Baking Beads in the Keys: Paint Pouring on Poly Clay or How to Make a Mess in 5 minutes

The best way for me to learn to paint pour is to dive in. Yes, I may take a tutorial or class sometime but I couldn't wait. Let me tell you. The way I did it was fun as hell but it was verrrry messy. I rolled out a sheet of raw white clay, textured it with Victoria James' crumpled foil mold, and then did a blue wash over it. I let that dry. Then the real fun began.

I chose several colors of golden's fluid acrylics: white, a green, a dark blue, and a medium blue, a red, and a yellow.

I began by horizontally pouring a strip of each paint across the raw textured clay sheet in a slight curve having each color touch the one before it. I just did them in the same color order till I filled the sheet.

I had bought a small aluminum scraper so I could lightly scrape across the paint. I used techniques I had seen on you tube from paint artists and imitated their technique in applying the scraper but I did not prepare my paints the same way they do. I did not use silicone which would have created cells and since I used fluid acrylics, I did not feel I had to thin out the paint as they do.

After the first light scrapes across the clay, I spritzed the surface with water to force more movement and used my fingers to create some swirls. I also picked up the piece and tilted it a bit to help the paint flow in certain areas. Unfortunately, the only pour picture I have is an early version.

As the paint settled, I would alter it again by spot spraying and running the scraper lightly across the piece.

As it was drying I would spot spray, lightly touch it with the end of a paper towel which absorbs excess paint, and add color as I saw fit. When it was dry (slightly sticky but no color came off on a light touch from my finger), I cut beads, baked, and then sanded them which brought up some of the lighter blue underneath.

They are shown below. I also made cuffs from the strips of painted clay leftover after I cut out the beads. The results of that are in the post after this one.

So why does my title talk about mess? Well, because I just dove in, I did not put anything under the raw sheet of clay when I did the initial blue paint wash so paint was all over my claying table. It made for a cool painting effect on the back of my sheet (see last picture which shows back of beads) but was a pain to clean up after. I did put the sheet on a piece of aluminum foil while the wash was drying. Also, I did not put gloves on so my hands were covered in paint from manipulating the sheet and adding in my own swirls.