hello everyone and welcome to Fatima's
art show today I'm going to be doing a
beginner's episode and I'm going to be
talking about air dry clay I was
recently involved in an exhibition where
I used air dry clay and it was really
nice to use a really nice material to
use the benefits of using the clay is
that you don't need to put it in a
particular oven usually you'd have to
put clay in a kiln something called a
kiln which is a hot oven and fire it up
before glazing it and then again putting
it inside the oven so it cuts out a big
step in the process and you can
basically just leave it to dry in the
air so let's get started and I'm going
to give you some information on how to
use the clay and also some techniques
that you can use to create lots of
different things and the first thing you
want to do is open your play packet
usually they come in packets like these
and today I'm using this brand I really
find this to be one of the best brands
to use so you want to open it up so with
the wire I'm just going to cut out this
is not special wire that I've bought for
the clay you can get special wire that
it's designed for the clay but it works
the same so any sort of wire will do so
the first thing you want to do with the
clay is just knead it and it makes it
more softer and easier to handle
and you can see that it's gone a lot
softer and easier to handle this is one
of the clay tools I have now there's so
much different types of clay tools you
can buy buy wooden ones metal ones and
you can do lots of different things with
them sticking it together is really
important to ensure it stays into place
when it dries and here I've got two
pieces I've got a shape that I want to
stick onto a square so the best way to
do it is to score out the shape so it's
all rout do some crisscross lines on the
shape and then do some on the surface
some sort of grooves okay that should be
enough
and then here I've got some clay that
I've mixed with water now this makes a
kind of sort of creamy texture which is
kind of your click glue the glue that
you're going to be sticking the pieces
together just put in a piece of clay
with some water and just keep mixing it
keep mixing it until it goes nice and
creamy once you've got a nice soft
thickness you can apply some on the
surface apply some on your piece
and then just stick it together
lesser and that should stay into place
so you want to get the right thickness
of clay for your slab and the best way
to do that is to get some wooden blocks
put the clay in the middle like so and
with a rolling pin make sure the two
wooden pieces are the same size same
length so that they can make an even
sort of shape of clay these are lots of
random things that I've found around the
house and I'm just going to be creating
imprints with these things on my clay so
I'll show you here I've got this that I
used in my daughter's birthday party
and I could just remove that
and they have it an imprint of a
snowflake shells are absolutely
fantastic they make really nice marks on
clay
firstly put that there on the side as
well you can see create some really nice
his eyes
so you can see all the different
imprints I've made with the different
objects I found around the house
absolutely lovely textures patterns so I
was really random in this but you can
and say you want to do just one the
shells you can do that shells that you
might be important to you from a
particular trip so you can do with
anything so here I'm showing you another
thing you can use a mold here I've got a
hearts mold it's a nice two parts mold
that I have you can use any more do you
want and you just basically place your
clay inside the mold and press firmly
and just take it out gently you can see
a lovely heart shape yeah
which
so I've just drawn around my hand and
you can draw basically around anything
any object there's another technique you
can do is called coiling and it's great
if you want to make a pot or a bars or
anything like that you basically roll
out your clay so that's like a worm Oh
long one
if you want to add color there's so many
different ways and here's one of them
I'm doing a little bit of a mix here I'm
going to be putting some regular acrylic
paint on directly onto the clay I'm just
going to put some glitter gold glitter
in there too and I'm just going to mix
it all together basically
so if you have a lots of air-dry clay
left over and you want to use it next
day and you don't want it to dry out
what you need to do is get a container
and a sealable bag you want to place the
clay inside the concealable bag and you
want to basically seal it so that no air
gets inside then place it inside the
container and close up the container so
there you go
and no ich touch that and it should be
fine for the next day so what if the air
has already touched my clay and see it's
gone a bit hard so what do I do well the
answer to that question is what you need
to do is just place some water on the
clay so get some water and just sprinkle
it on the clay so after you've done that
place the clay in a microwave and just
leave it in the microwave just for a few
seconds don't leave it for too long
otherwise it will overheat as you can
see all my pieces are dry and you can
see that they've changed color so
they've become a white color
so before originally they were a salt
play gray color make sure you just leave
your clay to dry in the air do not try
to place it in a really hot area because
they can crack now I'm going to show you
all the different things you can do once
they're dried and how you can add color
so the first piece I'm going to paint is
this piece and I'm just want to show you
that you can use acrylics
to add color to your piece I'll prefer
using acrylics because it creates a nice
layer and kind of makes it stronger pain
actually makes this much stronger
because it is air dry clay so it's not
as strong as if you were to fire it so
the paint does help strengthen the clay
you can use poster paint you can use an
even water color but to make sure you
don't put too much water otherwise it
kind of react with the clay so I'll show
you here a technique that I'm going to
do and because I like the textures and
these I want to kind of keep them so I'm
using a technique called dry brush and
dry brush kind of just touches the
surface of the piece so it keeps the
text just showing so I don't want my
paint drop brush to be too wet so I'm
just dabbing on the newspaper and then
I'm just kind of skimming it on the top
of the clay
the next one I'm going to show you is my
dried hand and with it I'm going to use
felt tips to color in some patterns and
designs you can and use marker pen or
felt tips
so I just completely covered my hand and
I do scribbles everywhere and patterns
everywhere went a bit too much but you
can keep it really simple if you want
you might want to write something or
draw something that might mean something
to you
and just make sure that when you're
using the Pens the clay is completely
dry so you don't damage your pen so as
you can see my shapes are nicely dry and
as you can see I've just started
painting my heart red and you can put
paint both sides just wait for the first
side to dry before you paint the second
side and as you might have noticed I've
pierced the hole in one of the shapes
now I'm doing this because you can I
just want to show you that you can make
key rings with your shapes here I've got
queuing that I've made out of the heart
and you can write any messages that you
want inside and I've just got a ring
attached to a piece of string that I put
through the hole the final one I'm going
to show you is my little pot that I made
I will show you that you can sort of
sand out any areas after it's dry so you
can just use some sandpaper and you just
want to basically make it nice and
smooth on the top so I'm gonna send that
out
you
so once you've left it's dry and the
sequins are all fixed onto your piece
you can decide what you want to do with
it I'm going to put a nice scented
candle inside it could be my little
candle holder here's my scented candle
in the little pot that I made with the
air dry clay and I can give this to
someone for a gift I put it into a nice
fancy bag thank you very much for
watching this episode and I hope this
helps
any big an out there trying out air dry
clay hope this gets you started and you
can follow me on Instagram Facebook and
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and once again thank you for watching
and see you next time