Showing posts with label clay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label clay. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 18, 2023

working with acrylics

This follows on from my earlier posts about the Turtle Art tiles project and working with clay. Since I don't have an art background I needed to look up guidelines and then try them out in practice.
  • high quality acrylics look much better than the kids version; even so these ones I bought from Mad Harry’s seem quite good to me
  • Paper plate for a pallete works fine
  • Plastic kitchen place mat from Woolies 
  • Don’t let the paint dry. If you are interrupted, then cover with gladwrap
  • Wash out your brushes in a glass of water and dry with a paper towel to change colours
  • Gently paper towel brushes at end to keep the bristles shaped, stray brush hairs are bothersome
  • Blend colours, eg. I blended green and white for the border colour
  • I still haven’t bought glaze but plan to do so soon

Related:
working with clay
turtle art tiles project

Sunday, July 16, 2023

working with clay

Here are my notes on working with clay to make the Turtle Art designed - 3D printed impression shown above. See the link at the bottom for the back story. My first template was 7.5mm high. I experimented by reducing the height to 2mm so as to reduce printing time. I'm happy with 2mm but you need a pair of pliers to remove the template from the clay.
  • air drying clay – wrap in gladwrap after using and place into an air tight container
  • Plastic mat - bought at Woolies after failing to find wax (water resistant) paper
  • 3D printed template – to make an impression in the clay, 90mm x 90mm x 2mm high
  • square perimeter template to neatly cut out around the clay 95mm x 95mm x 10mm
  • rolling pin – bought at Coles – I try to roll the clay to 6mm thickness – what I’m missing is a couple of wooden guides at the side 6mm thick, see the pic from the Turtle Art Tiles Project Guide ->
  • Sharp knives – I used the smaller one to cut the clay packet and the larger one to trim the edges after I had applied the square perimeter template
  • Pliers – I needed these to remove the 3D printed template from the clay after I had made the impression
  • Tweezers – I used these to tidy up some raised sections of clay after I had made the impression
  • Water – I didn’t use water this time but handy if you have to join sections of clay together. But since our clay work is so simple – just roll a slab of clay to 6mm thickness it normally won’t be needed – if you have to join separate bits of clay just roll them together vigorously and then flatten it out with hand and rolling pin
  • Scraper – I used this to remove the clay from the mat after I had made the impression
Related: Turtle Art Tiles Project