Painting with Pastels on uncured Sculpey...just experimenting here
Nora -Jean Gatine
Thought I'd share a discovery I stumbled over this week end. I had read
that one could scrape pastels (not oil pastels) and dust uncured pieces.
So I try that. It was ok, a bit soft looking. I wanted the pastel colors
to be more vibrant. So I stuck a new clay tool, Colour Shaper by
Forsline and Starr (England), into the pastel dust and in a fit of pique
jabbed my uncured clay with it.
Wow. Was I impressed, a bright colorful indentation. I just went nuts.
Took an egg, covered it with clay, made it into a skull (doing a Dia de
Muertos collection) and proceeded to decorate the skull with indented
flowers, crosses, laying down first a soft dusting.
I made a mistake..yikes. How to fix? No undo button here. So I grab a
paint brush and mix water with a bit of pastel dust and just give it a
touch.
It was just wonderful.
I found you can paint with this pastel dust on uncured scupley, you can
even paint white of eyes on top of black. So I made a couple of
miniature portraits to go with on the Alter of the Dead.
I had a couple of other pieces that could use a touch up, but they had
already been "Futured" ...hmmmm
Yes, that is exactly what I did, I used Future as my medium and pastel
dust as my pigment and painted like a nutcase all night.
So using water as the medium when the clay is uncured and Future when
the piece is already cured seems to work. I was gobsmacked amazed.
One thing I was worried about with this miniature portrait was that I
had a couple of layers of pastel dust. It dried so quickly that I could
make shadings, highlights, little details like the white glint of
reflection on the eye. But how would it handle being coated with Future
after curing?
No problemo, Amigos. The Future went on, no layer of dust came loose,
the colors were as I had painted them and now I am looking at the couple
of discount packages of cheap Scupley I've had laying around for a while
with a whole new appreciation.
Just thought I'd share....
Nora-Jean
AKA Aunty Alias
Nora -Jean Gatine
I have a 1 1/2 " by 1" Madonna and Child curing at I type. Let me see if
I can get a jpg or two up in the next day or so. So far I have a 1 x 1
inch portrait, the Madonna and the inside of the egg that is dusted for
back ground, painted here and there and some cane work with some
sculpture.
And as an aside, I just love it here with you all. I've read all the
posts and got a lot of information that I've put to use already. That is
why I came out of my semi lurking state and shared my experiments with
you all.
You are the friendliest, nicest folks I've ever run across in a
newsgroup. Ah, but what should I have expected from Clayers.
Nora-Jean
AKA Aunty Alias
jilliebeans wrote:
> Nora-Jean...do you have any pictures we can take a peek at????
> Jill : )
>
> ~~To email me, take out.... nospam! ....from my email address~~
jilliebeans
NarigonC
What a cool idea, Nora-Jean! I can't wait to try it. I hope you'll let tell
more as you develope this technique.
Carol
Kelly
>
> No problemo, Amigos. The Future went on, no layer of dust came loose,
> the colors were as I had painted them and now I am looking at the couple
> of discount packages of cheap Scupley I've had laying around for a while
> with a whole new appreciation.
>
Wow! Thanks!! I knew there must be some reason why I bought that set
of pastels a couple of months ago when I can't draw a recognizable stick
figure...!
SHOUT!
experimented with a couple of times - I took prisma pencils or the
squares( can't remember what they're called) and scraped of shavings with a
razor and applied this to uncured clay and WOW bright colors!! Some of the
prisma colors really brighten when baked. So I made a color chart of
scrapings onto white clay for reference. You probably get a better dust
with the pastels tho. I wonder how this would work, mixing the pastels with
Liquid Sculpey or Translucent liquid sculpey? I may just have to try it as
soon as I get mine :)! Thanks for sharing your discoveries with us!!
Geo
----------
In article <36ABC3E9...@pacbell.net>, Nora -Jean Gatine
<anta...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>No problemo, Amigos. The Future went on, no layer of dust came loose,
>the colors were as I had painted them and now I am looking at the couple
>of discount packages of cheap Scupley I've had laying around for a while
>with a whole new appreciation.
