The Making Hour .14

Wonky clay makes

Last month I bought some air-drying clay to make some little tags for presents, inspired by Laura at Juniper Press. Even with the smallest packet, there was quite a bit left so this week the wee boss and I had a playmaking some things. At first, I was just going to use the clay and Fin would use play dough but he soon realised that we weren’t using the same stuff and decided to help me.

Trying to pull on a foggy memory of art class when I was about 14 I tried to make a coil bowl. It was going fine but I don’t think the wee boss was happy with my construction technique. So after a squishing, I decided just to use the bottom of a glass to shape the clay around. We then moved on to some more experimental textural pieces playing with rolling things out, smoothing surfaces then using sticks and tubes to make marks. We also used plastic we combed off the local beach a few weeks ago.

Carrying on with this idea of texture and pattern I used a simple pattern. Trying out my new Liquitex gouache acrylic paint, which was brilliant. Like gouache, lovely and matte but thicker like acrylic. I also painted the inside of some parts with acrylic paint, hoping to hide all the wobbly bits.

Finally, I popped a layer of mod podge to varnish it. This was glossy if I had a choice I’d of picked matte to keep that lovely texture but I wanted to use up things I already had.

It was great fun and can’t wait to try using the textured pieces on paper and fabric with paint and see if it transfers the pattern over. But that’s for another day! If you have a go trying this out remember to share your makes with us at @Paper_Houses, we’d love to see your makes.

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