Clay Work With Cold Porcelain

Cold Porcelain is similar to most air dry clay’s and is great for making different clay projects, especially flower sculptures, jewellery, figurines and cake toppers. It is also great to use with moulds as it retains fine detail and is easy to remove from the mould. It is now becoming more and more popular with professional clay artists and craft people. It is also a great craft clay to use for beginners for their clay art projects. This clay is perfect for making delicate flowers and petal sculptures as it can be stretched and rolled extremely thin, which results in very realistic looking floral effects.

Which Air Dry Clay?

Air dry clay is a fantastic medium to work with for anyone from young to old and beginner to professional. It is available in a huge range of consistencies and textures and is great for very detailed fine clay work, through to large clay sculptures. It is usually a water based clay that will harden when it is exposed to air. Due to the vast variations in this clay, the strengths, durability and curing processes varies considerably with each one. Here are a few of the more popular air drying products and which clay craft they are ideally suited for making. 

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Activa Activ-Clay is 100% natural fine grain material for finer detailed creations. It is lightweight, moist clay that can be carved, sanded, drilled and painted and is available in white or terracotta. This is suitable for children and adults and all skill levels. It is ready to use straight from the packet, is non toxic and accepts multiple finishes.  According to the manufacturer it air cures to a good strength, will not crumble, and features a low amount of shrinkage and can also be cured in a kiln.

Ideally suited for: hand building, wheel throwing, sculpting and kids clay.

Popular Oven Baked Clay

There are a huge range of oven baked clay's available and it would be almost impossible to review everyone in this post. So here are details and ideal uses for are few of the more popular heat cured clay's, to start you off.

Fimo Professional; Effects Polymer Clay is stiffer than some of the other polymer clay's and remains flexible after is has been baked in the oven. It is great for more detailed work such as cane work, miniatures, flower sculptures and doll figurines. It is also perfect for making jewellery and because of the wide range of colours and effects available it can produce some very beautiful and realistic jewellery pieces.  

Clay Work Clays

Clay work and sculpture isn't just for the professional artist, all you need is a few basic tools and a little imagination. In fact you don't even need that much imagination, thanks to social media! Pinterest and Instagram will provide thousands of clay art projects and tutorials at you finger tips.

Clay artists have a never ending choice of clay sculpture materials and in fact many are not technically clay but can create very similar sculptures and art projects as the professional ceramicists and sculptors.

The 3 basic types are oil-based, wax-based and water-based. They are usually categorize as heat-cured, self-hardening air-dry or non-hardening. There is also ceramic and stone-based clays, which need to be cured in a kiln at very high temperatures.