Textured pot

In April, I went to Shropshire for a few days with a group of friends. We'd each agreed to give a half day class, and here is the textured pot that Liz Welch taught us to make.

We made little faces from cloud clay, each face is about an inch tall. I coloured my clay blue, using mica powders, and added more colour with a little acrylic paint when I'd finished them.

These were fun to make, each has his own little character! 

Next, we set about decorating a cardboard pot - this one had contained sanitary products but apparently they are no longer packaged this way, which is a shame as the container was sturdy and a useful size! Liz had kindly paint the pots for us before the class, but this is easy to do, a coat of gesso then acrylic paint in  a strong colour or two, then dry brushed with metallic paint.

We took some scrim and dipped it into a mixture of ink and Paverpol fabric stiffener until it was really well coloured and very sticky! Next, we draped and otherwise artfully arranged the scrim onto our pots, sticking it to itself and the pot, and trying to leave some suitable gaps to put faces into. Once the scrim was dry, we rubbed Treasure Gold gilding wax onto the high points. I rather like the look of it just as it is!

The next step was to stick our little faces onto our pots. I thought my faces stood out too much, the colour didn't blend in well enough for me. I added some more Treasure Gold to see if that would help, but it didn't.

So I left the pot to sit for a week or two.  Finally, I decided to paint the faces with some fluid acrylic paint - a mixture of turquoise and green, as close to the colour tones of the background as I could manage.

Suddenly my faces look as if they belong on the pot! 

I added some Treasure Gold to finish them off.

(a bit too much, it is easy to be heavy handed with this stuff)

Now I really like my little faces pot, and it is in my studio holding pens, pencils and other tools!