Faux Stone Walls in Miniature Tutorial

To make faux stone walls in polymer clay, you do not have to have a pasta machine. To make a more dressed stone, it helps. Very nice stone with lots of character can be made with not perfectly thick slices. Granitex stone clays are easy to work with no pasta machine. Granitex has less flex than the other polymer clays and I think it is slightly more brittle. If you want to be certain that it does not flex or bend if building a large wall, you may wish to use a wire mesh. I often use Wire Form by Amaco as an armature for large pieces. The other polymer clays may need some inclusions or a surface treatment to get a realistic looking stone.

1. Run clay through pasta machine on thickest setting or roll out in about 1/4" thickness.

2. If using a pasta machine, place on table and stack two layers.

3. I use telephone wire cut in lengths of stone sections and lay across clay. You can use twine, yarn, rubber bands, bamboo sticks or anything that gives the look you want.

4. Use brayer to roll across wire pressing into the clay. This makes your rows of stone. If you are going for a dressed stone, small knitting needles will stay straight. If undressed, the waviness of the wire gives it a natural look.

5. Using the end of a knitting needle or similar item, make vertical marks between the rows from the wire. On each row, slightly offset the vertical marks so you do not have a straight line across the two rows. If building a real wall of stone or brick, this is important. If the vertical lines are right above each other across the horizontal rows, there will be a weakness in the wall. I have found this to be true even when working with polymer clay.

6. Using a texture of some sort, you can pounce some marks into the clay to give a more natural appearance. Again the type of texture chosen and how evenly spaced, gives the look of either dressed stone or as found. I am using a plastic texture sheet and a brayer to get my texture.

7. Cut some end pieces so you can fit the sections together so they will not have a vertical line going from top to bottom. Join the pieces together like putting a puzzle together. When joining the sections together, use the knitting needle to press a line in the clay to match the other lines.

8. Using Translucent Liquid Sculpey or TLS mixed with tinting powders (I used Peal-ex Pearlescent Powders in this example.), brush the solution gently onto the layer of clay. Using a baby wipe, wipe evenly across the top without smashing the clay. You can remove as much as you like to get the look you want. Here are samples of heavy TLS with none removed and then with a little removed and then with TLS in the grout lines and the textured areas only. This TLS solution also makes your stone harder and more durable. Other tinting materials may be used in the Translucent Liquid Sculpey such as artist’s pigment powders, oil pastels, and Genesis paints. Doc O’Brien’s Weathering Powders allow you to obtain realistic aged results.