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#1
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Some experiments I have been trying.....
I have been messing around with sealing paper between layers of clay and
thought I'd relay some of my experiences in case anyone else is interested. The basic idea is to draw a picture on paper, paint it with acrylic paints, cut it out with a scalpel or exacto knife and bake it in a sandwich between a regular clay back and a thin layer of translucent clay on top. My attempts were with premo. For a small piece between two layers of translucent, it worked pretty well. So far, attempts to use larger pictures result in cracking around the edges of the paper. This seems primarily to be an issue when the edge of the paper is near the edge of the clay. Initial experiments are with a mixture of white and translucent clay rolled on setting 1 of the pasta machine to make the backing. After cutting out, the paper is applied to the backing and run through the pasta machine on the same setting to embed it in the clay. Translucent clay is rolled rather thin (sandwiched between sheets of wax paper. The rollers of my pasta machine don't want to "grab" the slick wax paper, so I had to leave and edge I could drop between the rollers. I would grab this edge and both pull and crank to flatten the translucent clay. I was working with a setting of about 4, but this now seems perhaps too thin. Thinner, and I could not pull it from the wax paper without tearing it up, though in retrospect I should have put it in the refrigerator to stiffen it before trying. Anyway, I applied the translucent over the paper and clay backing. Ruined the first cutout trying to run it through the pasta machine again - distorted the piece and tore the paper. The second time, I just patted it down and smoothed as best I could with my fingers. This was baked on a ceramic tile at the usual 275F for about half an hour. The painted paper shows through the translucent layer fairly well, but there was the cracking problem I mentioned. I am wondering if it would have worked better to cut the paper into a background, apply a layer of translucent, put down the foreground figure and cover with yet another layer of translucent? Eventually, I would like to apply the technique to making small spiral notebook covers. Anyone else had much experience along these lines? ---Ray Jones--- |
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#2
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I have been messing around with sealing paper between layers of clay and
thought I'd relay some of my experiences in case anyone else is interested. The basic idea is to draw a picture on paper, paint it with acrylic paints, cut it out with a scalpel or exacto knife and bake it in a sandwich between a regular clay back and a thin layer of translucent clay on top. My attempts were with premo. For a small piece between two layers of translucent, it worked pretty well. So far, attempts to use larger pictures result in cracking around the edges of the paper. This seems primarily to be an issue when the edge of the paper is near the edge of the clay. Initial experiments are with a mixture of white and translucent clay rolled on setting 1 of the pasta machine to make the backing. After cutting out, the paper is applied to the backing and run through the pasta machine on the same setting to embed it in the clay. Translucent clay is rolled rather thin (sandwiched between sheets of wax paper. The rollers of my pasta machine don't want to "grab" the slick wax paper, so I had to leave and edge I could drop between the rollers. I would grab this edge and both pull and crank to flatten the translucent clay. I was working with a setting of about 4, but this now seems perhaps too thin. Thinner, and I could not pull it from the wax paper without tearing it up, though in retrospect I should have put it in the refrigerator to stiffen it before trying. Anyway, I applied the translucent over the paper and clay backing. Ruined the first cutout trying to run it through the pasta machine again - distorted the piece and tore the paper. The second time, I just patted it down and smoothed as best I could with my fingers. This was baked on a ceramic tile at the usual 275F for about half an hour. The painted paper shows through the translucent layer fairly well, but there was the cracking problem I mentioned. I am wondering if it would have worked better to cut the paper into a background, apply a layer of translucent, put down the foreground figure and cover with yet another layer of translucent? Eventually, I would like to apply the technique to making small spiral notebook covers. Anyone else had much experience along these lines? ---Ray Jones--- Ray, Have you considered using liquid sculpey instead of the layer of translucent clay? You would get something much more flexible, which sound ideal for a spiral notepad cover. Risa A day without paronomasia is like a day without punshine. |
#3
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Well worth trying, thanks. I have not worked with liquid sculpey yet as the
local craft stores do not carry it. Guess I will have to order some. --- Ray Jones --- Have you considered using liquid sculpey instead of the layer of translucent clay? You would get something much more flexible, which sound ideal for a spiral notepad cover. Risa A day without paronomasia is like a day without punshine. |
#4
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HI Ray,
Been there done that already. Although I rubbed brown paint into my cracks and said it was antiqued! LOL Liquid polymer is the way to go here. I just love Premo also, just about the only thing I use now. Here's some tips that I hope will help you out in transferring images to polyclay. 1. Use parchment paper (the baking kind from the grocery instead of wax paper) you will get much thinner rollings if you want to use solid translucent polyclay. 2. Liquid Sculptey or Kato liquid clay is what I use to transfer images when I am using the paperbacking, but you don't have to use the paper backing. I think the reason you may be getting cracking is because of the acrylic paint. I seem to remember reading somewhere it doesn't like to be heated up and cracks. Oil based paints are usually recommended for baking. Something about moisture content and oils etc. (I knew I should have paid more attention in chemistry class! LOL) 3. To use the paper backing-- cut out your image to the size that you want but add 1/8th inch or so then smear the back of the image w/ liquid polymer. Bake just 10 min's will usually do. When cool, do the same thing to the front, bake. When cool cut down to the size you need then adhere to the backing with a thin coat of liquid polymer again and bake. This is the hairy part, you have got to keep your eye on that while it's in it's final baking, liquid clay will discolor if over baked, just like translucent clays. 