All about Texturing and Shading to make Realistic Pastries

 

            Have you ever seen a perfectly baked pastry? It probably had that golden-brown color, and looked flaky and delicious.

            In this article I will teach you all about texturing and shading polymer clay to make it look just like the real thing! The materials you will need are: Polymer clay in light brown, beige, or tan, chalk pastels in brown, gold, and yellow, a small paint brush, sandpaper, and a tooth brush, which should be used strictly for crafting purposes, and not to put in your mouth.

            Once you’ve made the clay into whatever pastry you want, place it on the sandpaper, and start gently tapping it with the tooth brush. You should start to see a crumbly texture on the top of the clay. By doing this step on sandpaper you can have texture on the bottom too. When you are happy with the way the texture looks, you can move on to the next step, which is shading.

            With your pastry still on the sandpaper, take your lightest color of chalk pastel and paint brush, and start lightly brushing the chalk all over the pastry. Next, take your slightly darker color of chalk pastel, and brush it around the outer part of your pastry, so that the outside is more browned than the inside. Lastly, take the darkest chalk pastel and apply it to the very edges of the pastry to complete the baked look.

            Texturing and shading your pieces adds an extra layer of quality, and makes them look much better than if you just leave them plain. Plus, it is fun to do! 

How to Make Fake Frosting that is Easy to Work With

 

            Have you ever tried to make fake frosting to go on top of a clay pastry you’ve made, but found it to be too thick or too thin?

            This article will give you easy to follow step-by-step instructions for a perfect fake frosting. The first thing you will need to do is gather your supplies.  I use a clean bottle cap to mix the frosting in, a wooden popsicle stick to mix with, some Translucent Liquid Sculpey (TLS for short), and some polymer clay in the color of your choice.

            Once you have all your supplies, take a one to one ratio of clay to TLS, and put them in your bottle cap and start mixing. It will take a while for the clay and TLS to mix and become smooth, so be patient with it. Depending on how thick you want your frosting, you may want to vary the ratio. If you like thick frosting add more clay, if you like thinner frosting add more TLS.

            When the mixture becomes smooth with no clumps of clay in it, you can use a needle tool or whatever you like to frost your pastry with the frosting you’ve made. You can also scoop the frosting into a plastic Ziploc bag and cut off the corner to pipe out the frosting in different designs.

Why to use Baby Wipes to keep your Pieces Dust-free

 

Are you sick and tired of finding little bits of lint and dust in your light colored clay? Or accidentally mixing clay colors because your tools weren’t clean? I know from personal experience that the sight of a little imperfection like this on an otherwise perfect clay piece is extremely irritating.  There is a relatively easy way to prevent this from happening. You should use baby wipes to clean your work space and tools because it reduces dust in your pieces, keeps you tools clean, and keeps your colors from smearing.

One of the main ways dust gets into your clay is when you set it down on your work space which, let’s face it, is probably a little dusty. By simply wiping off you table with a baby wipe you eliminate one of the main reasons your clay gets dust in it. This is something really easy to do, but it makes a huge difference in the quality of your pieces.

Another thing you can use baby wipes for is to clean your tools. Some tools that I have found get particularly dirty with bits of clay are needle tools and blades. These can be wiped off with baby wipes so that the little bits of clay that stick to them don’t get transferred to other pieces of clay, again, making your pieces less perfect.

Another benefit of cleaning your blade after every time you use it is that it keeps your colors from smearing. When your colors smear it is a sign that you blades are not clean enough to do their job properly. An example of this is when you cut a layered cake, and your two colors get smeared. This can be fixed by wiping your blade with a baby wipe. Always be careful when you use a blade so you don’t cut yourself!

So, if you are having trouble keeping you clay clean, just remember that an easy way to help with this is to use baby wipes to clean your work space and tools to keep your pieces dust and smear free.

Which Brand of Clay to Buy

            Have you ever found yourself in the clay aisle of your local craft store staring at the different brands of clay, and wondering how in the world you are supposed to know which kind to get? Some folks say you don’t know until you try, but I’m here to tell you which kind of clay is the best so that you don’t have to waste your hard-earned money on silly things like bad-quality clay. Sculpey brand clay is better than Craft Smart clay because it has superior quality, is easier to work with, and comes in a larger, more appealing selection of colors.

            From the moment you cut a chunk of Sculpey off the block, you will be able to see the superior quality. It will be soft and moist consistency, and after you have baked it, it will be more durable than the Craft Smart clay. Begginers and old pros agree that quality is a huge selling point when buying clay. This quality is a big plus especially for artists who plan to sell their work. You don’t want to sell someone anything you know is going to break easily.

            One of the best things about Sculpey is that it is probably the easiest clay to work with. It doesn’t have to be conditioned nearly as much as the Craft Smart clay, saving you time and effort. It also doesn’t crumble like some colors of Craft Smart will. If your clay crumbles, you can either throw it away, or buy some expensive clay-softener to try to fix it. The best thing to do is avoid all of this by getting Sculpey, which has never caused me any of these problems in the past two years I have been using it.

             The last thing I want to point out about these two brands is that Sculpey comes in a huge variety of appealing colors. Craft Smart on the other hand only comes in a few colors, and these are not very pretty. You can try then, to mix Craft Smart colors together to get a more appealing color, but it will be next to impossible since it is so crumbly. The quickest thing to do is to buy the already made, pretty-colored Sculpey and be on your way to your crafting space.

            Hopefully this article has made it quite clear to you what the best brand of clay is, and you will remember these words of wisdom the next time you are going to the craft store. Let me refresh your memory. You should buy Sculpey instead of Craft Smart because it is better quality, easier to work with, and comes in a variety of pretty colors.

 

About Me

Hi! My name is Ella Tiny, and for the past three years I have been fascinated with the art medium of polymer clay. I am writing this blog with the hopes of sharing some of the tricks and techniques I have learned with all of you. I have been doing polymer clay for two years now, and watching other similar artists for on YouTube for three years. I have been constantly growing as an artist through all of this, always challenging myself to think outside the box and create original works of art, and I hope I can help you come into your own artist as well.