Grimvisions

I have started working with commercial mache products almost exclusively. Its saves a lot of time and gives a lot of consistency to my work. The two I have started using a lot are Celluclay and Creative Paperclay. They are both very different products.

Celluclay is a fibrous mache that is a very traditional pulp mache. It is bought in a dry form and comes in 1lb and 5 lb bags locally, 5lbs of dry mache is a large amount. It is mixed with water, I usually use warm water and mix it in a bowl and then take the blob of mixed pulp and roll it on a board under a sheet of wax paper like dough, I roll it, then lift the wax paper then fold the mache and continue.

As noted below

From http://home.eol.ca/~props/papier.html

“While not written in the packaged instructions, the manufacturer suggests that once you have mixed the dry Celluclay fiber with water, it is best to roll it out between two layers of wax paper with a rolling pin. This “mushes” the fibers together and will result in a very strong material.”

I have started doing this recently and I have noticed it makes the Celluclay a bit more sticky and more clay like.

Paperclay is a very fine mache type product similar in texture to Sculpey its main ingredient is volcanic ash. It is very smooth when applied and so fine in texture it will show your fingerprints if you are not careful, it dries rather fast relative to pulp mache like Celluclay. I have used it as a laminate on top of a Celluclay base. This is an interesting technique because Celluclay is much more inexpensive than Paperclay and is much stronger than Paperclay. This allows me to create a strong substrate and then add a smooth topcoat which I can detail as I wish without wasting lots of Paperclay.

Additional findings

I dont much like Celluclay as a top coat, as it dries and the water escapes the pulp it ends up looking like wet oatmeal. I have taken to using either Paperclay as mentioned above. Or brushing the Celluclay with Sculpt or Coat and then laying in a layer of tissue paper and then brushing in more Sculpt or Coat on top of the tissue. This gives the surface an appearance of skin.

Tooling of mache pulp. I use things such as a sharpened chopstick, a bamboo skewer, a finish nail driven into a paint brush handle, a very wet cheap watercolor brush. The biggest problem is when the fibers accumulate in the tool tips and then start attracting other fibers, if you keep the tool tip moist this isn’t too bad of an issue.

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