I’ve been using clay as my medium of choice for a couple of months now, and it’s allowed me to form some opinions on different types of clay out there. Here is my breakdown of air-dry clay VS oven baked.
Air Dry
My go-to air dry clay is the brand Das, and I use both their terracotta and white clay for my projects. This clay is super easy to handle. Just apply water to your hands frequently to keep the clay moist. I haven’t had any problems with cracking or breaking clay once, and the drying process has always been excellent. The only disadvantage to air dry clay is that it takes 42 hours to dry completely, sometimes even more. The mess that air dry clay creates on your hands can be very drying, which is super annoying. But none the less if you have a lot of time on your hands, I recommend using air dry.
Oven Bake
I have many mixed feelings about oven-baked clay, but the main brand I used is Sculpey. Sculpey isn’t paper-based like Das is, so you cant use water to soften your clay. I would have to use baby oil to make it workable in my hands. So if you don’t have baby oil laying around your house, you’re going to have a tough time sculpting with this. Once you’re done moulding your creation, you have to bake it in the oven by following the packaging directions. The baking process has always been stressful for me because you can quickly burn your clay if your oven is too hot. I would have to use an additional thermometer to ensure that my oven didn’t get too hot. And the smell the clay would make while baking is horrendous. It’s non-toxic, but inhaling large amounts of it couldn’t be good for your lungs.
Based on my comparison, you can tell that I prefer using air-dry clay. Even though it takes much longer to finish a project with it still gets the job done.