Sunday, September 20, 2009

How to color clay gradually?

When working with clay, it's nice to bring some color into it. Since I especially love objects that are unglazed, I sometimes color clay to get some gradations into it.
It's very easy to do this but while I was doing it, I mad a few snapshots to show you the process.
Here is what you need:
Clingfoil, mask, gloves, pigment, paper, (porcelain) clay and a scaleFirst weigh a certain amount of pigment to mix underneath the clay.
I advise you to write it down somewhere so in case you don't have enough,
you can still make the same mixture.
Then add the pigment to the clay.
Mix it underneath it and when it gets too dry, add a bit of water.
I made a little schedule to mix the clay so I wouldn't make any mistakes.
The end weight for all colors is 70 grams so you just add more or less colored clay to white clay.
I made 280 grams of colored clay and then weighed all the mixed colored parts and put them in clingfoil.
Then weigh 60g of white clay.
Mix both parts really well by kneading it.
And now you can start your gradation project!
When I was done mixing it looked like the darkest color wasn't really black
so I mixed another tone with lots of block pigment.
(oops forgot to write down how much I added)
And this is the result when fired.
You can do this with polymer clay too of course only then you don't need to add pigment but you can start mixing right away!
It's fun to get some gradations of color in your work! :)