Air Dry Clay Alternative

From Air Dry Clay to Pal Tiya Premium

If you currently use and love Air Dry Clay ... then heads up, you'll probably love Pal Tiya Premium too!

First though…Who are we?
We're the crew from Pal Tiya International, and sculpting is what we care about. Between us, we've sculpted for decades and used every sculpting material on the planet (no joke). We created Pal Tiya Premium, a versatile weatherproof medium for outdoor sculpture that is non-firing, and gorgeous to use.
Thousands of creative people across the globe have fallen in love with the possibilities of our medium.

Join our creative community

...absolute dream to work with. I think I always had in the back of my mind its lot of money to faff it all up .....but the finished product speaks for itself for sure IT'S BLOOMING AMAZING" Nicola

Similarities between Pal Tiya Premium & Air Dry Clays

There are many many similarities between the two so let's dive in and take a look at those now:

When going larger with air dry clay you can use internal armatures such as wire and tinfoil. Pal Tiya Premium (PTP) is just the same.
Air dry clay and PTP can both use similar methods to sculpt and construct pieces. (Score and Slip for Air dry clay/ Scratch Coat for PTP)
Like air dry clay, you can achieve a very smooth finish with PTP.
Neither of them need a kiln to cure and harden them. (Though PTP is rock solid after curing!)
You can seal or paint them both (although with Pal Tiya Premium, you don't have to to make your sculptures weatherproof.
Once mixed, you can roll PTP out if you like just as you do with air dry clay. This is how we make little jackets and hats for some of our sculpures.
Air dry clay takes 2-4 days to dry, PTP takes roughly the same amount if time (5-6 days with day 1 under plastic and day 2-6 wrapped in wet cloths and plastic).
You can mist Pal Tiya Premium with water to extend the sculpt time (just not too much as like air dry clay this will weaken the final result).

Putting Pal Tiya Premium onto foil

Get extremely creative, multiple textures can be achieved (stone, fur, wood, scales, rock etc)

Sculpting with Pal Tiya Premium

Make impressions with open weave fabrics such as lace & burlap etc

Goblin in Garden

Be cut like fabric using scissors, enabling you to make clothes for your sculptures.

Benefits of using Pal Tiya Premium over Air Dry Clays

Incredible Durability: Unlike air dry clay, which can be fragile, Pal Tiya Premium is incredibly tough and weatherproof, making it ideal for both indoor and outdoor sculptures. In fact after day 6 of curing you'd need a grinder or a rotary tool!
When mixed and cured correctly, Pal Tiya Premium will stay outside all year round without breaking or cracking.
Versatility in Finishes: With Pal Tiya Premium, you can achieve various finishes, from sculpted and flat to mosaic, painted, or stained, giving your artwork a professional and lasting appeal.
Pal Tiya Premium has microscopic shringkage so as you'll see in the pic below, you can sculpt around glass.
Large-Scale Works: An artist is only limited by the size of the foil core and this can be several feet tall. Added armatures, such as steel, galvanized wire and cardboard can enable you to go even larger! It takes exactly the same level of skill and tools to make a small figure as a large one with Pal Tiya Premium.

Microscopic shrinkage

medium Bas Relief piece

10ft Standing Sculpture

Armatures/Internal structure

Making armatures for your permanent scuptures using Pal Tiya Premium couldn't be easier. Just like when you use this method with Air dry clay, Pal Tiya Premium is mixed from a powder (with water) into a fabric "cookie dough" clay-like product, which goes on as a thin skin over a crushed tinfoil armature. You can, however, use anything to bulk out your form such as cardboard, old food containers etc and cover them with crushed foil using a hot glue gun.
Because you can grow to any size with our mediium, learn all you need to know when planning an armature for Pal Tiya Premium sculptures here.

Mixing

Mixing Pal Tya Premium is very satisfying! See how to mix by hand and/or machine here. When mixed, just like Air dry clay, you can roll Pal Tiya Premium and push it into your prepared crushed tinfoil.

Sculpting & Tools

You'll sculpt Pal Tiya Premium with similar tools. We mainly use forks, spoons, a square and trowel, a rounded metal tool (small dental tools are great) and gloved hands. You need to wear gloves with Pal Tiya Premium as it contains portland cement so just as with air dry clay, not food safe.

When using air dry clay, the score and slip method of attaching two pieces together is just the same as when you want to join two pieces together with Pal Tiya Premium. All you have to do is make sure you have scored (forked) areas where you plan to attach. The great part is that this means when you want to make a sculpture over several days, weeks or months, as long as you have this forked surface (scratch coat) present then you can add to a piece over time. See here for more on this.

As someone with little experience with ceramics and no access to a kiln an air dry medium like Pal Tiya (Premium) is perfect for making larger outdoor sculptures, it's very easy to use and requires very few other tools to get started." -Alex

Work on pieces over time - as long as a scratch coat (shown on larger pyramid) is present, you can continue to add to a sculpture over many months.

"Here in this video I use a fantastic product Pal Tiya Premium. It is easy to use and no kiln required, it's effectively 'air dry'." - Red Rocking Bird

Curing/strengthening

It couldn't be any easier to cure Pal Tiya Premium!
On the day of sculpting (when you're finished) simply wrap your sculpture under plastic. Next day, come back and wrap in wet cloths or towels. After 6 days, it will be fully cured and super strong. You can leave a sculpture for a full 28 day cure and we do this for public commissions.

Coloring/painting

Pal Tiya Premium dries to a light stone grey color. This provides an excellent blank canvas so you get to full creative expression! Go Wild!
You can color with:

Exterior grade acrylic paints
Acrylic concrete stains
Oxides (mixed into the powder pre-mix)
India inks
Spray paints

Colored with exterior grade acrylic paint

Hibiscus Birdbath colored with oxides

$Picture$

Spray painted

"Pal Tiya (Premium) is a dream to work with. Easy to sculpt and the best part is no firing in a kiln!" - Jeanne Grip

"Pal Tiya Premium is, without a doubt, the new revolution of outdoor sculptures. The versatility of this super sculpting medium is endless.
If you are interested in creating massive, ultra-strong, fully weather proof works of art, this is product for you!" - Brandon Love, CO

How does Pal Tiya Premium work?
You mix the powder with water to create a cookie-dough-clay-like mixture and apply it to your tinfoil armatures.

Do I need to bake or fire it?
Nope, Pal Tiya Premium cures under plastic with moisture!

Where can I learn more?
Get started here