>
Nora -Jean Gatine
Got a scan of the things I've painted with the pastel dust. Now the scan
isn't the best, but I did promise something in a day or so. ;-)
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/2708/clayscan.html
Nora-Jean
PS: for non polymer stuff, paintings and short stories please visit the
"Bonsai Trailer Court"
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/7962 ...apologies for the lenghty
downloads, it is graphic intensive.
Nora -Jean Gatine
Wow, thanks I'll try that. I was musing on this technique and then had a flash.
What if we had chips of clay, little stars let's say. Painted the little baked
stars in the night sky with Future. But the Liquid Sculpey would be better,
wouldn't it?
My brain is bursting with ideas!
Nora-Jean
SHOUT! wrote:
> Hi Nora - Jean,,,,,,Heres something else you may want to try, that I've only
> experimented with a couple of times - I took prisma pencils or the
> squares( can't remember what they're called) and scraped of shavings with a
> razor and applied this to uncured clay and WOW bright colors!! Some of the
> prisma colors really brighten when baked. So I made a color chart of
> scrapings onto white clay for reference. You probably get a better dust
> with the pastels tho. I wonder how this would work, mixing the pastels with
> Liquid Sculpey or Translucent liquid sculpey? I may just have to try it as
> soon as I get mine :)! Thanks for sharing your discoveries with us!!
>
> Geo
>
> ----------
> In article <36ABC3E9...@pacbell.net>, Nora -Jean Gatine
Nora -Jean Gatine
A co worker brought a digital camera to work to help me get pictures that
were truer of color than that green glow scan.
Nora-Jean
Need2Bead
paint pigments (dry) and mix directly into a biege clay (I've used Sculpey
Flex-clay, but I'm sure the Premo biege will work great, too), and you'll get
any color clay you want. This works great when you're out of a particular
color...
Also, mix the dry pigment into TLS (transparent liquid sculpey) and you
have your own "polymer clay paints"!! You can then do a finishing coat of
varnish, or just the untouched TLS. --- Dori (remove the nospamo to email me)
SHOUT!
of TLS and get playin!!
Geo
___________
In article <19990127232219...@ng30.aol.com>,
Nora -Jean Gatine
I've loaded my website with a mess o scans of the Los Dias de Muertos
polymer clay collection I've been making. There are also scans of some eggs
and miniature pottery. Please excuse the weird colors my scanner gives me,
I've been trying to adjust the color in Photoshop. I did get some digital
pics done at work. I'll keep ya'll posted when I get new things up from time
to time.
http://www.geocities.com/area51/shadowlands/2708/links.html
Nora-Jean Gatine
AKA Aunty Alias
Nora -Jean Gatine
Thanks for your cudos. It made my day! There is a bunch of bananas in the
little picture called "half dozen miniatures" where you can see three views.
There you will also see my favorite "Rex the dead wonderdog" in his bed. Still
can't get the color balance to make my bananas yellow. Also all the skulls that
came from the cane that made the bowl, the eggs, etc, the top of the skull is
yellow and red stripes. Can't get the yellow up there either. I am still
tweaking.
Nora-Jean Gatine
AKA Aunty Alias
LynnDel wrote:
> Nora -Jean Gatine <anta...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> >Clayers:
> >
> >I've loaded my website with a mess o scans of the Los Dias de Muertos
> >polymer clay collection I've been making. There are also scans of some eggs
> >and miniature pottery. Please excuse the weird colors my scanner gives me,
>
> Great site and great work, Nora! I couldn't find any bananas, though
> -- wanted to look at what your scanner was doing to them. Did I not
> look hard enough?
>
> LynnDel
>
> ~*~*~*~*~
> To e-mail me, remove the lie
> (beginning with iLove and ending with Housework)
LynnDel
NarigonC
I've really enjoyed seeing your work, Nora-Jean. Thanks for sharing it and your
technique. That's the thing I love most about this group, the willingness to
share new ideas.
Now if I'd just get out there and work on my own stuff!!!
Carol
Shauna & Frank
a flat surface (or tied it around a bead) and baked it.
Wonderful color transfer.
Shauna