Claying around

After having to do so much from Mondays to Fridays, Saturdays always seem to be a good day to slow down and chill out and basically do silly things. On this particular one, somehow we ended up at Bras Brasah complex after strolling around a flea market that was taking place outside SMU's Arts Faculty.

We wandered into the insanely huge Popular bookshop and ended up in the crafts section on the upper level. Before I could even utter a single word of protest, Penny and Velouria ended up with a pack of white clay, some poster colours and brushes and insisted that we went home to make something out of it.

It was off to work immediately when we stepped into the house. We cleared a table that would serve as our workstation and set our materials on it. Taking out a morsel of clay from the packet (these were air dried so we had to be extra careful), I proceeded to make the simplest thing that came to my mind first - a worm.

With furrowed brows, I began to scuplt my masterpiece despite Penny's incessant reminders to strengthen the sculpture with toothpicks. I ignored her, my argument being that I wasn't making a complicated sculpture and there was no need for internal skeletons of any kind. She proceeded to do hers with a toothpick within regardless. And ended up with a sausage. With grill marks, no less.

The worm looked kinda freaky when I was done. It looked more like some creature out of Dune than Sesame Street. What I intended to be the mouth added to the seemingly malevolent guise of the poor catepillar.

I went on to apply the colours anyway, choosing a green for the body and filling in the lines with brown later. It was a lot tougher than I thought! It was an intricate matter trying to paint something so tiny. My hands were so tired after having to make such precise, controlled movements.

Not bad for a first try! My next sculpture - a tortoise. Stay tuned.