How to Make Clay Carnations

Here's another step-by-step tutorial for creating clay Carnations.   This tutorial by Priya Nanthakumar uses air-dry clay to create the flowers.   About a year ago, we posted a Carnation tutorial which adapted a sugarcraft tutorial to air-dry clay.   The methods used are slightly different in each tutorial but both result in a quite realistic Carnation.

Here's a few tips when following this tutorial:
Author recommends oil paints to pre-tint the clay but acrylic paints may also be used.   Artists quality oils and acrylics will give you stronger reds and dark colors than craft paints.   If you want pastel pinks or yellows, craft acrylics could be used instead of the tube paints.

Sculpting a ball-jointed hand for BJD

Pat Lillich has written a tutorial for sculpting jointed hands for a large doll (BJD). She's using Paperclay and Polystyrene tubes to create the hollow finger units (and add strength).

Part 1.  Fingers
http://www.shadows.4oni.com/blog/?page_id=121

Part 2.  Palm & Stringing
http://www.shadows.4oni.com/blog/?page_id=149

How to Make a Strand of Clay Flowers

This is a 2-part video from msedcolor (Simply Chic Lily) demonstrating how to make simple flowers and then connect them into a strand of flowers.

How to Make a 'Smile' Tool

How to make your own tool to impress a mouth shape into clay.

Tutorial: Clay Flower, Orchid

Video demo by zikomah  showing us how to create a clay orchid.

Tutorial: Creating a BJD Head and Face

~ click photos to enlarge ~    

Linda Macario, the Italian doll-maker, has written a wonderful tutorial for creating the head for a BJD (ball-jointed doll) .   LaDoll air-dry clay is suggested.  Creative Paperclay would also be suitable for this project.   Lots of photos demonstrate how to sculpt the Styrofoam core, apply the clay, model the facial features, hollow out the head & insert the eyes and also create the head articulation.

Further steps in the tutorial demonstrate how she paints the delicate features (called "face-up") to create a doll similar to the ones shown in these photos!   Aren't they beautiful?   Linda is an amazing doll artist!   This is a great air dry clay tutorial even if you're not interested in making a full BJD body and just want to sculpt the face.   I hope this encourages you to make your first doll!   I'm excited to try it myself! ;-)

  

How to Make a Mosaic Box

Decorate a wooden box with mosaic tiles made with Delight air-dry clay.   Frame a photo for top of box!  See step-by-step tutorial at Paperclay.com

How to Make Clay Peony

 

This 4-part video demo from Mayen from Way Beyond Cakes shows us how to make a very realistic Peony flower.   She describes this as a "beginners" flower and demonstrates every step in the process in detail.   Mayen is crafting with gumpaste in this demo, but the process is the same for air-dry clay (just use white glue instead of edible glue).    The softer brands of air-dry clay or cold porcelain are usually the best choice for clay flowers.

How to create this puppy with Cloud Clay

Isn't that a cute face?    In this video demo, Linda Peterson shows us how to create this little dog with Cloud Clay, a soft air dry clay. This would be a good cold porcelain project too, and a good beginners project!

For more information about Cloud Clay visit http://amaco.com

New Name for Cold Porcelain Cuties

We've got a name change in progress for my other clay blog.....The name (and the URL) have been changed.

Cold Porcelain Cuties

is now

Cold Porcelain Tutorials

Cold Porcelain Tutorials is being re-organized for 2011 and will contain a bunch of how-to tutorials for crafting and modeling with cold porcelain clay plus a collection of recipes for making cold porcelain paste at home.  From time to time, we'll also spotlight artists making some very cute dolls, animals and other cute figures!   Cold Porcelain Tutorials will feature the same  "cute" cold porcelain figures seen at Cold Porcelain Cuties but the new focus will be as a tutorial directory.   A bit of re-organization will be happening all week long.  

If you have Cold Porcelain Cuties bookmarked, you'll receive a message that the blog no longer exists! Not quite true!   It's just been re-named, which means your old bookmarks won't work anymore!  Please change bookmark to Cold Porcelain Tutorials.   Sorry... I haven't figured out a way to make Blogger automatically forward the old bookmarks to the new name.   The RSS Feed should still work....at least I hope so!   Please let me know if you run into a problem!  This whole "name change" thing has been an experiment with Blogger tools and I'm learning as I go!  ;-)

Make a Clay Calla Lily aka Easter Lily

Video demo by Zikomah (from Morocco) showing us how to make a cold porcelain Lily (Calla Lily or Easter Lily).   Many of the soft air-dry clays work well for making this type of clay flower.

How to Properly Wrap a Foam Cone with Clay

In our last post, we featured a video which demonstrates the proper way to wrap a Styrofoam ball with cold porcelain. The foam ball is the most common armature used when making cute air-dry clay figures but the Styrofoam CONE is also used often.  In the following video, Haydee Miranda demonstrates the proper way to wrap a Styrofoam cone with cold porcelain clay so you don't end up with cracks or trapped air. Note that the ball of clay she starts with is about equal to the circumference of the shape.

Spanish is the language spoken in this demo but I think you can easily follow what's she's doing even if you don't understand what she's saying!

How to Wrap a Styrofoam Ball with Clay

Many air-dry clay projects call for Styrofoam shapes as armatures for figure modeling.   Quite a few people have mentioned they are having trouble covering the foam with clay without getting cracks or trapped air.   In the following video, Haydee Miranda demonstrates the proper way to wrap a Styrofoam ball with cold porcelain.

Spanish is the language spoken in this tutorial but I think you can follow along even if you don't understand what she's saying!

Create This Pair of Lovebirds

In the following video, Haydee Miranda shows us how to make a dove with cold porcelain.  Make 2 and add  a heart and you have a pair of lovebirds!   Perfect for Valentine's Day gift or decoration!  

This is a simple, beginners project and is suitable for just about any type of air-dry clay, purchased or homemade!.  Spanish is the language spoken in this tutorial but each step is clearly shown and I think you can follow along even if you don't understand what she's saying!