AIR-DRY CLAY BASICS

Now I'll be sharing my experience in using Air-dry clay. Most of you haven't heard about it yet and today I'll be discussing what it is like and the challenges I've met in this kind of clay.

Most of the people already seen my post about these cute miniatures. They're colored and glossy yet they all started in a blank, white, smooth clay. By the name itself air-dry, the clay hardens through prolonged exposure in the air. The smooth clay dries so it becomes a hard clay. This is different from the polymer clay which hardens by heating in the oven. That's one point for this air-dry! No need for ovens. 😊

If you're familiar with the hardened plaster solution, it's almost the same with this clay. You can use it to make writings like a chalk does.

But since it's a chalky thingy, there's a challenging part here which makes it less neat compared to the polymer clay. What I'm trying to say is, no matter how good you are in carving and shaping the smooth clay, there will only be a limited creations allowed. It's not advisable to make a super-thin shapes out of it, for this would be easy to break if you're not careful.

My finished product 

It's as flexible as the modelling clay when it's still smooth, but the moment it dries up, there's no such thing as perfectly smooth texture 😂 If you're aiming for a neat, super perfect shapes, well sorry, maybe this is not the clay for you.

Another challenge I've met is when you stick the smooth clay together, they are easily combined, but as the clay dries, they separate. So you need to have a strong glue.

I recommend using Max Bond Glue, All in one glue. The price is so affordable! At first it looks like an ordinary school glue but after it dries, you'll notice it's a powerful glue. It can bond the clays together. This is also my secret for achieving a glossy look for my miniatures.

So here's the process: I mold the shape out of the air-dry clay, then let it dry. This will take almost a day. When it dried up I use my watercolor to give the colored look and last, I use the Max Bond Glue to coat the entire clay.

After the finished product and still there's a leftover smooth clays left unused, don't worry it won't become a hard, useless clay. You just need to fold the hard-foil packaging and that's it! You can still enjoy that smooth clay for some other days.

Thank you for reading this far! 

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