got to see the finished mixed media hearts upon my return.

I think Jim Dine would be amazed at how the children were inspired by his art.
 Art by Olivia V (left) & Paige E (rt)
 Madison C (left) & Kendra (rt)
 Jasmine D-V (left) & Isabelle G (rt) 

 Diego R (left) & Alexis C (rt)