Choosing Clay

As I mentioned before, the first clay I bought was Sculpey III.  I bought because it was the only clay that was in the store and I had zero knowledge about polymer clay. It didn't take me long to figure out that Sculpey III gets softer the longer you work with it and it's next to impossible to avoid making smudges and leaving fingernail marks and finger prints on whatever you are trying to create. Sculpey III is also VERY sticky. So much so, that you have to clean your hands between colors. So, when I went to buy more clay I knew Sculpey III was not going to be what I bought.

I was armed with a little more knowledge when I made my second purchase of clay and that knowledge led me to Kato brand clay. While lots of people recommend Premo brand (I have some Premo and it is nice to work with) the fact that two important primary colors, zinc yellow and cobalt blue are only available online, made me shy away from it.

Kato was created by Donna Kato a fantastic polymer clay artist and I really like working with it. It takes a little more effort to condition than Sculpey III as it's much firmer straight out of the package, but it is so nice and smooth with no sticky feel no matter how long you work it. The limited color range makes it necessary to mix your own colors past the primary and secondary colors. This can be a pro or a con depending on how you look at it.  I like the idea that I can buy one or two bars of each color without investing a lot of money and  I can create any other color I want.

I bought a tutorial offered by Carolyn Good called Carolyn's Clay Color System created using Kato clay that has helped me to mix colors. If  mixing colors is a challenge for you, I highly recommend you check it out. I have also purchased several other of Carolyn's tutorials and they were very good too.