Faux Enamel Tutorial

[teapotdnky]

Hi there! As part of my "Don't Be Afraid of Liquid Clay" campaign, I'm posting a few tutorials to help the clayers of the world (even the fearful ones) to try something new! Here is an easy basic design to start with.

This technique is fun and practically limitless. 

Supplies:
black clay (other colors are fine, it'll give it a different look)
liquid clay (TLS)
cheap oil paints (There might be a difference if you use expensive ones, but I'll never know)
needle tools or toothpicks
a raised stamp


Using a raised stamp and this tutorial make some clay tiles and bake them.



Tint small amounts of your TLS with the oil paints. You don't need very much because a little goes a long way.



Carefully fill in your pattern.....



Bake and enjoy!

[kaleesi]

Oooooo - I love it!
I've always liked the looks of enamels but can't get one of those stupid ovens!!
Thanks for the tut!!!!

[EmilyFlew]

those are so pretty!!

[Diane B.]

Very nice!!  Love that stamp too, and the tiles make up into a very nice bracelet.

I just wanted to mention that some oil paints may not be opaque enough to cover black clay well so clayers who have that problem can either add Titanium White oil paint to any oil color they use for tinting (it's always opaque), or use a white or light colored clay.  I don't know if this has to do with how expensive the oils are though, but your using TLS instead of a clearer liquid clay might have created more opacity too (and baking any liquid clay at a lower temp than 300 or so can do the same).
(Using metallic powder or metallic leaf on the clay before adding the liquid clay can work well too and looks awesome.)


If anyone is interested in more lessons and examples of doing this kind of faux "enameling" with liquid clay, and other ways to make the "cells" to hold the liquid clay, there are loads of ideas for variations on this page as well:
http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/LiquidSculpey.htm
...click on Cloisonne, "Enameling" (stamped,carved,molds,etc.)
NOTE that at my site, to avoid confusion, I refer to this technique as Cloisonne or as just plain Enameling since there's another technique which had already been developed by Gwen Gibson in the days before we had liquid polymer clay that she named "Faux Enamel" which is quite different from this --that technique is on my Transfers page.


Diane B.

[Lique]

Wow, those are great. I need to break out my clay supplies and give this a try. I know my dd would love to try the enameling. Thanks for the tute. 

[batgirl]

Those are really pretty! Add another item to the list of things I had no idea you could do with clay! 

[teapotdnky]

Thank ya! I'm trying to bring the doubters around. 

[batgirl]

I think you are just some sort of magician! 

[chellebeadz]

Awesome tutorial! Thanks!!!

[beadizzygrl]

Wow this tutorial is great Teapot!
Thanks so much for sharing.   
I adore working with liquid clay, and I find using scrape-ings of chalk to tint clay will have a more transluscent look if needed.  If you texture and "gold dust" your background then apply (drip) the chalk tinted liquid clay OVER texture, the background shimmers thru the liquid clay, AWSOME EFFECT!!!    yeah, it gives me cold chills, so what?