Anytime you put into your armature, it’s always going to pay you back in dividends by just making it so much easier. Taking the test scope. I know when I first started, sometimes it was recommended to just use skinny little wire with no padding or anything underneath it. And I think a lot of people had trouble with that method because the clay needs to have something to press against. Otherwise, if you’re just pushing into it, there’s nothing to stop that pushing. And it’s just going to keep going. So if it has something underneath it to press against, then it’s much easier to get the shapes that you want without having to push so hard in. And it just makes the doll a lot more customizable. So it’s not because it’s a small that it shouldn’t have an armature because it has a, another purpose. It does exactly control more.
To get started here, we’re going to just make a simple flour. And when you roll the clay out, it’s really important to always lift it first, before you start doing anything, because it’s so sticky that it’s going to want to stick to this plastic piece. And if you start cutting things out and you haven’t lifted the clay, they’re going to be stuck. So you want to always pull the clay away from the plastic. I’m just going to use a little, a little box top here to cut a circle, and I’m going to make a little flower shape out of this circle, going to actually do two. I’m going to take the top of, of a glue stick, which just happens to be about the right size for a smaller circle. It’s going to go inside. So there we have these two little pieces.
You don’t have to worry about air bubbles. You don’t have to worry about slipping score. All those things that you will know about. And another thing is we can fix anything. And so that’s one thing I really want to impress on you. And I’ll be talking about it throughout the class, because if you don’t like something, we can fix it. If something cracks, we can fix it. It’s not like regular clay when you’re scoping. And if it dries out, you’re done, you can’t eat. You don’t, you can’t use it anymore with regular clay. When you’re sculpting, after you get your piece done yet the hollow it all out and make sure that there’s air holes for the air to escape in your fire. Right? Because we’re not firing. We don’t have to worry about that. Plus even if you were firing it. So it’s nylon fibers are burning out, it’s leaving air holes for the air to escape in the piece and you don’t have to worry about hollowing it out or air air holes or whatever. It just fires up just fine. So, those are some of the things I love about this play, and we’ll talk about it more as I go on, because there’s so much more, that I can tell you.
One thing you should keep in mind when cutting your clay is that, your polymer clay cover should be just a little bit smaller than the actual, notebook. And that is for multiple reasons. The most important is that, on this side, on the left side of, to the spine, the notebook needs to stay uncovered so it can open properly, which is why I suggested to, spend some quality time with your notebook, play with it and, see how it works. See how it looks when it’s open and determine how much space it needs, next to the spine in order to be able to open properly. So you can actually write this side of it because I get as a point of a notebook to actually have something. I mean, to be able to, write or drawing side of it, preferably without damaging the cover. Right? Other than that, I’m also going to need some extra space on all the sides of the notebook. And that is because I like to add the upgraded a border. So basically my notebook, we have two border. One that will be placed inside of this polymer clay background that we are cutting right now and the other one will be placed outside of it. So this is why I need, enough space on all sides. Moreover, because we need to leave that, uncovered space, on the left side of the notebook, I guess it’s more aesthetically pleasing to have the same amount of free space on all sides. Learn more about the course here: https://www.curiousmondo.com/dragonfly-notebook-cover-course
I used two firing schedules. I used a slump schedule. And a slump schedule is hot enough to take a bottle from this to this. So that is, it’s hard enough to bend the glass based on gravity and heat. It’s going to get a little, a little squishy and gravity is going to pull it flat, But not hot enough to go all the way flat. So let me show you, this is a fuse schedule and this is the other one I use frequently. Okay. So that same bottle, that’s the difference between a slump and a fuse. And interestingly enough, that is only 150 degrees difference. So a lot of stuff is happening in that 150 degrees.
So you start with your elbows and this is the trickiest part because you’re first going all kinds of directions. You make sure to pin the elbow first because these parts lining up is the most important. They are not actually elbows. They look like elbows and that’s why I’m saying it. And you want to make sure both first your edges are right next to each other, and then I’m just working that fur down. So it’s not going to be in my seam. And just make sure when you’re pinning you pin on the same side. And now you can start working your way down the legs in the belly. I usually pin the belly next, just because it’s usually a little bit cleaner. You just make sure you’re first going down on this body part. I usually pan a little bit more than I need to just to make sure that they’re all gonna stay where they’re supposed to go when you’re sewing. So the reason I trimmed that one little piece is because I have a seam right here and that for that was showing is not going to be inside the scene. So I just wanted to trim it. So it’s out of my way.
