Mini tulips and roses clay, and oh... some bread too

  Having one month of free time in Bali really left me with choices none other than window shopping, food hunting, and art to keep me occupied. And out of the questions really, to not hold yourself back on the first two options. Too much window shopping, and it can hurt your bank account... well, in my case at least. Weak at temptation *grin* Food hunting was another challenge. My, those spicy, rich in flavor Balinese food, mouth-watering steaks, and behold... the evil in disguised, CAKES! I didn't want to gain extra weight and it left me with the last option here. Art.

I did spend the majority of my time engaging in either doing oil-painting or sketching. Sometimes during the second week in February, I saw small children making pottery out of the clay. Well, I did want to try it too, but there is something about pottery that screams "sacred" and that makes me feel I either learn it whole-heartedly or not at all. So I thought maybe next time.

Anyway, that basically led me into another type of clay which is less serious, much more fun and most importantly no need of an oven, it's air-dry. I dove headfirst looking for air-dry clay without knowledge whatsoever about any specific brand or characteristic, and I ended up buying the wrong one. Luckily my aunt still had half the clay given by my dad's niece who owns a clay store/studio in Jakarta.

And so... the creation began. I was experimenting; making tiny croissant first, then flowers and baskets filled with twisted candies. Stuffs from bakery are pretty easy to make. I think you can make them in one go even if it's your very first time ever to touch clay, like yours truly. Flowers are a bit tricky tho. I did fail a couple of times to get the result I wanted. I made some tulips and roses. But um.. those tulips do look like roses, don't you think?? hhh 失敗～

Finally, you want to give it some color too. You might want to leave the molded clay a couple of minutes so it can get hard first before you paint it with acrylic. In my case, since I'm not a really patient person by nature, I went straight into getting it painted after I got the shape I wanted. Either way is fine I think.

I searched in art & craft stores everywhere but they don't sell it in Bali, this kind of clay. In Singapore, air-dry clay in a size of a brick costs for about 4 dollar, if I'm not mistaken.

Well, if you like mini stuffs, maybe you can consider playing with clay. It's a lot of fun.