Teresa Wentzler Art

I gave my floral project about a week to dry completely. Then I applied the 2 thin coats of gesso, and after that, 2 coats of sealer.

Unfortunately, I missed smoothing out the surface of the clay in a lot of places, so there were a lot more rough surfaces than what I saw whilst working on the piece. In the future, I will need to view the sculpting using more side lighting to make sure I don’t miss smoothing those places.

After applying the sealer, I then applied diluted black acrylic paint to the entire surface, as per instructions in Ms. Manas’s book (see post). Within 24 hours, I attempted to dissolve most of the dried paint with a paper towel moistened with isopropyl alcohol (as per directions). It was *supposed* to leave a small amount of black in the indentations/texture marks of the clay.

Things did not go well:

I believe the problem was my black paint. It was too old and didn’t dilute properly. And then when I tried to remove it by dissolving it gently with the alcohol, it peeled instead. When I rubbed hard enough to remove the paint, the alcohol began to dissolve the sealer, too! Not pretty.

Unfortunately, the piece is unsalvage-able. But, I did learn that the clay adheres quite well to the wood panel substrate. (I pried off a bit of the big flower at the outer edge with difficulty.)

I’m not giving up. I did enjoy working with the material and learning some of its strengths and limitations. I think that the detail I want to add will be better accented with a different technique than what is so beautifully explained in the book. It’s going to have to be something that I can control a lot more tightly… probably acrylic inks rather than paints.

One thing that will *have* to change though, is the problem of dealing with all of the fibers in the clay… it’s soooo frustrating to me that I can’t get the level of detail I’m trying to achieve. Next, I’m trying stone clays: fewer/finer fibers, AND I will be using sharp (sgrafitto) tools for carving. We’ll see how it goes.

Much, much more to learn! Thanks for following along!