4. Not to use the paper backing - this is so cool too! (Works best if image is on photographic paper, but can also look nice on regular paper. You'll have to play with them both to see how you want your image to look.) Apply a small amount of liquid clay to the front of your piece then bake as directions. (You can do 2 coats on the top also if you like, baking between each coat.) After cool, soak the whole piece in warm (tepid) water until you see that the paper is completely wet. Then take out & gently rub your fingers across the back of the piece and the paper should start to rub right off. It will roll up like rubber cement does when you try to rub it off something. You can continue to wet the paper and rub the back until you don't see any while film on the back when it's dry. If you still see a slight amount of paper lint on the back, you can use a piece of plain old brown paper (grocery bag) to gently sand the rest of the paper lint off the back. The key to the above directions is that you have to make sure the liquid polymer isn't going to smear the image. If you use inkjet, laser or Xerox copies, chalk colors, pigment ink pads, you will need to spray the image w/a fixative to seal it, otherwise the liquid clay will make the image smear. By the way, some commercially sold paper products i.e. wrapping papers, printed tissue papers will also run if now sealed first. So test your images 1st. Have Fun! Hope this helps! P.S. Liquid clay can also be applied to cloth, providing the cloth is mostly natural fibers. (Rayon/Nylon will melt in the oven!) I make some dandy little bookmarks, that can be wiped clean and are water proof with liquid Kato clay (it is a lot thinner then liquid sculptey). -- Ms E Quin - eliquint designs quin the crafter at columbus dot rr dot com -- Ms E Quin - eliquint designs quin the crafter at columbus dot rr dot com "Ray Jones" wrote in message s.com... I have been messing around with sealing paper between layers of clay and thought I'd relay some of my experiences in case anyone else is interested. The basic idea is to draw a picture on paper, paint it with acrylic paints, cut it out with a scalpel or exacto knife and bake it in a sandwich between a regular clay back and a thin layer of translucent clay on top. My attempts were with premo. For a small piece between two layers of translucent, it worked pretty well. So far, attempts to use larger pictures result in cracking around the edges of the paper. This seems primarily to be an issue when the edge of the paper is near the edge of the clay. Initial experiments are with a mixture of white and translucent clay rolled on setting 1 of the pasta machine to make the backing. After cutting out, the paper is applied to the backing and run through the pasta machine on the same setting to embed it in the clay. Translucent clay is rolled rather thin (sandwiched between sheets of wax paper. The rollers of my pasta machine don't want to "grab" the slick wax paper, so I had to leave and edge I could drop between the rollers. I would grab this edge and both pull and crank to flatten the translucent clay. I was working with a setting of about 4, but this now seems perhaps too thin. Thinner, and I could not pull it from the wax paper without tearing it up, though in retrospect I should have put it in the refrigerator to stiffen it before trying. Anyway, I applied the translucent over the paper and clay backing. Ruined the first cutout trying to run it through the pasta machine again - distorted the piece and tore the paper. The second time, I just patted it down and smoothed as best I could with my fingers. This was baked on a ceramic tile at the usual 275F for about half an hour. The painted paper shows through the translucent layer fairly well, but there was the cracking problem I mentioned. I am wondering if it would have worked better to cut the paper into a background, apply a layer of translucent, put down the foreground figure and cover with yet another layer of translucent? Eventually, I would like to apply the technique to making small spiral notebook covers. Anyone else had much experience along these lines? ---Ray Jones--- |
#5
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Thanks! A great deal of useful information there, and I appreciate your
taking the time to type it all out B-)- ---Ray Jones--- "eliquint" wrote in message ... HI Ray, Been there done that already. Although I rubbed brown paint into my cracks and said it was antiqued! LOL |
#6
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Hi Ray, Rather than comment at length on all the variables you mentioned, I'll suggest that you read a couple of places at my website which talk about those issues and give ideas about what could be happening: http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/mixing_media.htm (look under the sub-categories called "Paper," and "Stamps & Stickers,paper" which has more) http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/transfers.htm (that page has loads of ways to transfer things, so in many ways you can take your pick depending on which materials you want to use... but each one has things that will work and won't work with *that* technique; for example, just re papers, there's a big difference between what you can use inkjet copies and toner-based copies {photocopies} for... what "kind" of paper is important too: actual t-shirt transfer paper or Lazertran, photo-quality paper, clay-coated papers like magazine pages, FAX paper, or some non-photo-quality papers --as well as whether those are matte or glossy, decal papers, etc., etc.) Hope something there helps. (Here are some other pages with info about the other things you mentioned as well: http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/LiquidSculpey.htm http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/translucents-glow.htm http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/paints.htm http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/books.htm ) Diane B. http://www.glassattic.com ...... polymer clay "encyclopedia" (for e-mail.... DO NOT USE this AOL address, or I may never see it! ...use this one: ) ........................................ |
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