Testing La Doll Premix air-dry clay

If you follow my blog closely you might already know my two favourite air-dry clays La Doll and Premier. But what happens when you mix them together? Apparently, doll artist Hannie Sarris actually had this idea and the mixture was so good that the company developed an official clay based on her concept - La Doll Premix. I’ve decided to test it out. Maybe it’ll be my new favourite?

First impressions

• Smooth texture

The very first thing I’ve noticed how fine the texture is. You might know that air-dry clays usually have visible fibers that can be very annoying when sculpting small details. Even though Premix still has those fibers, they’re very fine and almost invisible.

• Lightweight

When dry, the sculpture becomes incredibly light but still relatively strong. I think it’s a big advantage when sculpting ball-jointed dolls or dolls using an armature.

• Easy to carve and sand

Because of its fine texture, it sands easily to a smooth finish. You still have to fuss a little bit with different sandpapers to polish it very well, but in my experience, it was quite easy.

• Great elasticity and pliability

Another thing that I’ve noticed instantly, how pliable and elastic the clay was. I didn’t experience any crumbling, which helped with sculpting very small details.

Sculpting with Premix

This was my lockdown project and I was a little bit tired of sculpting human faces, so I’ve decided to try something new! For the longest time, I wanted to learn ceramics. Experience with porcelain dolls piqued my curiosity for new materials in the ceramics realm. To ease myself into it, I’ve decided to sculpt a small prototype using Premix air-dry clay and later cast it in ceramic clay.

Sculpting with Premix was incredibly easy. I’ve used the same techniques I use with other air-dry clays: waiting for some layers to dry and not sculpting everything at once. Also, carving some areas when the sculpture was completely dry.

So far it’s the only project I’ve sculpted with Premix, I’ll add my second impressions and updates to this article when I’ll sculpt some dolls with it. I’m very impressed with this clay and can’t wait to try it out with more difficult pieces, like sculpting hands!

And here are my finished ceramic bunnies. Prototype from Premix was a great test and helped me develop these cuties.

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