This week the art gods passed me many gifts and opportunities for improvement. 🙌🏻
Working with Celluclay
Environmental impact: I liked mixing in the bag I stored it in and to squish things up. We always wash and reuse our tortilla bags, etc., until they spring leaks and then they go in the ♻️ film bin, so the bags for this project are continuing a new life in crafts. You could were gloves but please reuse them!
I got my hands totally in it, which informed my preference for making it smaller batches. But if you have to go all in, I used a rag to wipe each finger and make clean up faster with less water and did that as I went along so my fingers were wet and that was easier to smooth the clay out, too. I did this in a bin as there’s also the consideration of getting this stuff in your pipes or putting toxic paints and microplastics in the water. I think I should scoop out the clay and let it dry on a piece of cardboard so it doesn’t cure onto the bottom. Then allow any paint from brushes to dry when the water evaporates. I am excited to see what I reuse these materials in!
I wish I had masked up! But I was aware not to open the bag, mix or measure out Celluclay around my non-human kin (2 cats in our case)! No one wants this in their lungs or throat.
Trust me, I tried so hard not to get dust everywhere but the multiple sizes of particles are near impossible to control. I remembered this from when I made my pinch pot.
Size the batch by desired project outcome: Large batch mixing is totally fine because you can put it in the fridge in a sealed bag for up to a week. Just use lots of bread bags, etc. to have an airtight seal.
If you are looking for more congruent consistency, that will take better detail and even be a richer color from the start, a small batch holds the advantage.
The smaller batch broke down into finer clay the more I kneaded and I could tell that the water being a tad bit warmer also increased manageability. Where as the larger batch didn’t allow me to really get into the middle of the clay and I had more clumps. This can be great for certain projects, for sure!
I ended up liking my thicker batch a lot better in the end.
Adding color: for my new small test batch I’m mixing the paint into the water first so that when I add it to the clay, the pigments will hopefully be evenly distributed. The first time I squirted a bunch of paint in a line inside the bag but then I really had to use my hands to get it all around. I use fingers for sculpting, sure, but my hands don’t need to be that dirty.
Let’s see how it turns out!
Proportions: I reduced by half, weighed out the product and measured the water exactly (recipe isn’t on the bag but located easily enough on the web). Adding water doesn’t really increase the volume that much, so size up the amount of fluff that you measured out and without smashing it down, know that the whole area it occupies is going to become a dense material, it doesn’t really get smaller. It made a lot! And even with me kneading it directly, I think I still left a lot of clumps because it was just too much product. I can’t imagine using the whole 16 oz.
The second batch, pictured first with the paint water, was way easier to mix. I did 1/5 of the manufacturer’s recipe with about two TBS more water amd it still made enough for a say, a pencil holder. But it was a bit too loose and not quite gluing as well for my needs so I stuck to the bigger batch.
Lastly one more note about my durability test, if you paint directly onto an object surrounding the celluclay that you adhered to it, it might chip off, although it’s unlikely for the celluclay to chip off.
Watch my testing video!
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