I thought apples would be easy to make. Ha! I tried at least four different techniques and am still not completely satisfied. I’m going to say they are done for now, but I’ll continue to experiment when I have more time.

The image above shows my first attempt. I used white clay and dry chalk. I don’t like the rotten looking centers and I see fingerprints all over them.

I used translucent clay and wet chalk on my second attempt. I liked the way they looked before baking, but once “cooked” the translucent clay made the results look like orange tomatoes.

The third try was awful. I used a mix of white and translucent clay and painted them with acrylic paint. The paint was gummy and a mess before I baked them and it almost disappeared after they came out of the oven. Yuck!

I finally decided to use clay and no other coloring techniques. I carefully made balls of mostly red and some green and yellow and coaxed the colors to “streak” like the colors in real apples.

I think these look pretty good. I wish the color streaks were more prominent but they will work for my purposes–until I decide to try again.
Fun note: I used pine needles outside our apartment in CA for the stems.