Color Mixing Exercises

Clay Art by Maggie Maggio (Smashing Color)

On Saturday we posted a little Introduction to the Color Wheel which just covered the basics for all types of artists.   Today we talk about clay in particular.    Many pre-colored air-dry clays may be mixed as shown in the following exercises or you can use what your learn from them to create your own recipes for pre-tinting non-colored clays and cold porcelain.

Detailed information about color and the color wheel is offered by Maggie Maggio at Smashing Color.    Maggie's tutorials and exercises are designed for polymer clay but are useful to air-dry clay artists also. 

Her Clay Color Scales are shown in the 3 videos below.

Introducing the Color Wheel

Learning how to use a color wheel is one of the basic tools for knowing how to mix your colors and how to get the same color repeatedly.   The color wheel shown above is from Maureen Carlson's book "Imagine Your World in Clay"  Although Maureen Carlson primarily works with polymer clay, mixing colors is essentially the same with air-dry clay and all other clays. 

Let's  start with Maureen's introduction to the color wheel.  In her book she says:

"In this color chart, the dragonflies in the middle represent the primary colors, which are red, yellow and blue.  This chart shows how all other colors are made by mixing different amounts of these 3 colors.   Flying out between the red and yellow dragonfly is one with an orange body.  Orange is made by mixing together red and yellow.   Look at the other 2 dragonflies. Mixing yellow and blue makes the dragonfly with the green body.   Mixing red and blue makes the purple dragonfly.  The circles on the outside show what happens when you mix different amounts of the 3 primary colors.   You get different shades of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple."

Are you ready for some more in-depth lessons on using the color wheel?   Empty Easel has a more detailed explanation for Artists and Painters.  Using the Color Wheel  

Learn the color wheel and you'll be able to mix whatever color you want with the pre-colored air-dry clays or know exactly how to tint your non-colored clays and cold porcelain. You'll also know which colors will best  compliment the colors you're using and how to soften a color without ending up with a muddy drab color.   Within the next day or two, we'll post some color mixing exercises for clay artists.   

Video: How to Knead Clay

This may seem like a silly question to most experienced clay hobbiests....but there are people who wonder how to properly knead clay dough (especially those guys who never made any bread from scratch ..LOL..just teasing!).

Although most air-dry clays don't require kneading to condition clay before using like polymer clay does, kneading is required to mix-in colorants or to smooth and condition clay (maybe because it's been stored for a while).  The action demonstrated in this video works for homemade clay, cold porcelain and any air-dry clay.

Mixing colors into air-dry clay

The majority of air-dry clays are available in white only and must be pre-tinted before modeling or painted when cured.  Sometimes a combination of both!  We've talked about many different things you can use to pre-tint your air-dry clay:  Acrylic paints, pastel chalks,  cake colorant and colors especially made for using with cold porcelain.   Guess what?   You can also use colored markers, as shown in this video from SmallEffort.

Using extruder with air-dry clay

Yes!  You CAN use an extruder with air-dry clay!  Because most air-dry clays are soft compared to polymer clay, many people wonder if it'll work in an extruder.   The key to success using air-dry clay in an extruder is the brand of clay used. Some brands are just too sticky to go thru an extruder without problems. Use a stiffer or less-sticky brand.   Makin's Clay is one brand of no-bake clay that works well with an extruder.  As a matter of fact, the Makin's brand of extruders are probably the most popular for both air-dry and polymer clays.