Saturday, September 19, 2009

Plaster Experimentation



We have been playing around with various permutations of natural ingredients like pure powdered clay which we got from near here and processed, blow in cellulose,horse poop,shredded paper a la Ed Raduazo,mica from Philadelphia,wheat paste, sand with nice little mica bits from across the river at a sand pit, prickly pear cactus juice, chopped straw and probably a couple other things. I am trying to get a handle on the properties of these ingredients and come up with an idiot proof mix. Not quite there yet but getting close. My latest plaything is clay paint, I am using just the colored clay we have and wheat paste along with a bit of mica. I paint it on then while it is just leather tough I give it a wipe with an almost dry sponge to smooth it. Otherwise it dries kind of rough and airy. Thanks to Carole Crews who has been a sounding board for some of my ideas. No need to re-invent gunpowder as they say. Georgie Donais was down to help a couple weeks ago, she had some good ideas also, along with a nice touch with a trowel. With some luck she'll be back. Next plaster will have shredded paper, horse crap , clay and sand. Perhaps more blow in cellulose which is awful nice to work with.

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