What is Artista?

Artista clay is a non-toxic, artificial, self-drying clay, only intended for decorative expressions such as these roses. This clay is not very suitable to model dolls. After it has dried, the clay remains a little flexible. It becomes paper-dry, but as hard as stone.

When dried, Artista is almost unbreakable, but you can tear a dry rose petal of Artista. It has a very light weight and can be used directly from the package.
There is enough moisture in Artista to stick the rose petals to each other. This means that it is not necessary to use water. There will be no mess and your hands will always be clean when modelling.

The piece of work will dry within a few days.
If you want it to dry faster, place it a few hours in the kitchen oven at fifty degrees.
After drying the roses, you can also paint it with a protecting spray.
I did not do this with the roses in this book.
It is not really necessary.

If you want to give a porcelain effect to the roses, you can paint them a few times with a gloss paint, for example of Darwi, If you use a brush it will look beautiful. However, the rose will look a bit “harder” because of this gloss.
It is also possible to treat the rose with Paverpol; you can use these roses very well with the pieces of work in the well-known book “Prepared Books” by Nolly van Uden.

Can you use dried Artista clay again?

It is possible. Place the remnants or the rose itself in a humid environment and leave it there until everything has become soft. The material may have become a bit sticky for the fingers when you use it again.

How should you store Artista?

Air is responsible for the drying of Artista clay. If you want to store it, so that you can continue the next day or the next month, place it in a plastic bag, seal it and keep it in a Tupperware box. Do not keep it near a central heating.

How is Artista coloured?

This can be done in three ways:
1. Knead the paint in the clay beforehand.
2. After drying the clay, paint the clay with water colours.
3. Knead coloured clay through this mixture.
In order to give Artista an intensive colour we mix it with Hearty.
Hearty is a pigment carrier and gives the Artista clay a strong solid colour.
Hearty is available in four colours: yellow, red, blue and black. Mixing a little coloured Hearty through the white Artista suffices.
The advantage of this coloured clay is that you can, for example, model hard blue or dark red roses in a simple way.

Book: Decorating with roses

The examples in this book (in English - also available in German, French, Danish and Dutch) will show you all the things that can be decorated with roses. You won’t find it difficult to come up with more ideas, like the foot of a standard lamp, clothes for dolls, semi-reliefs etc.