Wednesday, March 11, 2009

March Playday


Tuesday is playday... and this week we kind of went into it with no plan. What we came out of it with was a day of playing with stuff few of us had ever seen before, let along played with. This week one of our group had purchased a package of paperclay. This stuff has been around forever. I had seen is like a zillion years ago on C.D. show (back when HGTV was fun to watch). Back then I purchased some and had all good intentions of trying it out. Right now could not tell you where that package is, but after yesterday I will go looking for it... and probably have to go buy some more.

We split the package amongst us and set off working to create some beads with the stuff. It dries pretty quickly, so putting it into a plastic bag while your working with smaller portions of the stuff is a must. It works fairly easily, but like clay can have little cracks appear. Unlike clay though it seemed like water did not have great affect on smoothing these away. A little yes, great no... but, no matter, the beads we made up in the clay before lunch were very promising, and a quick time of 20 minutes in a 350 oven made fast work of the drying. After lunch we tried painting them with a variety of paints. Seemed like acryllics worked the best. Lastly, we used a gloss medium on each of them. They will definitely make their way onto something, and how wonderful that you can make something so easily to be added to almost anything, for after baking the clay was just like any other ceramic piece. You'll find pictures here of all our little treasures.

There was also a lively discussion about archetype and what is meant by this word. It always makes me think about Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, but I think there's a great definition on wicki:


Play days are really important...
and definitely, too much f
un!


Hope you get to yours soon.


stitchin' away ~Rose

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Wonderful info & photos Rose. You make me realize, again, how important a play group is. If anyone in Ojai/Ventura area wants to start a art quilt play day, I do and have space for a small group. I am ready with stuff and ideas but need the motivation of an assigned meeting and laughter and flow that comes with meeting with others. Kim (I can't tell if a link will go to my name from your comment box, so my email is interviewsbykim@gmail.com

Rose Hughes said...

Kim, I do hope that you find a group so you can form your own play day. Mine started out as, let's try it for a month... that was 10 months ago. It's fun... just let anyone know it's good for them. ~Rose