How to Color Clear Clay with Pinata Ink

Instead of buying many colors of polymer clay, you can tint or color translucent clay with many different colors of Pinata Ink. This tutorial from Marie Segal shows you how.  Pinata inks also work on paper, cotton, tile and many other materials.

The Cernit colors, Opaque white, Pearl white, Porcelain White, Biscuit, Nightglow, Granite, Champagne, and Translucent can be tinted or colored with the Piñata inks. So in reality you could buy just a couple of colors of Cernit and have your self a virtual field day if you already have the Piñata inks and some of you might. The inks can be used on paper, leather, glass, tile, silk, cotton, organza, lace, and some plastics. This is a very versatile product and definitely one I carry in my tool box.

The blue in this flower cane is Baja Blue Piñata ink tinted Pearl Cernit. The background is the plain porcelain white. The color you see in it is a color core and then the cane slices are added to it. I like the frosted appearance.

Baja Blue and Senorita Margarita make a great purple. One drop of each color should do it.

It doesn’t take much of the ink at all. They are somewhat translucent themselves and quite intense in color. If you are out of the USA you can not get them from us www.clayfactory.net, you have to find them locally, go to www.Jacquardproducts.com they have a product finder there under each product or you can call or write them.

You want to condition your clay. With Cernit it is important to thoroughly condition the clay. I condition and flatten a piece about 1/8 of a small block with my fingers and then I put a drop of Piñata on the clay and let it dry on the clay.

With Sunbright Yellow and Tangerine will probably need a couple of drops. Now when I say one or two, I mean one or two, the Piñata ink is very strong.

With the Opaque white you will get more pastely colors and with the porcelain white they are almost like frosted glass that is colored. With the translucent they will be more intense in color or the strength of the color. They may also look very light before baking and will darken up some after baking.

Put on a pair gloves and condition the ink color in to the clay.

With the reds and the pinks they will migrate in to other colors of clay when the clay is unbaked.

So make the colors and if you are using the reds and the pinks, make your canes small and bake your work right away.

I like that I can use this to make a ton of different pearl colors too and the nightglow is a blast with the Piñata because it still glows even when using a dark ink like the sapphire blue. YAY!!!

The ink is also fun to use by applying it directly to a bead that you have already formed to color the bead. I used this method in my Inkling beads.