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All the clays were handled in as close to the same manner as I possibly could, except that the manufacturer's recommended curing temperature was followed. The clay was not conditioned any more than what was required to get it to stick together into a sheet.

Small chip - #6 thickness on my pasta machine, stamped with permanent pigment ink. Larger chip - clay rolled between two sheets of waxed deli wrap - #8 setting. Stamped with permanent pigment ink, cured, permanent pigment colors applied to part of the chip and the color cured briefly. Reverse of each chip glazed twice with Flecto high gloss finish and dried, scanned with a sheet of foil behind them in the same spot on the scanner bed. In the pictures shown here, you are looking through the sheets of clay to the stamped designs underneath.
Clarity: There is very little difference in clarity between the translucent clays, except for Fimo #00 Translucent and Cernit 010 White Translucent.

Premo #5310 w/bleach (CFC06) had the most clarity at the thinnest setting, followed by Premo #5310, SculpeyIII Translucent and Fimo Soft #014. The SculpeyIII and Premo translucents showed considerable yellowing, especially at the thicker settings.

Note - Updated Feb 25, 2006: I bought some Kato Polyclay a few weeks ago and realized that it is a completely different formula than the one with which I experimented in 2002. The clay did not crumble or require conditioning to get it to stick together. The results were much clearer than in the first test and the clay also did not amber in curing.
Premo #5310




Fimo Soft #014




Kato Polyclay




Sculpey III




Premo 5310 w/ Bleach




Cernit #010 White




Fimo #00




Liquid Clays
TLS/Kato



A little about what inks can do...
Many inks are sold as liquid re-inker bottles - Pinata, Vivid and Color Box inks can all be used to tint liquid clay - my favorite line is Pinata - they are transparent and very intense - it takes very little ink to strongly tint TLS. The Pinata inks are alcohol-based, the Vivid inks appear to be water-based and the Color Box seem to be mineral-based.
Coloring TLS

Drop inks onto liquid clay in small containers. For Pinata and Vivid inks, allow the inks to sit and evaporate for half an hour or so.
Coloring TLS

Mix the ink into the liquid clay. The colors will appear lighter and more opaque than they will appear after curing.
A cured TLS tile

Colors may change in curing, so test ink mixtures before working on a large project.
Coloring translucent or pearl clay

Smear streaks of ink onto a sheet of uncured translucent or pearl clay. Allow to dry, dab off excess with paper towel, if desired.
Almost like making a Skinner blend.

Fold and roll through the pasta machine many times, fold first, as if you were making a Skinner blend.
Canes for layered techniques

Ink-tinted translucent clay is perfect for making translucent canes for layering.
Nothing new to stampers, but this is one of my favorite tricks - using embossing as a masking tool.
Masking with clear embossing ink

Use clear or pigment ink and clear embossing powder for stamping the main images and background designs. Melt the embossing powder.
The embossed areas resist some inks

Embossing will resist some dye-type inks, such as these Vivid colors. The background will show through in the embossed areas, white in this case.
Ink on dark paper or clay backgrounds

Use pigment inks or Metal-eXtra on dark backgrounds, so they'll show up. You can use the leafing pens to edge paper and to color the surface of cured clay as on the medallions.



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