Polymer Clay Day & Book Covers!! Ya Hoo!

The February Book Arts Club is going to be working on polymer clay book covers using molds, stamps, transfers, etc. Wanting to add to the choices of molds I used some things of interest I had on hand (the items in the first picture AND a cat plaque) and started baking.

In preparation to make test pieces of the molds, I discovered my small blocks of poly clay were too old and too hard for me to soften. I really, really, wanted to mold the cat into a book cover so I opened some paper clay (Knead-O) that I’ve had in my drawer for a little while, crossing my fingers it was still good. It was perfect! I rolled out the paper clay to 5 3/4″ x 8 3/4″ and added the paper clay molded cat (the cat relief is about 1/8″ high). The paper clay was very easy to work with and promises that I’ll be able to refine, sand, cut and paint it after it dries over night. Way, way, too cool.

Since I was already elbow deep in clay I decided to use a picture of a kimono I had drawn to embed in poly clay and use as a book cover. The picture was reduced in size to 3″ x 4″, printed on my laser printer in black and white and baked into translucent clay. It came out OK and would have come out better had the image been sharper. I’ll post it again when the book is finished.