RIK PIERCE WORKSHOP day 1 afternoon

After painting our fireplace/oven we set it aside and  attached the interior baseboards to our walls. We measured up 1/2 inch to accomodate the floor so it would fit right under them. We attached them with wood glue and a few dots of super glue the length of the boards. Rik said when you use the combination of the wood glue and dots of super glue it gives an incredible strong bond. Once the baseboards were attached we painted the wood and got ready to use the paperclay.
 Rik made these wonderful boards to roll the clay out on to insure that it would be 1/4 inch thick. It consists of a block of wood a little bit larger than a 12" linoleum floor tile(cheap one) with enough of an  edge to attach 1/4 inch wood around the edge. The "rolling pin" is a length of pvc pipe. You start to roll out your clay like you would a pie crust. Roll one way and flip it over and roll in the other direction. When you have your paper clay ready to go you cover it with plastic to keep it moist. Your other clay that is open should already be in a zip lock plastic bag. It will dry out fast if left uncovered.  Now, you need to prep your wall by smearing an even coat of wood glue all over the surface that you are going to attach the paper clay to. go right over any window or door opening because you will cut that away afterwards. You might not cover the whole wall with your first piece of clay that you roll out and will need to add more. Make sure that you feather the edge of the clay at the new seam. When you add clay to complete the wall,this step will prevent a large crack showing up as it drys.Now you must press a little bit with your hands and make sure that it is really touching every part of the surface. We then used a very inexpensive sculpting tool like a spatula and rubbed that all over the wall and make sure that the clay is really attached. Remove any air pockets that might have formed beneath the surface. The other end of the spatula tool had an angled cutter type of look. We cut by the baseboard to make sure the clay wasn't overlapping there. At this point you can cut away the clay covering up the windows or doors. Put all of that clay in your plastic bag. For texturing you wall at this point you can see a small paint brush by Rik's right arm. It is one of those inexpensive paint brushes that are about .86 cents each. He cuts them down about 1/3 of the way down and told us to pounce the brush on the table to spread some of the bristle's. Once it is ready pounce all over your wall and twist your wrist a little bit so you  have an uneven pattern on the wall. If you want to mark a section to look like exposed brick you can mark it in now. If you do that process you must remember that about 1 1/2 hours later go back to your "brick" and with a stylus clean out the grout lines to make sure they are deep enough. When you do this you can round the corners of your bricks just a tiny bit so they will look realistic. Set your wall aside if it is finished and let it completely air dry over night. Sometimes you walls while drying will have a few tiny cracks appear. You can leave them if you like the looks of them or fill them with a little bit of clay the next day...........more to come. I plan on taking a real good picture of the board to roll the clay out and will get the right dimensions of the wood and the lip. It is so great to have..........when the tile starts to look shabby and not work as well you can just buy a new tile and slip it in. Great to have this jig!! Too much in one post?? If you have any questions ask me! I plan to take a close up photo of the brush for stippeling and the board to roll the clay.