making magnets

Last weekend while we were in Portsmouth visiting Three Graces Gallery Roxanne and Stella were drawn to a set of little ceramic face magnets Kim had on display.  They were made by Erin Moran, a local artist, and the girls couldn't stop picking them up and choosing their favorites. 

In the car on the way home we thought maybe we could make our own face magnets, inspired by Erin's. 

I bought two squares of Sculpey III to use for this project.  Sculpey isn't the toughest of the polymer clays, but it is the easiest to manipulate and I figured it would be sturdy enough for a set of small magnets.  

Once I opened the clay it didn't take too much kneading to condition it
and warm it up enough for small hands to manipulate easily.

We rolled small balls of clay and then flattened them.  I gave each girl a wooden skewer to carve the features.  Even Stella, who has just learned to draw recognizable people, was able to succeed at drawing a simple face on the clay. 

We baked them following the package instructions. Once they cooled, I watered down some Crayola washable paints and the girls glazed each face in Erin's style.  I like this kind of painting because there is no way to "mess up."  The whole face is one color keeping the frustration level of little painters in check.

Once the paint dryed we sealed the faces with a coat of Mod Podge and then affixed round magnets from the craft store with some E6000. I think it is important to use a strong glue so that the magnets stay affixed to the faces.  And here they are.  Roxanne wanted to recreate the one she liked the best that Erin had made – the one with glasses.

The girls each have round magnet boards in their rooms where they can play with alphabet magnets and show off their collection of other interesting magnets (our fridge is not magnetic).  These went right on and they were so proud.

We were so excited to see how visiting a gallery and seeing an artist's work in person can inspire us to create our own artwork!