I just thought I’d pop in here too, and mention that there is a video on Distressed Paint Finishes on Polymer Clay. The link by my name will provide more info about that tute, as well as about some paint brands I’ve used successfully with polymer clay.

As for painting, I just want to add a couple of ideas.

Apparently some paints work well with clay, and others don’t. Acrylic paints are generally fine but oil paints can react with the clay and ruin it, so whatever you choose to use I’d recommend baking some sample chips and painting them and leaving them somewhere for at least a couple of months to see if the paint’s clay-compatible. Better to wait a while before you paint your flowers than to spend hours shaping and painting them only for them to get all sticky and soft later on! Anyone else have brands they can recommend that definitely work?

I like Sue’s mica powder idea. Also, Perfect Pearls have a special resin mixed in which bonds with the clay when it’s baked so it doesn’t rub off as easily as Pearl-ex. And you can mix the powders with water and paint it onto baked clay (then rebake to set the resin). Maybe add a thin layer of Future to protect the mica if it’s in a place that can get rubbed easily.

Maybe alcohol inks would be fun too, they are translucent and you can “thin” them down with something like rubbing alcohol (I’ve actually used a small amount of high-proof vodka for this too) and paint them on baked or unbaked clay. Pinata or Ranger inks are good (I like the Tim Holtz Adirondack inks).

You’ll probably find that you have one generally-favoured clay, but that other clays are handy to have around for different techniques.

I like Kato best by far because really firm clay suits how I like to work most of the time, but I also have quite a stack of Premo because it’s much more manageable for things like extruding. I really like a Ronna Sarvas Weltman-style bead where a solid core is completely covered with very fine parallel extruded clay strings, and I always use Premo for that (I’ve broken a couple of extruders by forcing Kato through them). And for an example of a technique that requires a firm clay, I recently did Christine Dumont’s online Butterfly Beads course (awesome fun!); that technique is quite sculptural and it would be close to impossible to achieve satisfactory results with a soft clay.

And as for how *I* do it… well, luckily I’m pretty strong! LOL

I actually find tests of that kind quite interesting to do because they help me understand the properties of the different clays better. (So when I have a hare-brained idea I want to try out, I’m less likely to get myself into trouble! LOL)

It’s great to hear that you’re getting excited about polymer clay again! Did you have any luck washing that glycerin off? (Even if you didn’t, there are some faux gemstone techniques where the super-plaquing would work out quite well; you’d probably just need to sand the surface a lot more than normal to smooth that out.)

I don’t know much about painting polymer clay because I generally like using the clay itself for the decorative aspects, but I have used paint both before and after curing the clay. Off the top of my head (knowing I’m forgetting some things!):

Before curing: I’ve done a deep-crack, large-flake crackle technique which involved painting many layers of metallic acrylic paint onto a thick sheet of unbaked clay which I then manipulated and rolled to give the crackle effect. I’ve used Helen Breil’s techniques with textured clay and Lumiere paints for some really lovely colour transitions and dimensional effects. I’ve used oil paints marbled into uncured translucent clay when making faux stones and gemstones. I’ve made faux turquoise and similar faux gemstones by coating chopped-up clay with acrylic paint, letting it dry, then collecting it all together to shape before curing.

After curing: I’ve used both acrylic paint and oil paint for highlighting/lowlighting textured clay surfaces after they’ve been cured, e.g. brush on and rub mostly off before it’s dried, or brush on, leave to dry, then sand so that only the paint in the etched areas remains.

For your flowers with a different inside colour, you could “paint” the insides of the petals after shaping but before curing with suitably-coloured mica powders (PearlEx, Perfect Pearls, etc.), using a fine, soft paintbrush. You don’t need to stick with a single colour, for instance you could use a deeper colour in the throat of the flower, or blend from one colour to another from petal edge to centre, or whatever you like. Mica powders could be one way to achieve the slightly luminescent appearance that real petals have, and if they’re inside the flowers they should be protected enough not to need a coat of anything on top as a sealant.

Another idea, but not involving painting, would be to make separate sheets of clay for the outside and inside colours, put them together and roll to the desired thickness, cut your petals out from that, and then do final shaping, edge tapering, etc., by hand. Subtle skinner (or teardrop) blends would probably work well, particularly if the clay colours included some mica clay (e.g. Pearl) for the luminescent effect, and maybe some extra translucent clay to minimise any visual flatness. (You should be able to do the same kind of thing even if you use a cane to make a patterned petal interior: take a thin slice of the cane, back it with a thin sheet of whatever clay you want for the outside of the petal, then shape as required.)

I also know that Cindy has published at least one tutorial on making flowers from polymer clay. I have to admit I didn’t pay much attention to that particular one myself because it’s totally not my kind of thing, but have a look at the preview and see if it’s on the right track for what you want: Variegated Sculpted Rose Beads

Have fun! :)

I think we should all chip in and buy Sue a white lab coat

You think I don’t already have one? LOL