Lapis Lazuli Clay

Clay artist Marie Segal shows us how she creates one of her favorite clay colors with Pinata ink. Create inexpensive jewelry or accents with the look of lapis lazuli.
 

Materials:

• Porcelain White Cernit
• Sapphire Blue Piñata
• Gold leaf
• You will need a piece of felt to spread the ink (thank you Tim Holtz for showing me how to use felt like this all those years ago. Cute and Genius)
   

Instructions:

1. Condition a ¼ block of porcelain white Cernit
2. Flatten out in to a little pancake about 1/8" to ¼" thick.
   
   
    
3. Put a couple of drops on to the clay and drag it around the whole surface with the felt and let it dry.
   
   
   
   
    
4. When dry, mix ink into the clay.
   
   
    
5. Do steps 2 and 3 again, if the color looks really strong you can stop here if not do steps 2 and 3 again. I added ink 3 times in this example. The clay will darken after baking.
   
   
   
   
    
6. Add gold leaf to the top flattened sheet, mix in. It is easy to take the clay to the leaf and pull the clay and the leaf away from the whole sheet than to take the sheet to the clay.
   
   
   
   
   
   
    
7. Roll out in the pasta machine; I used the 5th thickest setting and bake pressed to a smooth ceramic tile (less sanding).
   
   
    
8. Bake in a preheated 275 degree oven for 30 minutes (you have to heat the tile too).
9. Take out of the oven hot and submerge in ice water till cool (clears it up more).
10. Sand and buff or… not!

Tah-dah!